Blue is the veil to Heaven

Lapis lazuli from the Arab states arrived in Venice.
Giotto painted Heaven as blue



Titian though was obsesed with blue apparently and he was involved in the liberation of blue that had been controlled by the Church.
Bacchus and Ariadne was restored and it was discovered that it was a painting full of brilliant colours especially blue

Apparently Titian is using blue for fun and liberating it from the shckles of religion. It was only to be used for very religious matters.

18th Century Germany and blue was turned into emotions ...
The romantic age. Delicate sensibilities, wild imaginings, wonderful heroes. Novanis worked on his epic novel. Lucid visions keep the protagonist from sleep. Fantasies led him on a journey across his imagination. He was searching for a small blue flower.
Blue became the colour of the deepest feelings at this time.
Gaugin's sun
Van Gogh Starry Night
Munch Lovers

Picasso - Blue period works
Stories of suicide, despair and the search for redemption.
Oct 1900 at 19 years ols. He decided to leave Spain with his best friend Carlos Casagemos.
They planned to make their name. They went to Paris. They stepped of the train and into the centre of the world - converging artists were there.

Casagemas pulled a gun on his lover. She escaped unscathed but he thought she was dead and he shot himself dead.

Picasso was horrified and struggled to come to terms with the death. he was so bereft he behaved rather strangely. He started taking over his best friends identity. Moving into Casagemas' apartment, sleeping with his girlfiend. He repeatedly painted Casagemas in his coffin.
Scenes of the funeral painted in a blue haze.
A host of blue period paintings which seem to lnk closely with woeing through his grief

In Egyptian history blue represented hell

Yves Klein a Frech painter who never gave up on blue
Not only in blue but about blue - he even invented his own blue
Born in 1928 the son of two bohemian artists.
He became a jickey and danced and studied to be a judo master.
He decided to become an artist.
Single blocks of colour.
Captivated by the colour of the sky.
In Paris he sought the legendary colour make that countless artists had entrusted to prepare their paints.
Eduard Adam - emporium

Falling asleep - off to beddy byes
Bliss
XXXXXXXXXXXX

Yielding

My reply to someone else's thoughts .....

