Relief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  PART SIX Faith, Reason and Unreason (1648– 1870) T HE TWO DECADES of the 1640s and 1650s form one of the great watersheds in the history of Christianity. Up to this point, the ideal of the total Christian society, embracing every aspect of man’s existence, still seemed attainable; and masses of men were prepared to wage war, to massacre, hang and burn to realize it. Christendom was split, but each of the rival parties saw their system of belief ultimately becoming coextensive with humanity, and themselves bidden by divine command to hasten the process at whatever cost. They were still, in a sense, mesmerized by the Augustinian vision conceived over 1200 years before. With the 1650s we get a change: war and suffering are replaced by exhaustion and doubt, and the European mind seems to sicken of the unattainable objective, and focus on more mundane ends. There is a huge, long-delayed and grateful relaxation of the spirit, a dousing of angry embers. Anthony Wood, writing his diary from an Oxford coign of vantage, gives a sardonic picture of the university moving back, in the years 1660–1, from republican commonwealth to parliamentary monarchy, from the dominance of Calvinism to Anglican conformity. A century before, the fires had burned fiercely outside St John’s College. Now the atmosphere is low-key, a mere heightening of the customary struggle for places, fellowships and influence, the raucous exchange of abuse and insult, low japes and ribaldry. The age of the martyrs had ended, for a second time. Wood relates what happened when the triumphant Anglicans brought back vestments to the cathedral services. ‘On the night of 21 January 1661, some varlets of Christ Church’ took all the new surplices issued to the choristers, and threw them ‘in a common privy house belonging to Peckwater Quadrangle, and there with long

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘And if I have my way, you shall see so much of her that before you die you’ll be sorry you ever asked such a favour.’ Leaving Gianni, he spoke to the men charged with carrying out the sentence, and ordered them not to proceed any further with-out new instructions from the King, to whom he forthwith made his way. And although he could see that the King was extremely distraught, he was not to be deterred from speaking his mind. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘what injury have you suffered from the two young people you have sentenced to be burnt down there in the square?’ The King told him, and Ruggieri continued: ‘They have done wrong, and well deserve to be punished, but not by you; for although wrongdoing requires a punishment, good deeds require a reward, to say nothing of pardon and clemency. Do you realize who these people are that you are so eager to put to death at the stake?’ The King replied that he did not know them, whereupon Ruggieri said: ‘Then I shall make it my business to tell you, so that you will see how unwise it is for you to let yourself be carried away by your anger. The young man is the son of Landolfo of Procida, blood-brother to Messer Gianni of Procida, through whose efforts you became King and master of this island. The girl is the daughter of Marin Bòlgaro, without whose power and influence Ischia would be lost to you tomorrow. 7 What is more, these two youngsters have long been in love with one another, and it was not out of any disrespect towards your royal highness, but rather through being constrained by their love, that they committed this sin of theirs – if sin is a suitable word to describe the things young people do in the cause of love. Why, then, should you wish to have them put to death, when you ought to be entertaining them right royally and bestowing precious gifts upon them?’ On realizing that Ruggieri must be speaking the truth, the King was not only filled with horror over what he was proposing to do, but bitterly regretted the action he had already taken. So he promptly sent word that the two young lovers were to be released from the stake and brought into his presence. These orders were carried out, and after inquiring fully into their condition, the King decided that he must make amends, through largesse and hospitality, for the indignity he had caused them to suffer. He therefore had them newly clothed in courtly attire, and arranged, by their mutual consent, for Gianni and the girl to be married. And finally he sent them back, well content and laden with magnificent presents, to the place from which they had come. There they were received with tremendous rejoicing, and long thereafter lived in joy and happiness together.