Today. Notes ? Or no notes ? I think more thinkings and maybe pictures or maybe not. Following on from my last blog, I've been thinking about love in defeat. Defeat is loss, love in defeat is loss, I have lost connection to someone or something I hold dear. A relationship has ended, be that a relationship with a person, a state of being, a state of nation, a notion I carried that has been broken or defiled.
Love is one of those things that cannot be commanded, it is or it isn't, like respect or trust it is born out of good will, good intention, good action. All those feelings may endure hardship but they are also bonds that can be broken, and if broken hard to mend. 
The work I am making Love is a Long Road has been a strange piece to put together, it's seed found root in my broken heart, and has been a way for me to process one rejection, that of course echoed other rejections and ultimately my rejection of my self. 
Why would I reject myself, surely everyone is flawed, surely those parts of me that I don't like, detest are the parts I need to pour most love into, or do I ? Is it love, or is it light I need ? Is it bringing those dark and shabby elements of me to light that I must honour. The parts of me that cause me discomfort are me as well as the the parts that bring me joy. There must be balance. 
If I refuse to see that which blights me can I be whole ? And if I am not whole what happens to the parts of me I refuse to give attention. In Jungian psychology they are referred to as the shadow and the shadow has a tendency to seep out if unattended to.
It could be said that this is a world issue, this looking away, this need to cover over that which is unpretty with a facade, a veneer, a made-up being. Those Chelsea residents whose view was spoiled by the sight of poor people in their district have now the burned out Tower as testament to the vanity and greed of their being. 
Perhaps it is unfair to judge just those residents so harshly,  that vanity and pride resides within us all. Our failure to call to account successive governments from Thatcher, through Blair, to Cameron and now May on a materialistic, enemy agenda has allowed the darker aspects of man's character to thrive. My blind eye, my deaf ear, my silence has allowed the wickedness of my country to grow. 
That is not to say that all my country is wicked, there is much good in Britain, or that I am all to blame, but failing to stand up, to say when things are wrong is a habitual flaw, it allows us to look away from our consciences. One's comfort should not be at an other's expense surely. And yet too often it is. 
And here is the break, the defeat, if I allow myself to come back to the work I am making (it is all I know how to do) how do I pick up that dropped thread. The line in me that says yes to love in the face of defeat, when love seems to be lost and hatred, love's twin, love's opposing force, seems to have taken hold, not just in my heart but also and very problematically in the hearts of many of those who hold power. 
My contribution to the world is small, I am a nobody, I may influence a few but not many, so how does my contribution make a difference ? As usual I am just putting my thoughts into more concrete form and have no answers. I am trying to reach a conclusion, and even that is selfish I want to sign off on a piece of work, to say "there it's done, love is a long road, I've thought,  I've mused and there's my answer" but it's not so cut and dry as that I think, love is a long road, it is a road of no end I think, it isn't "here I have arrived and all is good" but "here is where I am now".
It's so easy to talk about love, at the beginning of my thoughts about this piece, and in my proposal which I will copy and paste to my blog next week I think to remind myself, I have said how we know when we are in the presence of love. I wonder if maybe the road to love is following that presence which exists in all of us, following that knowing, knowing that there is a map within the heart that offers us clear passage, a free right of way, if only we allow ourselves to trust the best in ourselves and follow it with courage.