Healing for me is being able to sit next to the butcher and say 'Yes, I’m sitting next to the butcher now,' instead of saying 'there is no butcher'.
Tori AmosRead
From in the shadow she calls. And in the shadow she finds a way, finds a way. And in the shadow she crawls, clutching her faded photograph. My image under her thumb. Yes with a message for my heart. She’s been everybody else’s girl maybe one day she’ll be her own.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the struggle of identity and self-discovery amidst external expectations.
In this quote, Tori Amos expresses the journey of a woman who has been defined by her relationships with others, symbolized by the 'shadow' under which she operates. The imagery of her 'faded photograph' suggests a longing for authenticity and self-ownership, emphasizing that while she has been perceived as belonging to others, there remains the hope that one day she will claim herself and her identity as her own.
In practice
During a book club discussion on self-identity and relationships, this quote can prompt a deeper conversation.
Healing for me is being able to sit next to the butcher and say 'Yes, I’m sitting next to the butcher now,' instead of saying 'there is no butcher'.
When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?
If you can't create physical life, you find a life force. If that's in music, that's in music. I started to find this deep, primitive rhythm, and I started to move to it. And I held hands with sorrow, and I danced with her, and we giggled a bit.
I don't want to sit on the sidelines and not value the gift of being here. Instead of the idea of time ticking away, the grains of sand running out, I try to think of time as giving me another grain of sand, another gift. So time passing is an accumulation, rather than a diminishing.
I don't mind a dirty girl. But what I find tragic is when we, as women, become not the subject of our own story but someone else's object.
For many years, I shut down that place inside myself that needed to rage, cry, ask questions and basically just express herself. I made a conscious choice when I put (the song) 'Me and a Gun' on the record not to stay a victim anymore.
What love we've given, we'll have forever.
I'd cut up my heart for you to wear if you wanted it.
Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant filled with the love of God.
Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody--a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules.
Perfect love casts out fear. Where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy; my happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling.
So the lover must struggle for words.
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