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  TENTH STORY The wife of a physician, mistakenly assuming her lover, who has taken an opiate, to be dead, deposits him in a trunk, which is carried off to their house by two money-lenders with the man still inside it. On coming to his senses, he is seized as a thief, but the lady’s maidservant tells the judge that it was she who put him in the trunk, thereby saving him from the gallows, whilst the usurers are sentenced to pay a fine for making off with the trunk. Now that the king had finished, only Dioneo was left to address the company. Knowing this to be so, and having already been asked by the king to proceed, he began as follows: These sorrowful accounts of ill-starred loves have brought so much affliction to my eyes and heart (to say nothing of yours, dear ladies) that I have been longing for them to come to an end. Unless I were to add another sorry tale to this gruesome collection (and Heaven forbid that I should), they are now, thank God, over and done with. And instead of lingering any longer on so agonizing a topic, I shall make a start on a better and rather more agreeable theme, which will possibly offer some sort of guide to the subject we ought to discuss on the morrow. Fairest maidens, I will have you know that in the comparatively recent past there lived in Salerno a very great surgeon called Doctor Mazzeo della Montagna, 1 who, having reached a ripe old age, married a beautiful and gently bred young lady of that same city. No other woman in Salerno was kept so lavishly supplied as Mazzeo’s wife with expensive and elegant dresses, jewellery, and all the other things a woman covets; but the fact is that for most of the time she felt chilly, because the surgeon failed to keep her properly covered over in bed. Now, you may remember my telling you about Messer Ricciardo di Chinzica, and of the way he taught his wife to observe the feasts of the various Saints. This old surgeon did much the same thing, for he pointed out to the girl that you needed heaven knows how many days to recover after making love to a woman, and spouted a lot of similar nonsense, all of which made her wretchedly unhappy. But as she was a woman of considerable spirit and intelligence, she resolved to put the family jewels in cotton wool and wear out some other man’s gems. Having gone out into the streets, she cast a critical eye over a number of young bloods, eventually finding one who was exactly to her liking, and she made him the sole custodian of her hopes, heart, and happiness. On perceiving her interest in him, the young man was powerfully smitten, and wholeheartedly reciprocated her love. His name was Ruggieri d’Aieroli, and he was of noble birth.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When Martellino came before the ruler, he gave him a full account of what had happened, and begged him as a supreme favour to let him go about his business; for until he was safely back in Florence, he would always feel that he had a noose round his neck. The ruler went into fits of laughter to hear of such remarkable goings on and ordered each of them to be provided with a new suit of clothes. Thus all three emerged from this dreadful ordeal better than they ever expected, and returned home safe and sound.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  There’s nothing special down here about the mother of a godchild.” I was so relieved to hear it that I could have wept.’ The dawn was now approaching, so Tingoccio said: ‘Farewell, Meuccio, I can’t stay here any longer.’ And all of a sudden he was gone. Having learnt that there was nothing special down there about the mother of a godchild, Meuccio began to laugh at his own stupidity for having in the past spared several such ladies from his attentions. From that day forth, having shed his ignorance, he was a much wiser man in dealing with such matters. And if only Friar Rinaldo had known as much as Meuccio, there would have been no need for him to make up syllogisms when persuading Madonna Agnesa to minister to his pleasures. * * * The sun was descending in the west and a gentle breeze had risen, when the king, having brought his story to an end, removed the crown of laurel from his

• From The Decameron (1353)

  wheedled the gaoler into letting her speak to Ruggieri. And after telling him what he was to say to the judge if he wanted to be saved, she actually succeeded in getting the judge himself to grant her a hearing. The judge saw that she was a tasty-looking dish, and thought he would have just one little nibble before listening to what she had to say. Knowing that she would obtain a better hearing, the girl did not object in the slightest, and when the snack was finished she picked herself up and said: ‘Sir, you are holding Ruggieri d’Aieroli here on a charge of theft, but you’ve arrested the wrong man.’ She then told him the whole story from beginning to end, explaining how she, who was his mistress, had let him into the doctor’s house, and how she had unwittingly given him the opiate to drink, and how she had stuffed him inside the trunk thinking him to be dead. After this she told him about the conversation she had overheard between the master-carpenter and the trunk’s owner, thus showing him how Ruggieri had ended up in the house of the money-lenders. Seeing that it was an easy matter to verify her story, the judge first of all inquired of the surgeon whether what she had said about the potion was true, and discovered that it was. He then summoned the carpenter, the owner of the trunk, and the money-lenders, and after listening to a string of tall stories from the money-lenders, he found that they had stolen the trunk during the