A term that has many meanings for me.
The obvious from a photographic or design standpoint being the contrasting area of space around the subject that completes the image. I can think of a couple of perfect examples of this... one an image of some sunflowers I saw, but cannot display here, so it is blank until I can find a suitable image.
Other meanings have to do with various voids... in life, in our personalities, or friendships, holes from lost loved ones, to lost friends and the loss of connections there as well as more technical ones within projects and such. The deepest of meanings has to do with sincere love and loosening one's self in gaining the connection only found with another. There can be nothing more powerful. When left void, these kinds of negative 'spaces' are the hardest to fill and are the most painful when they aren't. In the loss of affection and bond, one turns inward for preservation and safety. Some can be marginally filled with other 'things'...busyness... distractions, occupying our minds, which I highlight in my other blog...others can not and remain empty. We let them be, reserved away from our daily experience, trying to forget, but the lost interpersonal relationships are the most difficult to endure. Distance and silence...being alone... is simply too hard.
Today, I am gaining some new personal 'negative space' as the area a spinal disk now occupies in my neck will be empty...removed with a surgeon's hand and partially filled with another[s bone and a metal framework to hold it upright, but the original part, that piece that I was born with will now be gone, taking with it the pain it has caused me these many months in its misshapen and damaged state. I hope that with this new negative space, I will find physical relief and renewed strength in the half of my upper body that has been suffering now for so long. I greatly yearn for it and am once again looking forward to being whole... if not complete.
More so though, I hope one day to once again fill the other, much more important spaces again. To be able to fill them and feel the joy and peace and comfort and completeness in them.
This is a longing I cannot simply endure.
A cool quote a friend just sent me:
"Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel, the more certain we can be that that is important to us and to our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance."- Steven Pressfield
The obvious from a photographic or design standpoint being the contrasting area of space around the subject that completes the image. I can think of a couple of perfect examples of this... one an image of some sunflowers I saw, but cannot display here, so it is blank until I can find a suitable image.
Other meanings have to do with various voids... in life, in our personalities, or friendships, holes from lost loved ones, to lost friends and the loss of connections there as well as more technical ones within projects and such. The deepest of meanings has to do with sincere love and loosening one's self in gaining the connection only found with another. There can be nothing more powerful. When left void, these kinds of negative 'spaces' are the hardest to fill and are the most painful when they aren't. In the loss of affection and bond, one turns inward for preservation and safety. Some can be marginally filled with other 'things'...busyness... distractions, occupying our minds, which I highlight in my other blog...others can not and remain empty. We let them be, reserved away from our daily experience, trying to forget, but the lost interpersonal relationships are the most difficult to endure. Distance and silence...being alone... is simply too hard.
Today, I am gaining some new personal 'negative space' as the area a spinal disk now occupies in my neck will be empty...removed with a surgeon's hand and partially filled with another[s bone and a metal framework to hold it upright, but the original part, that piece that I was born with will now be gone, taking with it the pain it has caused me these many months in its misshapen and damaged state. I hope that with this new negative space, I will find physical relief and renewed strength in the half of my upper body that has been suffering now for so long. I greatly yearn for it and am once again looking forward to being whole... if not complete.
More so though, I hope one day to once again fill the other, much more important spaces again. To be able to fill them and feel the joy and peace and comfort and completeness in them.
This is a longing I cannot simply endure.
A cool quote a friend just sent me:
"Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel, the more certain we can be that that is important to us and to our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance."- Steven Pressfield
