Day 87: Use your words, please.

I'm using my words today. And those of another too. This is probably the most thought I've put into one of these things since... I can't even remember. It's been a while. Pictures were just so easy though! Back to the point.

Fall semester is drawing to a close. While this in itself is a joy, I came across something much greater today. Before school had started this year, I picked up, or rather had been forcefully loaned, the novel Eat, Pray, Love by E. Gilbert. At the time it was completely amazing. In a nutshell the book is split into 3 major sectors. One on pleasure, one on devotion, and one on balance. Each book took place in Italy, India, and Indonesia respectively. Basically this woman drops everything in order to search for everything. Before going any further, I'd like to say that both genders would enjoy this book. Don't be deterred by the title my male friends! Or by the touchy-feely sound of it. Just read it, okay?

Anyways. Back to the point. At the point of two weeks before school began, the book was amazing (as it still is). But then I went off to school. Of course I got caught up in the workload of a sophomore nursing student, the new job, a social life?, and band, band, and more band. Don't get me wrong, I love band, but I'm glad I'm off the hook now (home for holidays...). So naturally I stopped the reading of said amazing novel about a third of the way through. Actually 3 pages short of a third as I discovered today.

Today I walked to the Union. Might I add in the snow. Snow gets really old really fast but there's still something special about those first floating falls.

Back to the point. I walked to the Union where there are various lobbies. I found an armchair and quite literally curled up in it.

And read a book OF MY OWN CHOOSING for an hour. You have no idea how good it felt. Actually you probably do. So I guess share in my happiness and dance.

Back to the greater point. So much has happened this semester. I'm not the same person as I was when I put down the novel back in August. It's a funny thing picking up a book and remembering where you left off. Remembering where you were so many months ago and reading some of the same words of the novel and being able to reflect on them differently because you're different. If I could more coherently organize these thoughts into a beautiful, elegant post I would. But I have finals in a week, a lab practical in 6 days, and a quiz tomorrow among other things and life. So I'll leave you with something beautiful and elegant from Eat, Pray, Love.

...author currently in India. Pursuit of devotion. Discussion of Yoga and those who follow the original practices which neither compete nor preclude any religion...

"The Yogis, however, say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine. Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not.' "

E. Gilbert

That's why I like this book. It connects me. Not within myself. But to that larger energy. Of the world I suppose.