The phrase "A rag and a bone and a hank of hair" popped into my head this morning. I had been looking in the mirror, lamenting an ill-conceived hair cutting binge. Maybe there's a connection; I don't know, but my vague perception of the term's meaning was a reduction of a woman to her elements, stripped of personal characteristics.
Then I read the source of the phrase in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Vampire." The poem isn't so much about a woman, but about a man who adored a woman and pursued her to no avail. She heartlessly cast him aside. In a larger sense, the poem is about the hurt and bitterness that can ensue failed dreams, dreams we have pursued wholeheartedly only to see them evaporate before our eyes.
Let's say your dream is to live in a forest by a mountain stream in Colorado. Say you build a cabin in a canyon to enjoy the climate and scenery, to live a quiet life close to nature. Say it's June 2012 and the forest burns, taking your cabin, leaving smoking embers and ash in a barren landscape. Do you become bitter? Do you curse the heartless Mother Nature?
It's easy to become demoralized when our dreams fail or fade. I've been there myself recently, disappointed by my fall, by the scorching weather, by the drying up garden. I've lost so much ability to arthritis and age that living my dream here in Paradise is a pale shadow of what it was in my youth.
But to be demoralized is to guarantee continued failure. To be bitter is to be chained to the immutable past. The trick, I think, is to revisit core values and to set out on a different path, pursuing another dream.
To all you folks who have lost your dreams in Colorado canyons this terrible month, may you find fresh dreams and another paradise.
Then I read the source of the phrase in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Vampire." The poem isn't so much about a woman, but about a man who adored a woman and pursued her to no avail. She heartlessly cast him aside. In a larger sense, the poem is about the hurt and bitterness that can ensue failed dreams, dreams we have pursued wholeheartedly only to see them evaporate before our eyes.
Let's say your dream is to live in a forest by a mountain stream in Colorado. Say you build a cabin in a canyon to enjoy the climate and scenery, to live a quiet life close to nature. Say it's June 2012 and the forest burns, taking your cabin, leaving smoking embers and ash in a barren landscape. Do you become bitter? Do you curse the heartless Mother Nature?
It's easy to become demoralized when our dreams fail or fade. I've been there myself recently, disappointed by my fall, by the scorching weather, by the drying up garden. I've lost so much ability to arthritis and age that living my dream here in Paradise is a pale shadow of what it was in my youth.
But to be demoralized is to guarantee continued failure. To be bitter is to be chained to the immutable past. The trick, I think, is to revisit core values and to set out on a different path, pursuing another dream.
To all you folks who have lost your dreams in Colorado canyons this terrible month, may you find fresh dreams and another paradise.
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