I was thinking about Pothos today; the notion of "wanting", the impossibility of love. Impossible love--the longing and desire that will never be quenched. It's a notion that my brother Zach and I have kicked around in the past. We wondered why love was going wrong--why crushes are doomed to always be just that and never more. Why is it that the people you truly fall in love with aren't the ones that you've been fawning over? Relationships are never created on burning desires-that's unrequited love. Is it that the "pothos" that grows and manifests in the soul as a crush can never be returned; is it the fact that's it's been created its dooming factor? And what makes the heart and soul do these things?
I was reading some Hillman and he brought up a great point about the gems in the darkness; those things that hide within our shadows are what actually define who we are and are "clarified" (JH) in the end.
When in the throes of pothos, the spots that shine aren't the the gems in the shadows. So, therefore, is it that what "shines" in the heat of pothos is simply a creation of a person that we've made within ourselves and projected upon our desired one? Pothos in ourselves is us--in love with an idea. In love with an idea that doesn't exist and never will. Pothos doesn't see the shadow. But what of the shadows? In love, Hillman encourages us not to run from the shadows.
So, when we think of our shadows, what about them is it that helps define who we are? How do we embrace the so-called "rubies in the shadow"?
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This is a difficult one. Like so much of Hillman's stuff I find it recedes like a mirage before me. I see very enticing things in these ideas but can never quite grasp them. I feel that may be his point.
Pothos. Yep, I been there quite recently.
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