My rudder is shifting this boat, and onward we ho, onward we go, towards America! Traveling traveling troubadour I am, I have traveled so far and so near to the edges of emotion. Enough with the cold sea! Enough with the serious light! I go with haste and without chaste! Who really cares enough to stop me or push me further! I’ve realized that no one can stop me but me! It’s rather a scary thought!
Today a friend I am working with wrote me with a quote from her photographer friend, whomsoever I am not familiar with. She said it reminded her of me. Oh, the connections of thought which speed, god-speed, light-speed, around the permeable ball of this globe and all of our minds which bloom above it. She said to me,
“FLY FACE FORWARD INTO YOUR LIFE WITH THE INTENSITY OF THE GODS! TAKE WHAT YOU WANT! MAKE WHAT YOU WANT!”
(Like this? Heheeee) 
Can I do it? Can all of these mad dreams and crazy yearnings manifest? Do I have the energy, the courage to be the whole self and nothing but the self? It’s silly really – if I don’t have the courage to be myself wholly, than who else’s self might I be? I guess you could be your half-self, but then all kinds of familial relations arise in the soul, which can drive a human crazy. Half-selves. Tut. Besides, only you yourself can know whether you can do something. All it takes, to complete the alchemical potion of GOING FOR IT, is courage.
“Courage is a way of taking pleasure in the surprises that chance breeds” writes Theodore Zeldin in the book I have been reading for the past month here in London, called An Intimate History of Humanity. Fascinating stuff, I think I read that sentence about 6 times over. The man, who has studied and researched for countless hours the fabric and DNA of humanity, also writes that “Love is revealed to be like freedom, only a starting point: then many more choices have to be made.” He refers to Cyril Collard below, genius writer, director and lead actor in a film called Les Nuit Fauves:
“To be fully alive, for him, means to participate in the ‘planetary battle’, to be ‘a part of history’ through the intermediary of the love of another person, but in the hope that others would join in the battle, and that together they would find something worth fighting for; it is not simply being Me, nor is it simply You and Me. This declaration of purpose, that what matters most is a noble purpose, is still vague; it will need many films to spell it out. Cyril Collard died of Aids, aged thirty-five, two weeks before his award could be presented to him.”
Last but not least, before I fling myself on into the night (and morning), while I know I am dedicated to my own happiness, I realize that this past year has been a pretty tough one, and I have had my fair share of melancholia: Experience with illness; the transportation of my body and life from one continent to many others; the brewing of fights with witchy women too different and too similar for our own good; my sole focus on the inner realms of mind (it can definitely be deep down there) and my blind crazyness for putting my findings out into the ether (which for some reason I do very comfortably, to be honest) for all to read and reflect on (don’t know why?*), as well as the odd cessating of the preoccupation with image, which had so haunted me during my years as a model.
* That’s a lie, actually. You all are my reason why. If you had any idea the amount of joy I get from your responses to my work… you wouldn’t think it possible, but, it is.
It’s been a tough couple of years for myself and the people closest to me. Not that I want to stop where I stopped, or dwell on where I dwell – all I want to say is Hurray! for success, Hurrah! for goals achieved, Weeeee! for the relief of freedom, Yaaaah! for the unbottling of everything, and the stoppering of all the waters that have been shed. Into some kind of glass decanter they go, to be stored up on a high shelf in my Paper Castle, in the circular storage room, in the turret along the North Wing… I am going shopping now. Too much water under the bridge/ moat. I suppose it’s what we had to do to guard this Castle though, right? A castle needs a moat! And my tears and your tears have filled it! Hurrah! An accomplishment in and of itself.
Let me add quickly that when I say “I am going shopping” – I mean shopping in the catalogue of the universe/ multiverse. A mentor once told me something along the lines of, “If you live in the throes of possibility, that is, you create possibility for yourself and your life, you may choose whatever you like from the catalogue of the Universe.” Take your pick! If you can dream it, do it. Go for it. Because as I have also once read. “Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them” Or in my own words, the very fact that you can imagine it, creates it. Just think of this teeny globe sitting out there in the vast expanse of space, and everything man has made, done, said or bought, is still somewhere upon it… You can have your pick of all of it, because it’s right here for the taking.
Very interestingly, (I am a quote machine today:) “It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere” said Agnes Repplier.
Unless you watch this. Gives me goosebumps every time, particularly the flower for some reason.
PS. Carl Sagan agrees!!! “The cosmos is also within us [...] The cosmos can know itself” If you don’t know what I’m talking about see what I wrote about: My Theory of the Universe: The Hourglass, the Cell, The Human Body and Cosmic Magnets. More Carl Sagan here and there, thanks to Henry Ward = Crazy musical cosmo-raps…What would we do without them.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe…”
7 Comments
I like this quote:
“If you live in the throes of possibility, that is, you create possibility for yourself and your life, you may choose whatever you like from the catalogue of the Universe.”
And I like the video. It’s beautiful. Was slightly miserable before but this post makes me happier again and more hopeful of the future.
Thank you Sophie. Hope this blog will still be as active next year.
Sophie, your post reminds me of Leibniz’s philosophies, specifically monads. Each monad is a mirror of the universe, and each person is a monad. So, in a sense, we are all a reflection of the universe; we’re all little mirrors reflecting the perfectness of it.
Also, I love that you included Carl Sagan. He’s one of those people I’d love to have had the chance to sit down with and just geek out over the immenseness of space. Thinking about it just makes me feel small and dizzy.
Wow, I can hear you loud and clear, even from the quietest dwellings of this Castle, which is where I’ve been of late.
As much as I want to do everything I’ve ever dreamt of, I can’t help but wonder whether my mind is perhaps more powerful than the physical universe. That’s a scary thought.
This has been a stellar year. The gift of your findings, and all that sit at this table, has been truly incredible.
You have quite honestly left an illuminated path through the ether, technological or otherwise.
I’ve enjoyed following the sparks and sprays from your powerful light source. From your mind to mine and back again, it has been an exchange of great possibility.
Each particle of knowledge, wisdom or just sheer inspiration comes at me like the spindrift off a ferocious but pellucid ocean. It’s a marvellous experience.
I have learnt so much. Thank you Sophie, I appreciate it.
Scott, you’re such a special reader. Thank YOU for your thoughts and encouragements. I couldn’t BE like this without you guys. Your emails and comments are always eagerly anticipated.
“Sheer inspiration comes at me like the spindrift off a ferocious but pellucid ocean. It’s a marvellous experience.”
WOW!
Glad to be of service my lovely. xo
Hey Christine,
Yes, I think he must be one of the people I’d like to meet in heaven, as well as the #1 person I’d invite to my dinner parties!
It’s amazing that you write “We are all a reflection of the universe; we’re all little mirrors reflecting the perfectness of it.” In my book I have said:
“And then I realise that I am nothing but a vessel in a vessel with mirrors that catch every nuance of every shred of attention I have ever received from those that I love. I am the sum of the people I know around me. How spectacular, that if one ever had the resources, or the lifespan to know in depth every body that rests on this earth, then they would become the Earth’s people.”
I’ll have to look into this Leibniz fellow.
Hey Rachel,
Yes, it will be as active, if I have anything to do with it!
Glad I can lighten the load for others too. All we have is now – and yet I strive to capture NOW and put it in writing! Keep the now forever!
R.I.P Carl Sagan. You inspire me to become a scientist.