Large Fierce Mammal

“We say that flowers return every spring, but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the flower grows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested.

“The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid.

“And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.” ~ Daniel Abraham, The Price of Spring

Welcome back, weary Traveller, to this eighth season of Dark Sentiments.

This season finds me basking in a time of bounty, on every level. My Life is in a period of ascension driven by convergence of positive outcomes, each brought about by an amalgam of my personally chosen courses, and those made by others of flesh or Spirit, whose existence impinges upon mine, whether I know of them directly or simply through the effects of their actions. For me and mine then, as I said, this is a time of ascendant convergence, Life is good and my actions in the current year have met with a delightful fruition that inspires me in my Darkness.

Yes, my Darkness.

As a Husband, a Father, a Teacher, a Student, a Friend, a Comrade, a Man — as one who strives to be a complete specimen of that animal called Human — I understand that in all things, cycles prevail.

To be a complete Human is to embrace the spectrum of Life from end to end, and not shying away from any of it. Through every life, lived fully or not, taken note of or not, cycles repeat within and without our mortal vessels. Tiny samples of starting and ending match the macroscopic in their ebbs and flows. Rises and falls. Wins and losses. Loves and hates. Embarkations and abandonments. Just as a spell of ascendant convergence may arise from a wondrously perfect storm, an equally perfect one in opposition may cast all that was uplifted into destruction and despair.

Peril lies in averting the senses so these patterns, in their perfect similarity, remain unnoticed over time. In this, the quality of Living is willfully diminished, for we are meant to embrace them, both to be a part of these cycles and to make them a part of us. So we will not accept bobbing on the currents, the swells and troughs, like a cork upon the ocean, but so we can navigate. Ride out the stills and storms with confidence in our choices, even to our inevitable meeting with Death.

Lest pandemonium and unjustified revelries commence, no, I have not received word that Mrs. LFM is in the throes of impending widowhood, nor will these waning months of 2017 see me relaunching a rumour that I am already dead like I did those other times. At least not this year.

So now, in the joyous knowledge that I have sufficiently delighted my Friends and disappointed my Enemies, I invite Friend and Foe alike to enjoy the ride.