night and brought it into their house. Finally he sent for Ruggieri and asked him where he had lodged the previous evening. Ruggieri replied that he had no idea where he had lodged, but that he clearly remembered going to lodge with Doctor Mazzeo’s maid, in whose bedroom he had drunk some water because he was very thirsty; what happened to him after that he was unable to say, except that he had woken up in the money-lenders’ house to find himself inside a trunk. The judge was greatly entertained by what he had heard, and made Ruggieri and the maid and the carpenter and the money-lenders repeat their stories several times over. In the end, pronouncing Ruggieri innocent, he ordered the money-lenders to pay a fine of ten gold florins, and set Ruggieri at liberty. You can all imagine what a relief this was for Ruggieri, and of course his mistress was absolutely delighted. She later celebrated his release in the company of Ruggieri himself, and along with the dear maid who had wanted to stick him with a knife, they had many a good laugh about it together. Their love continued to flourish, affording them greater and greater pleasure – which is what I should like to happen to me, except that I would not want to be stuffed inside a trunk.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Clinging grimly to the edges of the chest with both hands, just as we see a man in danger of drowning attaching himself firmly to anything within reach, he was sighted by a peasant woman, who happened to be scouring and polishing her pots and pans in the sand and salt-water. At first, being unable to make out what creature it was that was approaching the shore, she started back with a cry of alarm. He said nothing to her, for he was quite unable to speak and scarcely able to see. But as the current bore him closer to the shore, she could make out the shape of the chest, and, peering more intently, she first of all recognized a pair of arms stretched across its lid, after which she picked out the face and realized it was a human being. Prompted by compassion, she waded some distance out into the sea, which was now quite calm, took him by the hair and dragged him to the shore, chest and all. There, with an effort, she unhooked his hands from the chest, which she placed on the head of her young daughter who was with her, whilst she herself carried Landolfo away like a baby and put him into a hot bath. She rubbed away so vigorously at him and poured so much hot water over him, that eventually he began to thaw out and recover some of his lost strength. And when she judged it to be the right moment, she took him from the bath and refreshed him with a quantity of good wine and nourishing food. After she had nursed him to the best of her ability for several days, his recovery was complete and he took stock of his surroundings. The good woman therefore decided it was time to hand over his chest, which she had been keeping for him, and to tell him that from now on he must fend for himself. And this she did. He could remember nothing about any chest, but he nevertheless accepted it when the good woman offered it to him, for he thought it could hardly be so valueless that it would not keep him going for a few days. His hopes were severely jolted when he discovered how light it was, but all the same, when the woman was out of the house, he forced it open to see what was inside, and discovered that it contained a number of precious stones, some of them loose and others mounted. Being quite knowledgeable on the subject of jewels, he realized from the moment he saw them that they were extremely valuable, and his spirits rose higher than ever. He praised God for once again coming to his rescue, but since Fortune had dealt him two cruel blows in rapid succession, and might conceivably deal him a third, he decided he would have to proceed with great caution if he wanted to convey these things safely home.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘even if I were in my native city, and not in yours, I count myself the sort of friend who would never do anything that was contrary to your wishes, either in the present instance or in any other. Besides, I am more than ever bound to respect your wishes in this matter inasmuch as you have wronged one of yourselves, for this young woman comes neither from Cremona nor Pavia, as many people may possibly have supposed, but from Faenza, though neither she nor I nor the person who entrusted her to my care ever discovered whose daughter she was. Hence I am fully prepared to do as you ask.’ The worthy men were surprised to learn that the girl was a native of Faenza, and having thanked Giacomino for taking so generous a view of the matter, they asked him to be so kind as to explain how she had come under his control, and how he knew that she was from Faenza. Giacomino said to them: ‘Guidotto da Cremona, who was a friend and comrade of mine, informed me on his deathbed that when this town was captured by the Emperor Frederick, and everything was being plundered, he and his companions entered a house and found it full of booty. All the inhabitants had fled except for this girl, who would be about two years old at the time, and as he was going up the stairs, she called him “father”. He felt sorry for the child, and together with all the valuables from the house, he took her with him to Fano. And in Fano, as he lay dying, he appointed me her guardian and bequeathed to me everything he possessed, on the understanding that when she grew up I would see that she was married, handing over his fortune to her by way of dowry. She is now of marriageable age, but I have not yet succeeded in finding a suitable husband for her. The sooner I can do so the better, for I’ve no wish to suffer the things I suffered last night all over again.’ One of the people present was Guiglielmino da Medicina, who had been with Guidotto at the time of this escapade, and remembered quite clearly whose house Guidotto had plundered. Seeing the owner of the house standing there with the others, he went up to him and said: ‘Bernabuccio, do you hear what Giacomino says?’ ‘Yes,’ said Bernabuccio, ‘and I was just thinking about it, because during those upheavals I lost a little girl of the age that Giacomino mentioned.’ ‘Then it must be the same girl,’ said Guiglielmino, ‘for I was once in a place where I heard Guidotto describing the house he had looted, and I recognized it as yours. Try and remember whether the child had any mark by which you could identify her, and get them to look for it.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Come on out, you’re quite safe.’ Having overheard everything, Leonetto emerged from his hiding place with an expression of terror all over his features, which was not very surprising considering that he had indeed been frightened out of his wits, and the husband said to him: ‘What is your business with Messer Lambertuccio?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the young man, ‘I have no business with him whatsoever, and that is why I firmly believe that he is out of his mind, or that he mistook me for somebody else, for no sooner did he see me, a little way down the road, than he drew his dagger and said: “Say your prayers, you blackguard” Without stopping to ask him the reason, I took to my heels and ran in here, where thanks to God and to this kind lady, I escaped from his clutches.’ Then the nobleman said: ‘Come now, don’t be afraid; I shall see you to your doorstep safe and sound, and then you can have some inquiries made, and discover what it is all about.’ After they had all had supper together, the husband conveyed the young man back to Florence on horseback, and saw him to his own front door. Later that evening, in accordance with instructions he had received from the lady, Leonetto spoke privately with Messer Lambertuccio, and so arranged matters that even though many more words were spoken on the subject, the nobleman never came to know of the trick that his wife had played upon him.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  His wife prepared a bowl of gruel for the lady, after which she undressed her and put her to bed. Between them they arranged that both the lady and her maid should be taken to Florence later that same night, and this was duly done. On returning to Florence, the lady, who was by no means deficient in guile, wove a completely fictitious account of how she and her maid had sustained their injuries, and persuaded her brothers, sisters, and everyone else that it had all come about through the machinations of evil spirits. The physicians promptly set to work upon the lady, but since she shed the whole of her skin several times over because it kept sticking to the bedclothes, she suffered untold agony and torment before they succeeded in curing her of her raging fever and other infirmities. They also attended to the maidservant’s thigh, which in due course mended itself. In view of what she had been through, the lady gave no further thought to her lover, and from then on she wisely refrained from playing any more tricks or falling deeply in love with anyone. As for the scholar, when he heard that the maid had broken her thigh, he deemed his revenge sufficient, and went happily about his business and said no more about it. This, then, was the foolish young lady’s reward for supposing it was no more difficult to trifle with a scholar than with any other man, being unaware that scholars – not all of them, mind you, but the majority at any rate – know where the devil keeps his tail. I advise you therefore to think twice, ladies, before you play such tricks, especially when you have a scholar to deal with.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The Abbot, being a sensible man, had by this time swallowed his pride, and informed him where he was going and why, whereupon Ghino took his leave of him, and resolved to try and cure him without the aid of spa-waters. Having given instructions that the room should be closely guarded and that a large fire should be kept burning in the grate, he left the Abbot alone until the following morning, when he returned bringing him two slices of toasted bread wrapped in a spotless white cloth, together with a large glass of Corniglia5 wine from the Abbot’s own stores. And he addressed the Abbot as follows: ‘My lord, when Ghino was younger, he studied medicine, and he claims to have learnt that there is no better cure for the stomachache than the one he is about to administer, which begins with these things I have brought you. Take them, then, and be of good cheer.’ His hunger being greater than his appetite for jesting, the Abbot ate the bread and drank the wine, at the same time displaying his indignation. He then became very truculent, asked a number of questions, and issued a lot of advice; and he made a special point of asking to see Ghino. Since much of what he had said was pointless, Ghino chose to ignore it; but to some of the Abbot’s questions he gave polite answers, affirming that Ghino would visit him as soon as he could. Having given him this assurance, he took his leave, and a whole day elapsed before he returned, bringing the same quantity of toasted bread and Corniglia wine as before. He kept him in this fashion for several days, until he perceived that the Abbot had eaten some dried beans, which he had deliberately left in the room after smuggling them in on an earlier visit. He therefore asked the Abbot on Ghino’s behalf whether his stomach seemed any better, to which the Abbot replied: ‘It would seem to be all right, if only I were out of his clutches; and apart from that, my one great longing is to eat, so fully have his remedies restored me to health.’ Ghino therefore made arrangements for the Abbot’s servants to furnish a stately chamber with the Abbot’s own effects, and gave orders for a great banquet to be prepared, to which a number of the residents and all of the Abbot’s retinue were invited. And next morning he went to the Abbot and said: ‘My lord, since you are feeling well again, the time has come for you to leave the sick-room.’ And taking him by the hand, he led him to the stately chamber and left him there with his own attendants, whilst he went off to make sure that the banquet would be truly magnificent.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Tell me, Biondello,’ he asked, laughing, ‘what opinion did you form of Messer Filippo’s wine?’ ‘The same as the one you formed of Messer Corso’s lampreys,’ he replied. Then Ciacco said: ‘From now on it’s up to you: if you should ever try to present me with another of those sumptuous meals, I shall supply you with one of these excellent drinks.’ Knowing it was easier for him to bear ill-will to Ciacco than to do him any actual harm, Biondello bade him a polite good day, and took care never to play any tricks on him again.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  When it was over and the audience had applauded, I felt light as paper, weightless as a ghost. Hugging Jamie good-bye, I collected my purse and jacket from the greenroom. I couldn’t wait to be in my car on my way home, glad that it was over, ecstatic with relief that the audience hadn’t booed me, that their ardor for Anaïs was so great that they would have sat through anything for her. I felt my sleeve being pulled as I was almost out the door. I turned around to see the young woman escort who had led me with her flashlight down the dark tunnel to the stage. “Don’t go yet. There’s someone who wants to talk to you.” “I didn’t invite anyone.” “The audience. They’re asking for you.” She forcefully guided me to another door and opened it. There was a line of women, and when they saw me they smiled uncertainly, a hopeful, crazed look in their eyes. They were there for a piece of Anaïs. I felt safe as long as the women were ordered in a line, but as soon as I started to talk with the first one, the rest broke out of formation, surrounding me, crowding me, suffocating me. I couldn’t see a way out. I was frightened and tried to move through them, but they wouldn’t let me. I could see they had brought gifts for Anaïs, handmade scarves, paintings, flowers and handcrafted books. Their tender, unripe faces were full of rapture like those of my students the night Anaïs visited the commune. “You look so much like her!” a woman with a crooked smile cried, and others agreed. “You have to settle an argument.” A stout woman bustled forward with her middle-aged friend. “You really are Anaïs’s daughter, aren’t you?” An innocent looking girl pushed a hand-beaded purse into my hands. “I made it for her. I want you to have it.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’ll give it to Anaïs,” I promised. “I want you to keep it,” she said and, trembling, came close for a hug. Jamie eyed me suspiciously. I knew he was seeing me as the ambitious understudy eager to usurp her mentor’s place, a ruthless Eve Harrington in All About Eve. But he was mistaken. I didn’t want Anaïs’s place. I didn’t want the purse beaded for her. I didn’t want the gifts or the sweet-smelling bouquets thrust into my arms. I didn’t want the suffocating hugs. I didn’t want Anaïs’s borrowed fame. To my amazement, I no longer wanted fame at all. Being surrounded by these excited, delusional people frightened me.