On the other hand - making oneself vulnerable is not about being vulnerable to more harm. That's already done and you are bringing the fear of that into today.
I do think it means taking risks with people and being honest and only then is it possible to get support and find out that your feelings can be heard and held. Of course this means being discerning but it also means taking risks with those people. You will have some degree of knowing that you can trust that person and then it's fear that's standing in your way.
The little I do know about your past suggests to me that you have been deeply wounded and with that comes a deep fear. You may not recognise it as fear, I don't know but that's what I see Valentine. Trust me, there are people who can hold your fear and your anger and your sadness and any other emotion. What they can't hold of course is all the ways and defences you have to protect yourself from those feelings.
You know in Tai Chi they teach that to yield to the forces is actually the strength. In other words Step One is about admitting your weakness i.e. you do not have control. And not just over food.
You do not have control about how other people are and how they have injured you. You do not have control over the emotions that those damaging behaviours have on you. You do not have control over the fact that you're a very sensitive being and you do not have control over the fact that you are an addict. Admitting that weakness is the first step. And looking at the chaos that ensues when you try to control it, manipulate it, avoid it, deny it, hide it, re-shape it etc.
I truly understand the fear of revealing all. I was sexually abused by my father and kept that from everyone and anyone until I was 41 years of age. I spent the time from my childhood when I just thought I was a bad person. There are things I remember that to this day make my whole body contort and cringe, like him rubbing himself against me when I was little and in his bed because I'd had a nightmare. Eeek writing that just makes my throat tighten up and areas of my body recoil. I can remember him touching me inappropriately when  my mum was away travelling on business and at that time I was 13 and knew exactly what was happening.
I thought if I told anyone he would get into trouble. Now isn't that crazy from the outside thinker? But I believed it so entirely that I didn't dare tell anyone and cramped it so deep inside me I forgot about it until I was writing my life story in treatment. Suddenly it burst into the forefront of my mind and I wanted to kill the psychiatrist and therapists that were making this thought appear.
Since then little by little I've had therapy and worked on steps etc and each time a little more openness appears.
You know two years ago I git myself involved in my other addictive behaviour sex and love addiction. I was so ashamed I didn't tell my friends. After all what harm was I doing. But as time went on I became suicidal. I had become seriously involved in a man practising BDSM. I became his slave - and the gory details are even more shaming. And he would travel over from Amsterdam every month. I thought he loved me and I thought I loved him. Even now telling you I feel so ashamed of my desperation to be loved and going to any lengths to get that love. And this wasn't the first time. Alongside my food sex and love addiction has escalated and ebbed and waned. I have been married 3 times. 3 times!! I feel so ashamed of that. And each time it was just to try and get them to love me until I found out that I didn't even like them. Valentine this 50 shades of grey has nothing on what I've experienced in my lie. Of my own making. But all rooted in the illness. I have a mental illness and it manifests as addiction. I think it takes a while to get your head around that one - excuse the pun!!
And also was triggered by events of my childhood - betrayal, violation of spiritual rights, disappointment, lack of full nurturing from a father (my mum was fantastic and I know how lucky I have been to at least have one carer who showed me love) - oh and on and on. Those are not the reasons for me being an addict. Addiction is an illness I was born with and it manifested itself with food at an early age and then sex and love and developed into drinking and drugs and many other behavioural addictions. I just could switch them around at will. Appearance of control you see but never really being abstinent from the disease simply the symptoms changed. But then I have these events in life that triggered my attitude, my beliefs, my emotional responses, my thoughts. All were moulded and fashioned that made it easy for the illness to take it's hold and at a very young age, food and sex being the first ones oh and fantasy. I used to eat sweets at twice the rate of my cousin and then be filled with envy at her saving them which I saw as coveting and teasing me. I ended up learning how to sneak some - stealing. Yuch!
This illness is insidious and tells us we cannot reveal ourselves. Experience has shown us that we need to shut down and look after ourselves because those supposedly doing the job just hurt us. So how can we be expected to trust anyone - everyone important has let us down in some way.
The thing is when people tell you being open and honest is being weak, then they are frightened themselves. I have learnt that no one can actually hurt me unless I let them. So my truth is not something that allows them to hurt me it's the patterns of the past that I carry with me.
As I am getting stronger it really doesn't matter what people think unless I make it matter. So whilst I feel ashamed of just a few of the little things I've share with you here I also know that I am OK. I did those things and things happened to me when I had no control. I could have stopped "using" and now I have so some of those things do not ever have to happen again so long as I stay away from the food and sex and love etc. I create choices.
Sometimes  am tempted - just the other day underlying feelings were going on. I didn't really have a clue what was going on but knew something was because I was thinking of texting this man or that man and then when I got to the supermarket I thought fuck it I'm going to have chocolate. That was then loud enough for me to say "hold on, something is amiss here". I didn't notice there was a problem when thinking about the texting as that felt just like some fun and justified.
what is going on is that I feel terrified of the boss-lady coming back next week. And I felt terrified because I had told management I was terrified and they are hopeless so would not handle that in a discrete manner and then I would be punished by the boss-lady. The reality is I've spoken my truth albeit clumsily and imperfectly. As a result there are things happening which haven't been taken seriously for the past 7 months. It's a miracle.
I didn't have to text these men and I didn't have to eat chocolate,.Thankfully my food recovery is in tact and I am learning enough to know that when I want to eat there are emotions going on. In the past the texts would have been sent and the trouble would have been set in motion even if it didn't happen for several months to the scale I can take things. And I would have eaten the entire supermarket stock of flour and sugar products within a week (probably less with the ferocious emotions going on).
I didn't and it's a miracle. I have been talking to people instead. Not entirely satisfactory because people try to fix or their own situations don't perfectly match my own etc etc etc and none of the talking is taking away the problem so what the hell is this all about can kick in. But I trust the programme.
I am ashamed too to admit that I got filmed by the police a few weeks ago - speeding 36 i managed to brake to in a 30. Then bugger me I got caught again this time 40 something in a 30 and still haven't received the paper work. And then despite really being slow I think I may have been caught slowing to 32. What an idiot I can be - that could be 9 points in a matter of 2 weeks!!!
This repercussions though are also on my mind. I cannot afford the points or the fine. The points will mean my insurance premium goes up next year. A lot! Which adds to already planted shame that 2 years ago I told a lie when buying insurance and since then was refused insurance this means that my silly little car is costing a high premium - that really drains my monthly income. All because I lied.
To you it may not seem much but to me the shame the guilt the embarrassment and the self-hatred just piles on. IN the past the weight would have piled on too. But these days I practise sharing everything including all the anger and hatred for my dad.
You know what from the man I wanted to kill and tried to pretend I was chilled with and serene in front of others because I didn't want them to see how ferocious I can be - I actually have some forgiveness for. I never ever wanted to forgive him. Then I didn't know how to forgive him and sometimes now I forget that I do forgive him. There are new memories every so often which floor me. But I am working on that too.

