My Notebook of Symbols

He feels the imbalance. Around him. Inside him. The place he calls both home and office has proven to fail in both roles. The stance he calls happy, but sad is not a natural one at all. Weird condition of the soul… He feels imbalance. He sees the need to change.

Start again? Can he?

He feels the dawn. Yet dark. He shivers. He remembers best times of mornings and emotions of traveling and feelings that are unclear… He seeks the sun. Yet in the darkness the dawn only brings very subtle sign as to where the sun is coming from.

The dawn. It is the point to gaze. It’s where the sun will arise. Don’t be afraid. The sun will come. Bit the moment of dawn – so mysterious…

So many gods, beliefs, religions – all point to dawn… Where to look? Look where the sun is coming from. They have different names, different images… Just like the theories in physics, they can’t agree. They explain from different points. They resort to that leap of faith; perhaps, no other choice…

Eos and her brother Helios, Hathor, Usas, – what’s your name?

The dawn…

Prepare… Turn to where the sun is to come from. You have the direction. You trust it will arise. There will be light. There will be the balance. You await the sun, clarity, comfort, peace of mind…

Back again. Come back again. He barely holds the balance.. It’s hardest to keep awake that period if you’ve been up all night. There, – the rhythm. There, – the cycle. There, – the dawn! Try to keep that balance – the sun is near!

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choicr #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

Swings. From the highest point to the lowest of moods. From the happiest to the saddest… From hope and power to despair and apathy… Bipolar? Depressive?.. High? Low?.. Week? Strong?

— It’s so tiny… Like a particle… It may grow into the fiercest of fires… A spark… All the particles, unrelated?.. Chaos?.. Yet they are entangled… Somehow… All connected…

— Look at these picture from today, – Dad says.

— These ar really “dear” – Mamida smiling.

— I’ll be the drag queen, – the boy says.

— Zurabi, – how good it would be if you quit smoking – Grandma saying.

— That’s such a great book – Mum says.

— He can sit like that without moving – The Teacher says about the boy.

— I now want to see your wedding – The Grand-grandma saying.

— Bala? – His love saying.

Thoughts link to each other. They tie into knots, fly the distance and time without the reason or explanation… The sparks… One… And it’s triggering all the thoughts, feelings, emotions…

People say, – it’s irrational, impossible, not true…

He smiles.

He sees the fireplace. Not the nice-looking old big, grande… No… It’s a stove… There’s fire inside. The sparks fly out with sounds… They are in the village… The room on the ground floor, barely lit. Winter outside. How he remembered those winter times in the village? He was too small a kid… Sparks…

More sparks on the 5th floor in the common corridor of the block of apartments. The shared stove with neighbours… Cold…

Yes, the sparks seem chaotic indeed… They do not make him warm yet. He just remembers their sounds… Fire is warm, it burns wood in the stoves… But sparks, – they seem so fragile… They can make the great fire, or they can immediately die out… Depends on what they fall into…

— I am the fire. I am the power. I will make the fear appear in the eyes soon!..

— Or you fall onto the iron concrete, or wet pavement, anything that’s resistant to you and you just fade out…

— No! I am the fire…

— No, you are not…

— I can prove it – give me the ground, the soil, the time…

Have we fallen to the woods? Are we on the way down to oceans?..

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choice #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

He looked at the symbols and images before writing – that’s how his reminiscences were coming to him. But not this time. He knew it was about fire. And he remembers the bright orange drawing, the lines depicting the fire… For him the beauty of that fire was too dangerous to aspire to…

It makes people disappear in the flames. It is the one to bring ashes to ashes, dust to dust… It’s fire… It’s fury… For him it’s never warm, he thinks…

It’s the fire he hates now. That’s the one to make him forget everything and be part of something else…

But what about the emotions, what about the person, what about the soul as we call it and the fate of it, as the body is gone… Ashes to ashes… Dust to dust… All gone?… Will it be there, regardless? Will it burn him? Fire…

— Who brought you to people, really? God? Prometheus? Devil? What are you? How can we have you so close to us, in everything, you, who burn us eventually, you, making alive too, yes, but burning eventually…

There’s no answer from the flames, from the fire, from the sun, from the fireplace, from the burning we see – and the fire that we call our ally, – till it burns us…

— Is there any sense you’re trying to convey?.. Temporariness of everything? You’ll burn you say? You are at the heart, core… You brought the life and you’re to take it?..

And then it speaks.

— I am the life… – it says.