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  With the creation of this healing vortex, our choices are no longer limited to either reliving our traumas or avoiding them. There exists now a third optio n - one that I call “renegotiation.” In renegotiating trauma, we begin to mend the ruptured bank by circling around the peripheries of the healing and trauma vortices, gradually moving toward their centers. We begin by riding the warble (wobbly oscillation) created by these two opposing forces, experiencing the turbulence between them. We then move slowly and rhythmically, back and forth, from one to the other in a figure-eight pattern. By beginning with the healing vortex, we pick up the support and resources needed to successfully negotiate the trauma vortex. By moving between these vortices, we release the tightly bound energies at their core as if they were being unwound. We move toward their centers and their energies are released; the vortices break up, dissolve, and are integrated back into the mainstream. This is renegotiation (Fig. 4). Margaret Margaret is a client who has a close enough natural connection with the felt sense that she does not censor or interfere with the healing process once it begins. She is a middle-aged physician who has had years of recurring symptoms such as neck pain and lower abdominal cramping, for which no cause could be found in spite of extensive testing and unsuccessful treatment. As our session begins, Margaret tells me she feels an asymmetrical tension in her neck. I encourage her to observe that sensation. As she focuses on the tension, her head initiates a subtle turning motion (orienting response) to the left. After a few minutes, her legs begin to tremble gently (discharge). She feels pleasure in the release, but is suddenly startled by the image of a man’s face. After moving through a series of uncomfortable bodily sensations and waves of emotion, other images begin to unfold: She “remembers” (at age five) being tied to a tree by a man who rips off her clothes, swats her, then pushes a stick into her vagina. Margaret again moves through a swell of emotion but remains connected with her physical sensations. Next, she is lying on a bed of raked leaves. She feels excited, yet calm. Suddenly she sees a vivid, detailed image of the man’s face. It is red and contorted. Beads of sweat drip from his forehead. Then, in the same breath, Margaret shifts again and describes the autumn leaves on the ground. They are all around her. She reports that she is frolicking in the leaves and feels a crisp sensation. She is delighted. In her next image, she is once again being tied to the tree. She sees the man with his fly open, his penis hanging out. He cuts a rabbit open with a knife and screams at her that he will kill her if she tells anyone. She has the sensation of her “head going crazy inside.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “When I die, you and Hugo will both be beneficiaries of my estate.” She had his full attention now. “But for the all-important job of executor, I have chosen the man who understands and loves me the most, the one to whom I am most deeply bonded, the one who is my true love. You, Rupert.” “I love you so much, Anaïs!” he cried. “So please tell me that you forgive me. Set me free from guilt as I have freed you.” “I do.” “Please say the words, ‘I absolve you.’” “I absolve you, Anaïs,” he repeated with all his actor’s intensity. TRISTINE “Tristine! I’m free! I told them both the trrut. Everything,” she exalted, a youthful lilt in her voice as she placed a hand on the edge of her desk to help her rise from kneeling. Once upright, she raised both arms in triumph. “And they both forgave me!” What else could they do, I thought. Camille on her death bed. “No more guilt, no more hiding,” she sang, as if to make sure I understood the importance of her release after all her years on the trapeze. She had swung between those two men in terror of falling off, of one of them letting go of her, of inflicting pain on one of them, and now she rejoiced: “I’m really free!” I grinned back at her, ecstatic to see her so happy. “Rupert really has accepted the situation.” She pulled open a drawer in the corner file cabinet. “Hugo phoned here last Sunday, and Rupert greeted him as if they were old friends. Then Rupert handed me the phone and took Piccolo for a walk.” “That’s wonderful,” I exulted with her, though I had an unexpected aftertaste of envy. “So now Evelyn Hinz gets to write the truth in your authorized biography, now that your story has a happy ending.” “Tristine!” She broke into a pink-gummed whinny. “You really have gone Hollywood!” Knowing she was teasing, I came back, “Just because Hollywood knows people love a happy ending doesn’t make it wrong. They taught us in film school that the audience will forgive you almost anything if you give them a happy ending.” “Perhaps, but even with a happy ending, Hugo and Rupert would be seen as cuckolds.” I thought from the way she said “cuckolds,” making it sound in her high notes like a cuckoo calling, that she might not really consider that a major hindrance, but then she repeated the old warning: “My trapeze has to remain a secret, even after I’m gone. You can’t tell anyone until—” “I know, Rupert dies.” “Yes,” she said hesitatingly. “Until the last one dies. Which will probably be Rupert because he’s younger.” “Rupert doesn’t really have a girlfriend, does he?”

