We heal by knowing why we are where we are, and maybe discovering how that can change. For all our pursuit of light, we still fall into darkness. It is a part of the cycle. The right hand is strong. The left hand is sensitive.

In general, we live with people who are eager to see evil, but if you see how your brother suffers clearly it changes everything. Suffering in normal circumstances exhausts itself. Refusal to let another suffer often wraps them in suffering. For me the dark path is mine, but there is compassion even in darkness. In suffering, in deeply suffering, you come to learn the limits of suffering. In learning the limits of suffering you also learn the true bounds of joy. Feeling for another is the start of a path. It’s not an easy path, but it is valid. I know that way.

Grieving is an instinct. We cannot deny it and acknowledge any deeper truth. If a baby cries we lift it into our arms and hold it. This does comfort. It’s a lie to think it isn’t the same for adults. We often don’t let ourselves break down, and thus never learn from it. When you know continuous suffering, then suffering changes its meaning. When you know constant fear, then what is fear?

You only grow from what you are.  To deny your own pain or that of another is to deny self, and to fail to give the other place to be them.

I have known much suffering and betrayal. It doesn’t move me as others seem to think it should. It is all too common, but even in the midst of that there is an underscoring of what can give joy, of hope. The forces that make us let go are not our enemies.

Most of both sides of my family are dead. They both had tendencies to psychological abuse as nervous health issues, drug abuse. So death is all too familiar. Decay is part of growth, spiritually and physically. In having seen so much darkness, I have seen what also cannot be corrupted. When it all falls away something is left over. Like smelting gold all the dross can be destroyed. When all falls away you get a clean slate, and you start to rebuild. Pain, if you overcome it, causes growth. I sometimes can help with that. For some reason it seems a natural inclination though little appreciated, even by me.

I am often taken for unemotional. I have been such a chaos of emotions for so long that I am acclimated to it. I relate to my emotions differently. I know what the universe allows in me. I feel the tide in my shoal of the great sea of life, but mine is sort of stagnant. Nice case of red tide, but the rhythms of the mother sea are still there.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~