empyrean01

Latest Posts by empyrean01

“Being understood is a different type of drug.”

— Jay Vespertine

-Rumi

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, from a letter to Arthur Davison Ficke featured in Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

i love studying. i love writing. i love reading. i love learning languages. i love doing mathematics. i love wandering over some particular sum and trying to come up with formulas to solve it. i love physics. i love biology. i love chemistry. i love history. i love literature. i love learning.

not to achieve the perfect grades ever. but it just amazes me that there's so much to know and learn and write and read about in the universe. my curiosity wouldn't get enough of it.

Mary Oliver, from Long Life: Essays And Other Writings originally published in 2004

"Aphrodite", I pleaded to the moon drenched night sky "Tell me"; if love is meant to heal, then why does it destroy those who choose it?" from somewhere beyond the clouds, i heard the Goddess laugh. And i knew.

Nikita Gill - Night Songs to Aphrodite

"I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited."

-Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals

"Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!"

-Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

"And then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?"

-Vincent van Gogh

“To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.”

— Sylvia Plath, from “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.”

Gotta nip them in the bud from now on

"I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life." -Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

i don't pay attention to the world ending. it has ended for me many times and began again in the morning.

― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

“It’s not ‘natural’ to speak well, eloquently, in an interesting articulate way. People living in groups, families, communes say little–have few verbal means. Eloquence–thinking in words–is a byproduct of solitude, deracination, a heightened painful individuality.”

— Susan Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh (via the-book-diaries)

Purpose

There’s a certain life I envision for myself

Often times I lose sight of it

I forget it

I come back to reality, neglecting my beloved dreamer self, the Pisces moon in me

I am a dreamer

An enthusiastic one

Often times I get lost in my own enthusiasm

In my passions and aspirations

In my love for self

A love for self that has taken years of mastery and of which is a constant work in progress

I want to live a life of serving my higher self and the universe itself

This excites me like nothing else ever has

This is not to say I don’t fear it’s unraveling and the mere thought of it not becoming a reality

This fear stems from limiting beliefs

But God, do I promise myself to not make the mistakes I witness others making

Neglecting thyselves to live their own lives through the image of others

God forbid !

I choose me. And I vow to always choose me.

Come to life

Maybe if I write about you you’ll come to life

Maybe I just haven’t been putting in the effort to bring you closer to me

I haven’t worn my hands out from writing about you and who I imagine you to be

But surely you have been in my mind and my heart

You’ve existed beyond the words I could ever write

My mere existence confirms yours

The longing I have

The love I hold in place reserved just for you

The devotion I’m ready to bestow on you

The unconditional intentional commitment I’m so ready to have to us and to you

Sometimes I wonder if it’s safer to keep all this inside, to not jinx it all for us by putting the words out there

I don’t know, I’m conflicted

Writing about you somehow makes me feel closer to you

Feels like bringing you to life

I can’t wait to have you read all this, if you ever come…

Honey brown eyes

I will spend a million lifetimes longing for you

For as long as I don’t have you, I will look for you in everything in this universe

Your mere existence inspires me, my mystical muse

I wronged you deeply, the stain of such mistake will always live beneath my skin

I lived eons despising myself for it, but what good could it be dreading the very being I wish you loved

How am I to be worthy of you while lacking love for self ?

I wronged you in a way I never want to wrong you nor anyone ever

I didn’t know this is what love looks like: truth, acceptance, devotion, you were my moonlight. I love like no other, honey gold eyes. My Muse. I wanna steal the sky for you, give you the world. I dream of you and of what it could’ve been. I’m proud of you, though. There’s a lot to learn from you, my muse, the living embodiment of my mantra, but I was too naive to see it. I wasn’t ready for you. At least I was impartial enough to see you deserve better. Low vibrational, I was I was. So brief and short lived by God, did you mark me. This loss is so familiar, must’ve lasted eons,hell how I long for you, I’ll long for you for more eons. To mould our universes into one. Your honey gold eyes forever ingrained in my mind, you were my Frida I see myself in you, my mantra, embodiment of femininity, sapphic love and much more. Forever believe we could’ve been so much more than we could ever possibly imagine. you and I, a statement. A revolution like no other, it tasted like one the very first time our lips met, honey gold eyes. I could swear even Cupid envied us. I envy anyone who is lucky enough to lay their eyes on your honey gold eyes. These are words I never thought I could write, feelings I never thought I could feel. I long for you with every breath I take. My honey gold eyes.

show me the places where the others gave you scars (insp.)