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In 1522, a Dutch lawyer, von Hoen, joining with other Netherlanders, sent Luther a copy of some of Wessel’s writings.1173 In the preface which the Reformer wrote for the Wittenberg edition, he said that, as Elijah of old, so he had felt himself to be the only one left of the prophets of God but he had found out that God had also had his prophets in secret like Wessel. These three German theologians, Goch, Wesel and Wessel, were quietly searching after the marks of the true Church and the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone. Without knowing it, they were standing on the threshold of the Reformation. § 76. Girolamo Savonarola. Ecce gladius Domini super terram cito et velociter. In the closing decade of the 15th century the city of Florence seemed to be on the eve of becoming a model municipality, a pattern of Christian morals, a theocracy in which Christ was acknowledged as sovereign. In the movement looking towards this change, the chief actor was Jerome Savonarola, prior of the [picture with title below] Savonarola Dominican convent of St. Mark’s, the most imposing preacher of the Middle Ages and one of the most noteworthy preachers of righteousness since St. Paul. Against the dark moral background of his generation he appears as a broad sheet of northern light with its coruscations, mysterious and protentous, but also quickly disappearing. His message was the prophet’s cry, "Who shall abide the day of His coming and who shall stand when He appeareth?" Savonarola, born in Ferrara Sept. 21, 1452, died in Florence May 23, 1498, was the third of seven children. Choosing his grandfather’s profession, he entered upon the study of medicine, from which he was turned away by a deepening impression of the corruption of society and disappointment at the refusal of a family of Strozzi, living at Ferrara, to give him their daughter in marriage. At the age of 23, he secretly left his father’s house and betook himself to Bologna, where he assumed the Dominican habit. Two days after his arrival in Bologna, he wrote thus to his father explaining the reason of his abrupt departure. I could not endure any longer the wickedness of the blinded peoples of Italy. Virtue I saw despised everywhere and vices exalted and held in honor. With great warmth of heart, I made daily a short prayer to God that He might release me from this vale of tears. ’Make known to me the way,’ I cried, ’the way in which I should walk for I lift up my soul unto Thee,’ and God in His infinite mercy showed me the way, unworthy as I am of such distinguishing grace.1174

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  The next thing I knew, Jean-Jacques was standing above me with a washcloth and a towel. I was confused. “Did I throw up?” I said. “No,” he laughed. He must have seen my alarm. “Nothing happened,” he assured me. His voice was comforting, and the washcloth with which he wiped my stomach was wet and warm. I let my hand go to my tummy. To my relief I was still wearing my panties, but where the elastic top met my bare skin, I felt something sticky. He wiped my fingers then with the towel and softly patted my tummy dry. Later I could hear the toilet flush in the bathroom, and he came back to my bedside. I tried to slide over in the cot so he could sleep next to me, but he kissed me on the forehead. “Goodnight, little one.” My last thought before I drifted back to sleep was, I forgot to get the books from Anaïs.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘That’s not what I mean,’ said Meuccio. ‘What I want to know is whether you’re among the souls of the damned, in the scourging fires of Hell.’ ‘Not exactly,’ replied Tingoccio. ‘But I’m being severely punished just the same, because of the sins I committed, and it’s all very painful.’ Then Meuccio questioned him in detail about the punishments that were meted out there for each of the sins committed on earth, and Tingoccio described them one by one. And when Meuccio went on to ask him whether there was anything he could do for him, Tingoccio replied in the affirmative, saying that he should arrange for prayers and masses to be recited on his behalf, and for alms to be given, since these things were highly beneficial to the souls of the dead. All of this Meuccio readily agreed to do. Just as Tingoccio was leaving, Meuccio remembered about Monna Mita, and raising his head a little, he said: ‘By the way, Tingoccio: what punishment have they given you for making love to the mother of your godchild?’ Whereupon Tingoccio replied: ‘My brother, as soon as I arrived down there, I was met by one who seemed to know all of my sins by heart, and who ordered me to proceed to the place where I am being severely punished for my misdeeds. There I found a large company of souls condemned to the same punishment as myself, and as I stood in their midst, I suddenly remembered how I had carried on with my godchild’s mother. And since I was expecting to have to pay a much heavier penalty for this than the one I had been given, I began, even though I was being roasted in a fierce and enormous fire, to tremble all over with fear. On noticing this, one of my fellow sinners said: “Why do you tremble so when standing in the fire? Have you done something worse than the rest of us?” “Oh, my friend,” said I, “it fills me with terror when I think of the judgement that awaits me for a dreadful sin I have committed.” He then asked me which sin I was referring to, and I said: “I made love to the mother of my godchild, and went to it so heartily that I shed my pelt in the process.” He had a good laugh over this, and said: “Be off with you, you fool! There’s nothing special down here about the mother of a godchild.” I was so relieved to hear it that I could have wept.’ The dawn was now approaching, so Tingoccio said: ‘Farewell, Meuccio, I can’t stay here any longer.’ And all of a sudden he was gone.