F-HOLES & F-STOPS

Today, my therapist brought up an analogy of a photograph of space. She said at one point of time, when cameras weren't all that advanced and while photographing outerspace, there was a black patch and it was thought there was nothing there. Eventually, with more advanced technology, they discovered that the supposed dark patch was actually filled with balls/sparks(?) of light. We'd been talking about my practices with mindfulness and how, during such sessions, I usually don't notice myself feeling very much, and it feels like nothing is happening. I realized that I'm really used to feeling in extremes, I know extreme joy and thrill from, say, being in a speeding car, or skydiving. I also know extreme grief and despair from my miscarriage and sometimes from certain interactions with my parents. My therapist is trying to get me used to sitting with myself and noticing the smaller details, the non-extreme. Noticing my heart beating, the breath of air entering and leaving my lungs. I just need a different, more fine-tuned sort of aperture to equip my body with the technology it needs to notice all the things that don't live in hyperbole. I really liked and appreciated the analogy. I wish I knew what photograph of space she was referring to, but she didn't remember and couldn't place it. In one of our previous sessions, when asked to describe how I feel at a happy memory, I experienced it as a pulsating, glowing ember of orangey-yellow. I was so happy recalling it that it was practically bursting out of me and my therapist saw me smiling. If I could name an animal that embodies my happiness, it would have been a phoenix. I like that, even though I do think phoenixes are pretty intense, in that they shrivel up in fire and are reborn. But isn't that what life really is about?