So V I don't know what made me splurge all of this out.
I think it was the identification with thinking that weakness is a bad thing. Strength is gained by accepting weakness. Power is gained by yielding.
I can take a good look at what the consequences are for not accepting or yielding - and see if I am still happier with those consequences. If I'm cool with them then hey crack on.
But I really wasn't. It was no longer about the blame from the past, I could no longer deny that I was creating my own pain and yet still blaming my dad in each of the subtle or not so subtle ways that i could do that. If he hadn't been so cruel to me ...... etc. And of course I looked for bad men because my dad was bad. Well that could stop if I was ready to make changes and it started with the food and removing other behavioural addictions and substances. Then I had to started realising that other people were better practised at making sure they stayed stop so had to let them help me by taking on the suggestions (often reluctantly) - even though I really didn't want them to have control over me.
I would "balk" at many of the suggestions and still do. I am even beginning to take responsibility for my choices i.e. I decided not to stay home for an AWOL call which meant I risked being kicked off if for any fluke I couldn't make it the following week. Yes this was a risk and of course ultimately that could jeopardise my recovery further down the line. Not to mention missing out on some wonderful wisdom shared amongst the people on the AWOL.
But whatever happens I do not want to pick up on my food because it would be just the start of a return to the hell-hole I have crawled from - grimy, slimy and bleak. And a very very small world really. Moments of hedonism can still play euphorically through my thoughts. I just have to remember a few of the consequences when I want to pick up some sugary stuff or some floury stuff. Please God I never go back there. And how grateful I am for each day of abstinence so far. Not because of the food or the weight or the body image although they are important to me too. But for the freedom of  ind and the living to my principles which even as I go along are developing into the person I have truly wanted to be within my soul. I just didn't hear my soul shouting quietly at me. I am beginning to hear. And I smile as I write that.
Wow thank you V for permitting me to write this. It really has helped me enormously.
I hope you are not offended in any way at all. My experience of you so far is inspiring and you are worthy of more than you give yourself. I'm sure you'll have done some shitty things along the way. Well if you're an addict that's almost guaranteed. I did awful things to people and really am so sorry for that. Thank goodness if I stay clean I can choose not to do those kind of things anymore.
And I'm certain that shitty things have been done to you and that is why you are so fragile. I give you a really big friendly hug - don't worry this isn't sex and love addiction playing out - this is genuine empathy and love for a kin.
Thanks for reading this if you've got this far.

Hopefully see you at FA on Saturday.

Bliss
xx