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Lashley’s experiments with rats. Independently, around the time of Penfield’s surgical observations, experimental psychologist Karl Lashley was also attempting to discover the areas of the brain that carried the imprint of memory. Lashley performed an extensive series of rather grisly experiments in which he taught rats to find their way through a maze and then systematically chopped up parts of their brains. Even after their cerebral cortices had been all but destroyed, the rats could still find their way through the maze. To Lashley’s amazement, their memory of the maze remained in place up until the point that the rats had too little brain left to do much of anything. Lashley spent almost thirty years of his life searching for the location of memory in the brain. He never found it. In spite of the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars and the efforts of some of science’s brightest minds, little evidence has ever been found of a complete memory that has its own location in the brain. This surprising revelation has prompted speculation and conjecture regarding the nature of memory. The groundbreaking work led by Edelman, Rosenfield, Ahsen and others has given us another way to look at memory. The idea that memory is not an accurate recording device turns our conventional notions upside down and backwards. In so doing, it offers a reprieve to traumatized people who are caught on the endless treadmill of trying to piece together a coherent movie of what happened to them. But It Seems So Real! If memories are not literal records of events, then why do some of the images created during periods of intense arousal seem so real? Recent research suggests that the realness of an image is reinforced by the intensity of the arousal associated with it. Pierre Gloor, a Montreal surgeon working in the same city as Penfield some fifty years later, discovered that the “memories” Penfield reported were only activated when the electrodes stimulated both the sensory areas and the limbic portion of the brain simultaneously. The limbic area of the brain is largely responsible for feelings and emotions. Gloor and his colleagues concluded that “some affective (emotional) or motivational significance to a perception may b e ... the precondition for the perception to be consciously experienced or recalled and may imply that all consciously perceived events must assume some kind of affective dimension, if ever so slight.” In other words, they concluded that emotional feelings are essential for the experience of remembering. In another study, William Gray found that juvenile offenders (to whom he was trying to teach new behaviors) only made real changes when there was an emotional tone associated with their perceptions. Otherwise, they would “forget” what they had learned. Other researchers have expanded on Gloor’s and Gray’s find-ings and their conclusions are virtually the same. An associated emotion or feeling is an essential prerequisite for any remembered element of experience. But what happens when there’s an overwhelming arousal?

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Nancy became a heroine twenty years after her ordeal. The running movements made by her legs when she responded to the make-believe tiger allowed her to do the same thing. This response helped rid her nervous system of the excess energy that had been mobilized to deal with the threat she experienced during her tonsillectomy. She was able, long after the original trauma, to awaken her capacity for heroism and actively escap e —as Bob Barklay did. The long-term results for Bob and Nancy were similar. Released from the debilitating effects that plague so many trauma sufferers, they were both able to move on with their lives. As the work developed I learned that the healing process was more effective if it was less dramatic, occurring more gradually. The most important lesson I have gleaned is that we all have the innate capacity to heal our traumas. When we are unable to flow through trauma and complete instinctive responses, these incompleted actions often undermine our lives. Unresolved trauma can keep us excessively cautious and inhibited, or lead us around in ever-tightening circles of dangerous re-enactment, victimization, and unwise exposure to danger. We become the perpetual victims or therapy clients. Trauma can destroy the quality of our relationships and distort sexual experiences. Compulsive, perverse, promiscuous, and inhibited sexual behaviors are common symptoms of traum a - not just sexual trauma. The effects of trauma can be pervasive and global or they can be subtle and elusive. When we do not resolve our traumas, we feel that we have failed, or that we have been betrayed by those we chose to help us. We need not blame this failure and betrayal on ourselves or others. The solution to the problem lies in increasing our knowledge about how to heal trauma. Until we understand that traumatic symptoms are physiological as well as psychological, we will be woefully inadequate in our attempts to heal them. The heart of the matter lies in being able to recognize that trauma represents animal instincts gone awry. When harnessed, these instincts can be used by the conscious mind to transform traumatic symptoms into a state of well-being. Acts must be carried through to their completion. Whatever their point of departure, the end will be beautiful. It is (only) because an action has not been completed that it is vile. — Jean Genet, from Thiefs Journal 3. Wounds That Can Heal When a young tree is injured it grows around that injury. As the tree continues to develop, the wound becomes relatively small in proportion to the size of the tree. Gnarls, burls and misshapen limbs speak of injuries and obstacles encountered through time and overcome. The way a tree grows around its past contributes to its exquisite individuality, character, and beauty. I certainly don’t advocate traumatization to build character, but since trauma is almost a given at some point in our lives, the image of the tree can be a valuable mirror.