Dear Seth...

2/9 -Darkness
Dear Seth -
It has been so long since I’ve spoken to you. I hope that you are clean. Maybe I should have asked you this while shaking you violently, instead of hugging you and humoring your lies; I just wanted you to feel some sense of “normalcy.” Well Seth, what is it that you are trying to run from with every push of the needle? What fear are you trying to mask? Is it the fear of success? The fear of being acknowledged for your gifts? Are you caught in that angry space between fear and loathing where nothing is good enough?

God, I tried so many times to tip toe you out of that place, but how could I when I was immersed in my own misery? I want so badly for you to be acknowledged for your art. Maybe that will save you. Please don’t allow yourself to be another example of an incredibly talented artist who never rose above his own self-pity to radiate his beauty to the world. You have to let down your guard and learn to empathize. Your pain keeps you from feeling other’s... and your inability to be honest is what keeps you from shining.

Lying only hurts you Seth, and the drugs cannot help. I know. I am empathizing with you. I used to feel sorry for you, but now I feel hope for you. I cannot wait to hear you speak through light, rather than through the lies of a junky. Someday I pray …maybe now. I know what it feels like to want to be numb. Perhaps if you grasp emptiness, and take a stroll with it, rather than inundate it with substances, it will help you. The Dalai Lama, in the "Book of Awakening" places emptiness into its own realm. I leave you with his feeling. I think you will appreciate it:

“When strong emotions arise in you, say attachment or anger, if you examine the experience of that emotion you will see that underlying it is an assumption that there is something objective and real out there which you are holding on to, and on to which you project desirable and undesirable qualities. According to the kind of qualities you project on to a thing or event, you feel either attracted to it or repulsed by it. So strong emotional responses in fact assume the existence of some form of objective reality. However, if you realize that there is no intrinsic reality to things and events then, of course, this will automatically help you to understand that no matter how real and strong emotions may seem, they have no valid basis. Once you know that they are actually based on a fundamental misconception of reality, then the emotions themselves become untenable. On the other hand, if your understanding of emptiness is not thorough, in the sense that you have not succeeded in negating the notion of intrinsicality completely, then of course your attitude towards emotion will be somewhat ambivalent, and you may feel that there is some sense in which it is valid or justified. When you have developed a certain understanding of emptiness, albeit an intellectual one, you will have a new outlook on things and events which you can compare to your usual responses. You will notice how much we tend to project qualities onto the world. More especially, you will realize that most of our strong emotions arise from assuming the reality of something that is unreal.”

Feel better. All my love and hope, Ana

Ana's Download of the Day "Spit On A Stranger" by Pavement


Check out "The Book of Awakening" - (Upper Right Margin)