On Cold Snaps

[sdi]

I was whining to my angel about why life feels unbearable, and they said, simply, "some fruits need a frost to get sweet."

Comments

[thinking_turtle]

Thanks for messaging your introduction to Plotinus' metaphysics, that was really interesting!

Your angel advises frost followed by sweetness. That sounds like accepting extremes separated by time. That may be very lively!

I aim at a more constant or average life. When my life feels unbearable, I feel I've drifted too far from things I control. This easily fixed by looking at the here and now. What's the best dinner for tonight? What use of today's time would let me sleep best? What can I clean, fix or improve in my home? And I would ask my Tarot cards why my life feels unbearable, and what I can do about it.

A question to end with, why do you refer to "my angel" as "they"?

[sdi]

Regarding "they," it's because I asked my angel once about whether I should refer to them as male or female, and they said that they weren't either, but rather both. Plotinus talks about this, too: souls don't have parts, but are rather a single atomic thing; since human souls can produce both male and female bodies, the human soul must have both kinds of creative potency within it in an undifferentiated way. Further, since your angel is their means of connection to the Divine, it must at least those same capacities as you do, or else you wouldn't have them in the first place!

[thinking_turtle]

Thanks for answering!

The Roman poet Horatio was defeated in war, and lived in reduced freedom afterwards. He wrote the famous "carpe diem":

sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

be truthful, strain the wine, and scale back your long hopes to a short period.
While we speak, envious time will have fled:
seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next day.

Religion and the Occult help deal with reduced material wealth and reduced freedom, but perhaps a poet who lived in a similar time of his civilization can help as well.

[sdi]

Thanks :)