Outside a Single Realm

Yesterday we were a group sitting outside on a porch visiting. The sky was wide in a way like where is the end and look another kind of blue. Big clouds and big big blues all over! swish swish we go all around the world. Cobalt in a spot- cerulean spreading out, drip dripping watercolor. Seraphim's blue! Mountains. Big big massive mountains turns us into mountains. A hummingbird singed overhead, checking things out. Hi hummingbird, do you like cornflowers? We were clouds in the sky, mountains for a minute, and turning back to our conversation I remembered to be a human with human affairs, nodding my head, "Oh isn't that a shame, mm hmm." And looking again to the wide sky, wondering how I could slip out of human affairs maybe a little bit more? Maybe I could sneak out the back door of our interesting world? Maybe watch the fireflies in the night!Yayoi Kusama Fireflies on Water

I keep thinking of the Lady of Shallot. She lived outside of Camelot, and she was cursed (I guess it was a curse) to spend all her days alone in a small cottage in the wild, weaving, always at her weaving. If she were to even look in the direction of Camelot, it had to be through a mirror. Any direct sighting and she would die. One day she heard two young lovers and she was like, "Christ help me- I am done with this shadow world." And soon after that beautiful Lancelot came riding through her garden- his beautiful black curls running down his neck. He glanced her way and sang a tune. And she was enthralled, overthrown with delight at the sight of him. She dropped her weaving and ran to look out and all around, to see the whole world, spinning, alive, fresh, real, and so gazed too at Camelot, lovely place. And at the first sight her curse was ignited- the mirror cracked from side to side, "The curse has come upon me cried..." And since she knew what she was to do, she got into her boat, dying as she drifted down the little river into the Kingdom of Camelot. The people of the active world ran away as they saw the beautiful woman lulling down the waters, departed in death, in a boat handwritten Lady of Shallot.John William Waterhouse: The Lady of Shalott [looking at Lancelot] - 1894

Tennyson:

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

If there be death, then she be dead. But if her death is a way of saying something else, then she is something else indeed!