— Why you burn, destroy, why take us away, why create pain, misery; why you keep us so close, and then you burn, then you put us to ashes, to dust… Why?!.

— I am the life. I’m not burning the life, I’m not taking the life. I am the life – fire – light…

— You… You are indeed there where the life is… But how can you be the life?.. Here were are, and you make us warm, make us grow, make us alive, and then you burn us, you take everything away…

— You are putting the groundless blame on me. I have not taken anyone… I am where life is… I am the light, I am the energy, I am the sun, I am the life… Yes, I’m burning… That only means I’m there – where life is. I am only where there’s life – as I am life. The moment I’m gone, there’s nothing – there’s no life, there’s no sun, there’s no warmth, there’s nothing – no life… I am life…

He cannot trust the fire… How can he trust it?.. It burns… You can’t have it too close… But that’s the only thing that makes him feel alive indeed, he realises…

— Fire… life?… Fire – life… Fire… But what about the fire destroying our psyche, our minds, what about the death?!.

— I am not death… I am the life… I am making all alive and I am where there’s life – in hearts, in planets, in wood, in eyes, on the sun, in the spirit… I am the light… I am the life!..

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choicr #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

Minus 25 Celsius. Kiev. 2am. He leaved the hotel room. The street is white and grey. The street lights are there, the cars are there, the houses are there and still the universe seems empty and frozen. Nothing moves. Nothing makes sound.

He tries not to slip on the icy pavement. The cold is in every bit. He feels it through his jeans and through the pair of tight heat insulators below the jeans.

He felt alone, on the outskirts of the world, away from everyone. His choice to travel there. His passion and desire driving him into the realm of frozen cold city which has no heart, no movement, no meaning, no soul…

He walks in the street, on the icy pavement, on the snow, trying to find the fast food chain to get some food. He finds the 24 hour McDonalds, but it is also frozen, it doesn’t have a soul either. All closed. All frozen.

— “Technical break time” – the sign on the McDonalds says.

He hates the place. He walks back, another option to find. Nothing nearby, Nothing to hang on to.

Minus 25. He’s back to the hotel. The hotel is as cold as the world outside. The lobby, Dark. Receptionist. Gloomy face.

— Any food to buy? – He asks the face.

— Some chips…

He gets some. All he wants now is to be home, but he’s far away. He will soon be back to the room. The room seems warmer. He has a young boy of early twenties waiting there. That’s not the warmth that will make him warmer, he will have to realise that. The young boy is not the family, he still has to discover and decide upon, the home is far, far away.

Minus 25. Freezing. It’s not snowing. The snow is always warmer. The snow has the spirit. The snow covers the dirt, mud, all – it makes it all clean.

There’s another city. Few years later. He has his love with him. They go down the tram on Leidseplein.

There’s snow in Amsterdam. It’s night. 8 pm. It’s snowing. It’s minus 10 maybe. It’s warm. It’s full of people. It’s full of love. It’s white. It’s alive. It’s home, although they are not living there.

The mind is silenced. He remembers another snow, from the childhood. The winter that he is in the village. His Grandpa is taking him to the forest to get some wood for the fireplace. It’s all white. He’s deep in the snow, sometimes knee-deep. There’s silence. All is asleep under the snow. He feels the warmth though. He never feels the cold there.

It’s snowing. Many years will pass. There will be Kiev. There will be Amsterdam. There will be Tbilisi. All will come in due time. He doesn’t know yet though. He’s five years old or so. His mind is yet with the warm cover of the snow…

— Belie Snejinki…

He hears the music, the theme, the children’s song – snowflakes. Year 2007. His love coming with the snowflakes song. Was it spring? He smiles at how the winter song became one of his love theme songs from that year on. How the song about the snow, snowflakes and cold – how can it be so warm?

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choice #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

— You visit the opera and you should be surprised, that’s how it should feel when you come – elderly man is explaining to the group of youngsters gathered in a retro-hip courtyard bar-cafe…

They look at him and listen silently without giving any sign of either approval or disapproval. They are beautiful. All of them. All so young. Torn jeans, but somehow still neat. They appreciate the attitude of the elderly man. They value the unexpected, unknown, misty concept of not caring about losing control.

— It’s that joy, that surprise, that fascination – the elderly man continues… He closes his eyes… he remembers how he was thrown into the realms of an opera and its power at much later stage, late thirties of his life. He feels envious to the youngsters who are to feel it, already in the very realms that he only discovered for himself only in his middle ages…

— La Traviata… – the drinking song theme started playing in the elderly man’s head. Perhaps the very fact of being absolutely unsure of his tastes, knowledge or attitudes towards the opera that made him so fascinated… He remembered planning the trip to Vienna State Opera, with his love – La Traviata…

Will they go? Are they there? Is it the trip he wanted? Are they the happiest? Are they together? All in good health and best spirits? Or is it a dream?

