Muirghiel• Show poetry

Funny, how tragedy shapes us.  Even melancholy has a sort of beauty. People don't lke to think of that; they always want to be happy.  They ignore the parts of life that are more difficult to deal with.  Even though it means missing out on something beautiful.

 

- M. Elaine Sunderland

 

The gift of a Gold Membership was made by Moqui Takoda.

 

"Muirghiel" by Night Hope, Acrostic.

 

I tend to go a little formal on a first encounter. Please do not let this throw you. I was raised properly, and drilled in the subjects of language and writing, but I'm yet young enough (at the tender age of nineteen) to be charmingly pleasant if I choose. Let it not be said that I present to you a facade. I am, first and foremost, an intellectual. It is what I take pride in. I seek those like myself, then. That's only to be expected, no?

Let us push beyond the curtain of first impressions. I like to learn, and to know. I'm eagerly awaiting my return to college where I'm likely to take classes that broaden my horizons. I've studied Fencing, Greek and Roman Literature, Shakespeare, and other topics of the liberal variety. It feeds my need to enrich my own existence. Off-campus I have taken belly-dancing lessons and yoga, and I now take singing lessons.

And now we come to those things I am passionate about, singing being one of them. I like to sing while I'm doing the dishes, or picking dirty clothes up off the floor, or while I'm cooking dinner. It helps me get through the domestic tasks I dislike. I sing in the shower as well. I tend towards Irish folk songs but I also sing in Spanish and Italian. Writing has been something I'm good at; in the beginning, I hated it, as I hated most things I had to do for school. It wasn't until middle school that people began noticing my talent. The rest as they say is history.

 

Sarah ban Breathnach tells us that the Celts used the term "House of Belonging" to describe the body, as the house of the soul. It also refers to the "deep peace and feeling of safety, joy, and contentment found in intimate soul-friend relationships." I suppose that what I am looking for is those soul friends Sarah speaks of so highly.

 

My past has taught me that the ends rarely justify the means, because it is as often the means you employ that define who you are as it is the ends you seek. I seek others who are going my way. People I can talk to and spend a peaceable evening with mired in meaningful conversation. What I don't want is someone who will rely on me to give them answers, comfort them when they are immersed in self-loathing. Caring for myself is a heavy burden. I refuse to shoulder anyone else's cares. There is no sadder story than that of the martyr.

 

For the past eight years, I have battled clinical depression. Recently, it nearly won. It was my mother finally intervened. I was withdrawn from school, my mother took control of my care, and I entered a phase of my life that has completely transmuted me as a person. My battle has taught me much about life. Whether we die or live is our choice. I was not living. I might as well have been dead. But I have chosen to live again, because life does not wait for you to learn its mysteries. It will pass on without you.

 

Pearl S. Buck, an author I greatly respect, defined sorrow in a way that reasonated throughout my entire being.

 

"Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness."

 

Life is ever changing. If you percieve the events in your life as misfortune, that is all they will ever be. Living is about coping with the world around us. Life is not cruel, throwing hardship after hardship in your path. Nor will it be benevolent, bestowing gifts upon you. Life just is-neither hard nor kind-it simply exists, and we make of it what we choose to.

 

I am a woman with a past, learning to cherish myself. Just another young woman stumbling down the road of life, trying to find her way. A poet and a story teller, a wise woman and an apprentice of life. Learning to love, learning to laugh, learning to live. No more. No less.

 

How have I become so wise, so serene and zen? Simple. I tell myself that I am. I let go of the past, easily and effortlessly, because I tell myself so. I am free of worry, guilt, and anxiety, because I say so. When I need to, I'll spend some quiet time alone, and just relax, saying my personalized mantras over and over again in my head. It drives away the negativity and leaves only purity. I used to say I have a long way to go. Now I don't. Because I'm already there. I just don't know it yet.