Bittersweet
Oct. 3rd, 2013 09:51 amTonight we should see the new moon of Cheshvan rising. I sometimes joke that Mar-Cheshvan should not be translated as "bitter Cheshvan", but rather "respected Sir Cheshvan". It heralds the month when I don't have any more major festivals to organize after a month of rushing around like a headless chicken. But also, the end of the celebrations around new year and harvest-time, the transition into a season of hard work as the year turns towards the darker, colder months.
The new students arrived this week, and the medical school is again exciting, bustling, everybody is eager. The definitive end of my glorious summer, the knowledge that work is going to be intense and full-on from here to Christmas. I'm not properly well either, my immune system is struggling with the change in weather and the influx of new disease vectors and an immune-suppressive stage of my hormonal cycle.
The shops are starting to market Halloween. Of course, before it was a festival of dressing up sexy and silliness and sugar-consuming, it was, and still is in many cultures, a day to remember the dead. In the Jewish calendar we've just passed Hoshanna Raba, which has some similar echoes.
I feel intensely loved just now. I'm coming to a time of life where to love someone means to take part in their sorrow. It's a season of change, definitely some good changes, but various things have converged to remind me that change is always mingled with loss.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kaberett has written something stunning about poetry and trust and connection. And ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky and siderea have written poetry about death (or maybe about transformation?) You can read poets, never mind me trying to reinvent what everybody has been saying about the change of seasons and about mortality for millennia.
Does anyone have the tech to make the last two panels of the thousandth A Softer World strip into an animated icon?
It's getting dark. Let's huddle together, or at least let's pass on sparks of hope and beauty we find.
The new students arrived this week, and the medical school is again exciting, bustling, everybody is eager. The definitive end of my glorious summer, the knowledge that work is going to be intense and full-on from here to Christmas. I'm not properly well either, my immune system is struggling with the change in weather and the influx of new disease vectors and an immune-suppressive stage of my hormonal cycle.
The shops are starting to market Halloween. Of course, before it was a festival of dressing up sexy and silliness and sugar-consuming, it was, and still is in many cultures, a day to remember the dead. In the Jewish calendar we've just passed Hoshanna Raba, which has some similar echoes.
For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.
I feel intensely loved just now. I'm coming to a time of life where to love someone means to take part in their sorrow. It's a season of change, definitely some good changes, but various things have converged to remind me that change is always mingled with loss.
kaberett has written something stunning about poetry and trust and connection. And papersky and siderea have written poetry about death (or maybe about transformation?) You can read poets, never mind me trying to reinvent what everybody has been saying about the change of seasons and about mortality for millennia. Does anyone have the tech to make the last two panels of the thousandth A Softer World strip into an animated icon?
I don't want a world without pain, or loss. / I just want them to mean something.I've been looking for ages for an icon I can use to express comfort and care when someone is coping with difficult or painful things, something other than images of cute animals hugging, because it's not always appropriate for me to offer hugs.
It's getting dark. Let's huddle together, or at least let's pass on sparks of hope and beauty we find.