— Who says you cannot feel it? Of course you feel it! You’re in the fog, it’s all around you, you cannot understand where you are. You cannot see the hand in front, but the hand feels the particles, we are in the fog…

— Will it lead us to the shiny opera in another country, another city, another year, another feelings?… Or will the fog make us bling and we slip down and fall into the abyss – somewhere, somehow… What is the fog preparing? Is it like in opera? All the preparations behind the curtains before the act starts – what’s ahead?

— Embrace the unexpected, enjoy the moment in the fog. It’s the anticipation, it’s the thought about visiting Vienna with his love, it’s the thought about the Vienna State Opera, – that’s making it the night full of vivid imageries and emotions…

— You call it fog?… I call it the very substance that makes everything possible… The curtain of life that is there to give us the emotions otherwise unattainable.

— Oh the fog… I thought, I was scared that I could have lost you, but it’s just the fog. Here you are! I prepared tea and some sweets to hug each other and watch the fog move on…

— I stood next. Hands-reach. Waiting for you to reach out, baby…

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choicr #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

His grandpa would wake up at dawn. Long before anyone else was up. He would go to the pool in the morning, he remembers… Or when they were not in town, when they were in the village, he’ll be up, already in the yard, long before the rest woke up. It’s with him that the association of dew comes to mind…

His grandpa’s bare feet slowly pacing through the glass that still had the dew left from the early morning. The silence, only the grass being pressed by the foot gently. The foot became wet. There, the dew moves from the earth to the man.

— You should walk barefoot, – Grandpa turns to him. He’s reluctant. But he remembers the feeling of having done that few times.

All green. The dew on the grass and on the feet. Calm.

— Give me your hand, – his Grandpa never took his hand, but would instead offer two fingers, so that he could comfortably hold on to them. And he would follow, holding Grandpa’s two fingers with his hand…

All green in the village. Contrast to the town. When in town, no dew, he only remembers the town as sunny, – but as Autumn, the golden leaves on the ground. He would follow Grandpa. Where would they go?..

He remembers more dew, much more, on the lawn in Truskavets, the town where his parents took him… Much bigger plains, all green, and some wet grass, he remembers, all green too. Was it dew? Or is it just droplets after the rain?.. He remembers his boots and knitted trousers getting wet. Was he five or six years old?.. All green, grass wet… His Dad and Mum… Rain, rain, rain – but he feels with them at home, the rain doesn’t matter… Neither one room where he is squeezed in between his parents, all three of them on a tiny bed… It’s home for him.

Last summer, some couple of months ago, they drove early morning from the seaside resort. He and his love. The dew was not only on the grass, it took everything, it was in the air, it was all over the car. Then, he felt happy to be going home. The dew was blessing him, enclosing him into the droplets of strange subtle, but powerful magic…

— You should walk barefoot on the grass…

His grandpa turned, giving him two fingers to hold onto.

— “Ozda!” – what’s that?, – it’s “ts” not “z”… He tries to pronounce properly. He’s 39 – otsdatskhrameti – now. He remembers how Grandpa was correcting him.

— When can I witness some more dew – he thinks…

He smiles. He holds onto Grandpa’s hand.

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choice #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

Since 1998 at least, if not earlier, he’s been noting down, writing, imagining, praying, crying, complaining, asking, again crying, mostly trying to express the sorrow of the times he’s left to himself. The periods of no notes, nothing written, there are months or years often. Then again he’s back to the notebooks… Some of the notes became digital when that era came; the rest still on paper. Some days he tried to digitalize his notes, then he somehow got disappointed with anything digital – he wished to hold it and touch it… Or perhaps there was another true reason… The digital notes could be edited, while those written here – in these notes – on the paper – are meant to stay…

Over 20 years. 2018. He realized it’s the first time when he consistently worked on one single notebook and during the last months, on paper, on this very notebook only. Started in 2017, and now almost the end of 2018, almost two years and reaching the last pages of the notebook – for the first time he feels convinced that his notebook of symbols will be made into something… Something… Something he feels will be worth reading.

