Last night I lay in bed until three reading a book about gothic churches that I downloaded on my phone. The book points out that gothic architecture was specifically designed and intended to speak to a person’s soul in terms of transformation. For example, in Notre Dame in Paris (as well as in a number of other classic cathedrals), those who enter do so from the west so that they’re facing the east, where the sun rises–the understood message being, “Leave the shadows and enter into the light.” Not surprisingly, the church itself is laid out like a cross (the longer section running east to west, the shorter section or “transept” running north to south), the cross being a symbol of heaven (the vertical) meeting earth (the horizontal), as well a symbol of death, since one must die or be crucified (figuratively speaking) before one can be transformed or born again.

Having stayed up late the last two nights, I can definitely feel it. Today my body has been–um–sluggish. Maybe I can get back to my sleep schedule tonight. As it’s been one full week since I began trying to get more sleep and exercise, today seems like a good day to reset and reevaluate. Can I reasonably keep these changes up? Where do I need to back off? Where do I need to step things up? Considering I have more work to do this week than last week, I know some adjustments are definitely in order.

This afternoon while reading about how alchemy relates to violins (I’m not kidding), I picked up a phrase that was used to describe the sound quality of a Stradivarius–strong but not strident. I can’t tell you how much I love this. Recently my therapist and I talked about being able to be DIRECT and yet still have STYLE. How can you be HONEST and not be RUDE? How can you be STRONG but NOT STRIDENT? In my experience, it takes A LOT of practice.

Like playing the violin.

This evening my aunt helped me repot a plant that she helped me originally repot, oddly enough, exactly 52 weeks ago. (Today is Sunday, September 23, 2018, and the first potting took place on Sunday, September 24, 2017. You can read about it here.) We didn’t plan it like this–it just happened. 364 days. Autumn Equinox weekend to Autumn Equinox weekend.

Here’s a picture of the plant a year ago.

Here’s a picture of it now. (Thanks, Aunt!)

Wow. What a wonderful visible reminder that dramatic change is possible. Of course, I can’t say WHEN exactly the plant got bigger, but it obviously did. There’s a phrase in Latin that says, “Natura non facit saltus,” or, “Nature does not make jumps.” In other words, just as the sun moves gradually from east to west and a plant puts on new leaves at a certain, sometimes undetectable pace, so does one change–slowly. The sun (at the equinoxes) spends twelve hours “in the dark.” Christ was three days in the grave. The phoenix was three days in the ashes. Unfortunately, transformation doesn’t have a drive-thru window. It takes time to be born again.