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June 18th, 2009
 | 07:52 pm - Five Words Meme
Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" in the comments and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.
I tagged myself into this on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) unknownbinaries's journal. These are the five words she gave me:
- Wisdom: The third leg of a rather important life triad, the other two of which are Knowledge and Experience. Wisdom is what you get from knowledge and experience, though it's not an automatic result them. It does require some ability to analyze what you've been through and derive something important from it; in the best of all cases what you derive from this cycle has application to humanity at large. Then people think you're a guru and come to you to hear your wisdom, not realizing that all you can give them is "knowledge." Most of which they then ignore, of course. What they don't ignore is unfailingly misinterpreted when it's put into action/experience, but since it's all leading them through their own cycles of knowledge, experience and wisdom, it's all good.
Except the part where they get disgusted with you because your wisdom can't be theirs too. But hey, nothing in life is without flaws.
- Threads: You know, what's funny about this is that I wanted to gloss over "wisdom" to get to this one. :) There is so much that is multi-layered and multi-faceted about this word as a metaphor and all of it is yummy.
The Fates of Norse mythology, spinning out the thread of a man's life...
A thread in a tapestry, a strand in a web. Individually unremarkable perhaps, but when entwined with others something really amazing and beautiful happens. Fibers merge, colors mutate and blend. People are like this, lives are like this; we embroider one another's lives. Threads twisting and weaving and braiding and fraying and separating -- and sometimes ending -- and the bigger I get, the deeper I delve, the more of this incredible Tapestry I can grok at once and it's all so very beautiful. All of it.
A thread that weaves consistently through any life can disappear for a time and re-emerge years, sometimes decades later, its color and weight changing and being changed by those around it. The thread I would name "children," for instance, looked and behaved very differently for me 20 years ago than it does now. The thread named "music" is constant though it's like an overdyed floss, colors changing as my tastes in music change and broaden. "Loyalty" is a thread that comes and goes, or perhaps more accurately, my struggles to define, integrate, and deal with "loyalty issues."
As I gather the threads of my life and braid them into a single expressive strand, I see everyone around me in the same process, whether it's realized or not. There are some sparklies in mine now and then, and it's frayed here and there. The colors span and transcend mere rainbows... As a life metaphor they don't get much better than this one.
- Needlework: Needlework to me is a contemplative practice.
It is beauty in being and becoming.
It is magic in form and function.
It is a place and a space where I am at one with myself, still in my center. It is privacy and freedom to think my own thoughts in that privacy.
It is... continuity. With each stitch I take I am continuing a tradition begun by distant ancestresses I can scarcely imagine. I am linked back to all those women through this working we share, their stitches living on in me and all my stitchy-sisters today and in tomorrows to come.
Needlework may be other things to other people, but that's what it is to me.
- Crone: Thank you, unknownbinaries for giving me this word and making me address what it means to me yet again. It's needful. A crone is an old woman who has embraced her power and her status. She has not denied them by trying to stay artificially young. She hasn't surrendered them, not to husbands or children or doctors or religionists. There are a lot of old women who are not crones and I do believe that much of my internal ambivalence to my own approaching cronehood derives from this initial confusion. I have been blessed to know one or two crones... they are not always easy people to be around, but they are always interesting people to know. :)
- Games: I could probably write volumes on this one, but I won't. Summing up, "games" to me is what we're all playing, every minute of every day. Even when we think we're not, even when we say we're serious or not playing -- that's when it's the biggest game of all. These days I enjoy deep games, and one of the biggest disappointments in my life is that so few people I know are capable of playing them, let alone enjoying them.
Excellent choices, unknownbinaries. :) Thank you.
Current Music: http://SomaFM.com -- Groove Salad FTW!
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Comments:
Your five are: friendship, craft, womankind, integrity, smile.
Two others have already given you some of the words I was thinking of, but here are five from me: power, magic(k), anger, bird, beer.
Your five: pain, devotion, creativity, sarcasm, prison.
Cool; just wanted to let you know I'll be doing this either Sunday or Monday.
=heh= Why not? Words, please! :)
These were tougher than I thought they'd be, because we've known each other for so many years, I think. :) Oh, and I'm not giving you "needlework" though it's definitely one of the words that remind me of you -- head over to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) cross_stitch and do that one there, if you want. ;) Survival. Chocolate. Writing. Marriage. Snow. It's your fervent dislike of that last that warrants its inclusion... |
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