By whom? When? How? Stored on the shelves in the notebook?.. Doesn’t matter at the moment – he’s writing, going to the end of the notebook. What started like a diary, some sort of a self-centered psychotherapy, has turned into the reflections, images, thoughts, ideas – and they are not necessarily the past – it’s written now – this very moment – as the thoughts pass by… As the images invoke some associations with inner or outer worlds, present or past, he’s both totally clear and also, paradoxically, still absolutely unsure what he is writing about.

He starts with an image in head, he starts with the fear of uncertainty where the words will lead him, and by some magic, the words come, they appear in the notebook. They create reflections, situations, descriptions, attitudes, moods…

He’s struck by the meaning at some point towards the end… Here, he now realizes what the words were leading to, but it’s not the end-point; it’s the process of pouring thoughts into the notebook; it’s the unique reflections, memories, visions, present, past, or future that he sees – that’s what makes him so passionate about it. It’s not the structure, plot, time, characters, – ignoring what he’s read or learnt, what he is creating is THIS very moment. It’s the focus and absolute dissolve into the concept of absence of time…

What does that mean anyways? – No time exists? How could that be?..

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choice #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

You anticipate one. There, it comes after lightning, but it’s still something your ears don’t want to get used to. You can’t just listen to thunder, can you? It takes all the attention. It distracts. It calls for you to get scared, be scared, get startled, drop everything… The truth really is that… The truth is there’s nothing to be afraid of when you hear the thunder. The moment you hear it, the lightning has already struck somewhere.

— Life’s playing the same rules as the lightning and thunder… The moment we get scared is usually the least appropriate time to get scared… The lightning has already struck… What to be scared of? Why be scared?… Let it be the sound of your safety, your blessing, your luck – the lightning has not struck you, that’s for sure…

— You got the point, my little scared friend, who are you?

— I’m the tree standing on this hill for more than 100 years already. I’ve seen it all… And why did you refer to me as little? Or as a friend? Have we spoken before?

— No, we have not…

— Who are you?

— I’m the wave, and I’ve just accidentally witnessed your very wise words… Let me think of those… But I’m to travel long, need to move forward…

The wave was gone. The tree shrugged its shoulders. It witnessed many things, many events, many creatures and waves too… Those waves are weird, really, some of them think they are the largest and they are to refer to the rest of the life as “little”…

— This one’s not that long…

The tree sighed… It knew that by some very vague, unclear, fantastic, unexplainable, unclear means its thoughts, speech, attitudes, emotions were traveling to many equally unexplainable, unclear, far, far away places… The mechanism was unclear, the method unknown, the explanation was not something it could figure out… Yet, there it was – Tree… There, it could talk with a wave… There, it had reminiscences. There, it had thoughts. There, it could analyze. There, it was connected… There, there… But how.. Not known…

— Again, thunder… Which one is that… Was that Thor? Zeus? Yahweh? Indra? Raijin? Baal?… Which one of those naughty creatures, debauching up there?.. And whatever philosophical thoughts on my mind, of course, I’m afraid. Perhaps, next time one of those lightning is striking me… After all, I’m on the hill for over the century… And the chances should be getting higher… Those naughty gods…

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choicr #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols

— There, you asked for!

— How cruel the gods can be, in interpreting one’s wishes, twisting them, and laughing at humans…

— That’s what you asked for!

— They send flood to those thirsty; they send wealth and take health; they fulfill the wildest dreams, only to discover they are not making you happy…

— The storm came!..

— Let it!.. Stronger… To make the life cleaner, wiser, better… I’m afraid not to say or wish for something that can be interpreted differently…

— What’s not right?

— Nothing is… Why bringing storm… Why make the rain look so monstrous… I still love the rain…

— The storm’s been inside you… You created it… You deal with it…

— So you revealed it to me now…

— All yours!..

— I’m glad… Storms have the peak, the centre, the eye, and they pass!.. They hit and pass… We’ll stand strong… I can already feel it weakening a bit… The storm will pass. The key will be to learn where were the weakest points… Storms come and go… We stand!…

— So perhaps the gods are not cruel after all…

— They are, if we are, – they hit where we are weak; they come as storms, we stand, we learn, we hold each other’s hands…

They stood. Together in the dark… Storm, all around them – the rain, wind, cold – they stood at the seaside, looking at the storm…

— It will soon pass!

— Very soon!..

They stand, holding each other’s hands… No moon yet… Only clouds, rain, winds, dark… They stand.

Together.

And the god blessed them with hearts that will always feel each other, with hands that will always hold each other, with words that will always give them hope and make them warmer in cold, make them smile in the storm. Blessed to be together.

Such was the storm… The peak… And the blessing it brought.

Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choice #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols