to be woven in our dreaming

[intrepia]

This summer, combing through lists of running quotes in search of a mantra, I came across one that resonated with me, from Bill Bowerman: "Everything you need is already inside."There was something important to me in this idea about capability, but it also called forth the echo of another, half-remembered expression from the banks of my memory. In

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[ursamajor]

"When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here; just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or a copy of something in Aslan's real world. You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream."

I wish I'd remembered the quote in time for the closing of Ur, but, well.

[silverflight8]

You know, I read that and it comforted me not at all. Because I don't care if it was a shadow or not: my life is a shadow, but I love it as it was. I don't care that I have passed onwards to the True Narnia; the old one I was in was Narnia, and it's been destroyed utterly. It was lovely, that the barn was larger inside than outside, and most of the characters I loved were in Real Narnia, but - it's not the same. And I understand the allegory now (as I did not, when I read The Last Battle) but I don't agree. You cannot give me a "better version" and expect me to love it, when it's not the specs I loved, it's the memories and the thing I loved!

(Sorry about the argumentive comment! It's just I guess I have Feelings about TLB still. I have a thing about the "magic dying out of the world" trope and all its variants.)

[intrepia]

It's not the same. But at the same time, I think it's better than nothing, than having the world (whichever world it is) end and being left with only absence.

(I didn't understand the allegories either when I first read the Chronicles of Narnia. I think I liked them less once I understood. But the first time I read The Last Battle, something about its final chapters, the idea of going further up and further in, higher and deeper, felt ecstatically joyous to me.)

[intrepia]

Yes.

[intrepia]

♥

[trixieleitz]

This is such a lovely tribute ♥ The tattoo idea is wonderful :)

[intrepia]

<3

I still don't expect ever to want a tattoo, but it's an idea to keep in mind should I ever change my mind. I was thinking it might be neat to have it tiny, kind of like a stone, on the ring finger. Who knows what crazy things might happen in future midlife crises, right? ;)