Some may notice 'do ye as ye will', minus the wiccan restraining element 'an it harm none' opens the door to every possibility. Yes, everything is possible. But what is truly in our self interest? This is really the bottom line in any of our endeavors. Just how do we define 'self interest'? This requires some examination to understand what will truly make us the happiest we can be.

Through out our lives, there will be those who have caused us to be less happy than we would have otherwise been, were it not for their actions. How do we decide how to deal with them? From the past, old hurts can smolder, their fire never dying, hurting us anew every time we think about them. I have see this is so in my life, more times than I would like to admit.

We humans do not easily let loose of these hurts. The insult lives again and again in our minds for years afterwards to torture us. But how can we remove this source of suffering? What is the path to understanding that will extinguish the smoldering anger?

I think of my grade school bully. This girl took every opportunity to torment me and to incite others to torment me. Her epithets for me are unforgotten: 'Joanie Baloney' and 'retardo'. 'Retardo' was the one that really hurt. I am slow to speak in public, more so then than now. This slowness was taken to mean that I was 'retarded': dumb, stupid, not as good as the others. I cried so easy and often then, which only made my tormenters laugh.

Time went by, and I soon forgot about the bully. I'd went to college, gotten a degree, and was proving successful at my job. Then one day I saw her on the bus as I was going to work. I was shocked at her appearance. Her once blonde hair was as dull as straw, her blue eyes glassy and her skin gray. The wretchedness of her state was apparent to me. I was shocked and thought, ''THIS is the one who made my life hell in school?''

The rush of understanding surged through me. I then knew that what caused her to torment me had been really a deep seated envy of me. As the years progressed, her state grew worse. But as the years progressed, I had grown in strength, poise and confidence. All the prior pain was flooded over with this new understanding.

I didn't rejoice in her degraded state, I only rejoiced in my poise and strength. Would it have added to my power to have rejoiced in her misfortune? What would it have added? I can't think of anything.

Some may think 'the path of power' includes seeking revenge on those who have caused us to suffer, by some form of cursing. Granted, curses may be possible when all other means have failed to resolve an injust situation, or to cause one who is harming another for whom we care to stop harming that individual. But I am speaking of the rejoicing in their suffering, should this curse bring misfortune to them. Does their suffering elevate US? What is truly in our self interest?

I think of deeper hurts than those of the school bully. I think of their long reverberating echo across the span of my adult life. How is it I have allowed these hurts to smolder for thirty years? As with the childhood bully, the flood of understanding washed the pain away. What understanding can I give to these hurts to wash away this pain?

Those hurts given to us by those who love us, upon whom we are dependent for that love hurt the worst. When we are young, unthinking family members pass on some of the most hurtful judgments. I was the one who could never be 'pretty'. Not REALLY. Maybe 'attractive', 'well dressed', but PRETTY, no, that could never be me. I was the strange one. I heard one family member's comment that the line between genius and mental retardation was very narrow. I can't objectively say that she meant me, but I felt that she meant ME.

Was I so locked into my own little world, and not able to make friends easily that I was 'retarded' in the way of the autistic? Was I 'the crazy one'? Clearly, I felt that I did not measure up to certain family member's standards. I felt isolated, but then the world of the mind, as shared by writers whose books I read, opened up a path of connection. I who could not easily communicate with others around me easily understood the communication left by these writers. It gave me hope. I was not 'lost' in a world of my own imaginings.

Ever since, I have followed that far off 'drummer', as did Thoreau, and it has been my increase in understanding, wisdom and strength.

What can I say to those who did not understand me? What can I say, with the strength I feel in words gathered in solitude?

''Yes, dear family members, I was the strange one. I am 'the strange one'. I will always be 'the strange one', extraño, STRANGE. This epithet once wore heavily upon me, and now I bear it lightly.

What has given me the strength to carry it so lightly? I am strange, and I have discovered it is good to be strange. I am free of your judgments. I don't live by your standards, so if I fail to meet your strigent standards, I have not failed as a human.

It is now liberating to realize that. I don't care whether I follow fashion. Is it 'strange' I always wear skirts and never pants? Is it 'strange' my blouses sometimes 'button the wrong way'? I don't care, I am liberated.''

I know I can claim SOME sort of glamor or 'mystique'. It's up to me to determine what kind fits my personality. 'Miss FrouFrou' I am not, with my cork bed sandals and plain ways, though I pile on the jewelry with the 'best' of them. What fits best with my personality? Perhaps a raw naturalness is best.

It took a long time to fully embrace myself. The 'path of power' comes in a deeper and deeper embrace of SELF, and what makes us unique. It is in this rejoicing that comes the power. I leave to those less fortunate their sadness, perhaps they have earned it. But their misery will NEVER add to my fortune.

I release the past, 'you who could not understand'. I release the past. Perhaps as a youth, I could not communicate in a way you could understand. Perhaps I still cannot. I will leave to the test of time whether there is anything understandable in this hemorrhage of writing I do, release to a soul who knows no other way to get the words out.

There may be others who understand these strange words I use, these strange concepts. I am not hammering here on a wall, all by myself. I am NOT the 'blocked-in' one, the 'walled-up' one, the 'inaccessible' one. I do speak a rare language, perhaps, but it is not in the despair of one who has no words. I pity the one who has no words at all, who clutches at their soul in desperation, and has no way of letting others know of what torments or joys may be theirs.

I am not such a soul. ''Living well is the best revenge.'' This phrase, attributed to George Herbert, (1593-1633) "Jacula Prudentum." needs a bit of further definition. We each define what is 'living well'. Is it stacking piles of material possessions, or is it stacks of mental riches, all so neatly portable where ever we go?

I hold with the easily portable and not easily stolen. Let those who think otherwise, pursue otherwise. We each shall declare our riches. In the last counting, I shall be most proud, I suspect.

I return to the clearing away of the past, and take away the rotted leaves, and let the air reach these barren areas. Growth will come to them and quiet healing. I await its unfolding with joy and delight.

Xeper!

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