Opposites Attract

Epiphanies don't excite me so much any more. I just won't let them. They're like a temptation to ecstasy that only turns to it's opposite eventually and I suffer the pangs of hell. It's what I discover through my writing that bakes the cake. It's what provides the heat when I'm cooking.

I just sent off an e-mail post in which I quote Goethe's poem:

The Holy Longing

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent
because the massman will mock it right way.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the live-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten.
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with the darkness
and a desire for higher lovemaking
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you fare gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced
this, to die and so to grow.
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.

Goethe

I copied and pasted this poem from the internet a long time ago to a folder I keep for poems I like and wrote in the past. There is a typo in the poem I keep. It's supposed to say "love-nights" instead of "live-nights". l sent off the copy without changing it this morning. Too late after I'd hit the Send button. I went straight to my poetry folder and edited the original so it won't happen again.

Goethe's poem amazes me. It's translated from German I assume, and when I first read it I understood everything from the first four lines. The translator must have been very sensitive and gifted themselves.

I think I must have wasted a lot of time trying to do the impossible. It's about the eternal argument between liberals and conservatives. Recently, I've begun to realize that I've never truly understood the opposition. By that I mean that I've never felt competent to write about the conservative point of view because I've just fought against it without reasoning it out.

I still don't write about them even though I think I'm beginning to understand why they take the attitude they do. I still think they're selfish idiots without an ounce of morality or ethics, but I guess it took the fear of God for me to gain enough wisdom to forgive them for what they can't help reacting to as real. '-)

Opposites argue. This is especially noticable on e-mail discussion groups, where literally opposite astrology signs get into these long, drawn out arguments about whose perspective is correct. I'm witnessing one such argument on the Thomas list between an Aquarius (liberal) and a Leo (conservative). One of my favorites in the past was between a Libran and a Pisces with a lotta Aries in her natal. I argue with Scorpios sometimes for years on end. Well, if it's a long-distance thing where they can't murder me right away.

These are weird arguments between opposite signs. They only know what their solar sign is that they read about in the paper. They don't know their opposite sign or that their argument is about two ends of the same spectrum. Most of the time they're not angry with each other, and actually do understand why the other thinks the way they do. Why would they not? Everybody plays Devil's Advocate as their opposite sign. How could they not? It's all they know.

Believe it or not it might appear that I've learned not to insert myself into these types of arguments. It's like trying to interfere in a domestic argument. Try to calm one side of the argument down and the other person will attack you screaming for you to mind your own business.

I can't help it. I'm gonna say something. I'm gonna make an innocent remark to intervene in the Aquarius/Leo "discussion" to see if they basically tell me to mind my own business. They both live a long, long way from here. I'd have days, at least, to git outta town before they come 'looking me with fire in they eyes.