-5

Pride 2022 09/30: Chavela Vargas

Singer Chavela Vargas was born in Costa Rica, but left at 17, making Mexico her home. Chavela put a lesbian spin on traditional Mexican music, beginning her career busking and singing in bars, and eventually going on to tour throughout Mexico, North American and Europe.

According to Chavela, in the early 1940s, she met artist Frida Kahlo, and the two soon began a relationship which though short-lived, Chavela remembered fondly. Chavela credited Frida with increasing herself confidence, and helping her to be herself.

Chavela Vargas came out publicly as a lesbian when she was 81, and debuted at Carnegie Hall two years later.

learn more with queer as fact: a queer history podcast

[Image descriptions: black-and-white photo of a young Chavela holding a guitar; Chavela singing onstage in the later years of her life, with her arms outstretched and wearing a black and red poncho]

Chavela Vargas − La Llorona

Frida Kahlo & Chavela Vargas. Photo by Nickolas Muray, 1945

"Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing." ~ Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo and Chavela Vargas

Happy International Lesbian Day, and shout-out to all our lesbian followers!

If you’re looking to learn some lesbian history to celebrate the day, check out our episodes on these wonderful women - it’s impossible to say for certain if all these women were lesbians, but they definitely have a place in our conversations about the history of women loving women!:

Anne Lister - 19th century English landowner who journalled the intimate details of her love affairs with women in Secret Lesbian Code.

Audre Lorde - self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” who fought for women who, like her, were excluded from mainstream US feminism, whether because of class, race, sexuality, or disability.

Yoshiya Nobuko - prolific author whose popular works on friendships and romances between women made her the richest woman in Japan

St Brigid of Kildare - 5th-century abbess whose rejection of marriage and relationship with fellow nun Darlugdach has made her an inspiration to Irish queer women

Chavela Vargas - Costa-Rican-born musician who put a lesbian spin on traditional Mexican music

Bíawacheeitchish - a renowned warrior, and highly ranked Crow chief in the 19th century, who married four wives (note this image is of Barcheeampe, a possibly-fictional Crow woman who may have been inspired by Bíawacheeitchish - we sadly have no pictures of Bíawacheeitchish herself)

[Images: portrait of Anne Lister; photograph of Audre Lorde next to blackboard which reads “Women are powerful and dangerous”; Yoshiya Nobuko; stained glass window of St Brigid; Chavela Vargas singing on stage; line-drawing of Barcheeampe on a horse holding a spear]

This is secret code used by 19th-century diarist Anne Lister to record her lesbian relationships! And underneath, and sample of her diaries. Anne wrote 6600 pages, or almost 4 million words of these diaries, giving us a treasure trove of information about her life, and one of the only first-hand accounts we have of female same-sex relationships in the 19th century.

Now you too can communicate with your friends in secret lesbian code!

To learn more about Anne, check out our episode and follow-up Christmas special!

white sand, waves crashing on the shoreline, wind blowing from the west i decided to allow the sand to drown my feet as i walked across the shore appreciating the tranquility in the air, i lingered in a spot once in a while to rejoice in the breezy weather with the sound of waves splashing and the 1975’s fallingforyou

for a moment i got lost in the ocean’s ethereal beauty and i envied the moon for being able to see it everyday, i lingered there as the moon vowed its love for the ocean wishing i could do the same to you but i knew better than to break my own fragile heart like that as unfortunately the feelings aren’t reciprocal

i looked down catching the moment where the waves kissed the shore over and over again more passionately each time as if it were its last time every time and it reminded me of the endless love i had to pour all over you if only you’d let me

snapping back to reality i realized it was foolish of me to turn that euphoric moment into a melancholy one so i continued walking with you on my mind still i thought of how impeccable this moment would be with your presence just you, me and the ocean...

sorry for documenting my suffering and delusions online do you still think im hot

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, from a letter to Arthur Davison Ficke