Melancholia
The hadean fires of melancholy can smelt and refine. In such a capacity it is the daimonic force that revivifies our being. But in its raging form it will burn and consume and obliterate, and thus become the force of our demise.
Sadness comes. We say, This too shall pass. It will. But for now it stays. It clings. It chokes. It tightens it grip, its embrace.
And we must suffer it.
"What day is it?" asked Pooh.
"It’s today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favourite day," said Pooh.—A.A. Milne
For those of us thrown into the pit of melancholia Pooh's unqualified optimism triggers tremors of anxiety. The gravitas of our mood makes such childlike carefreeness searing and jarring to our sensibilities. For us, today is no better than yesterday; and worse, brings us closer to the ever more frightening future—a room of unknown threats that could damn us further.
It is such a secret place, the land of tears
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
(in The Little Prince)
How precious beauty is
how much I crave to hear and see and touch it
to drown in it
for hurt and sadness run so deep
In the land of tears
it is the beauty of the elegiac
that sustains and revivifies
all things good come to an end
we weep and grieve even before they're all gone
they're soon but a memory
all too soon but dying embers in the frigid night
Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height.
Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches.
Happiness is like a tree going into the sky,
and sadness is like the roots
going down into the womb of the earth.
Both are needed,
and the higher a tree goes,
the deeper it goes, simultaneously.
The bigger the tree,
the bigger will be its roots.
—Osho