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Waiting in the Void: For a Moment of Epiphany
Autumn’s choices left her misunderstood and isolated. She walked with oblivion. She found herself talking to only herself. The burden of knowing and seeing too much at a young age defined her stillness.
As I wander my way through the years. Sometimes searching to avoid my mind. Sometimes lost from promises and lies. Sometimes waiting to save me from myself.
The restrictions between my solitude life, my inconsistent creativity and my graphic implementation were no longer visible resulting in the conversations, letters, stories, and poetry you are about to hear.
Rima Jbara’s self-discovery and deconstruction of emotions in her measured evolution led to a bold reinvention of storytelling in an unvarnished manner.
As I wander my way through the years. Sometimes searching to avoid my mind. Sometimes lost from promises and lies. Sometimes waiting to save me from myself.
The restrictions between my solitude life, my inconsistent creativity and my graphic implementation were no longer visible resulting in the conversations, letters, stories, and poetry you are about to hear.
Rima Jbara’s self-discovery and deconstruction of emotions in her measured evolution led to a bold reinvention of storytelling in an unvarnished manner.
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Published April 4, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 25, 2023
Waiting in the Void: for a moment of epiphany, is set out like a diary of thoughts, emotions, observations and actions that wrap your mind to a deeper understanding of living, understanding and empathising. With being 57 pages this writing piece of non-fiction is packed with deep, insightful experiences from the authors psyche.
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Do you enjoy poetry? Rima Jbara is known for her prose poetry and she takes us along on a journey of self discovery that I deeply appreciate. Rima's poems are placed at the end of each segment as a conclusion. I love it so much.
This is my favourite poem
You Don’t Know About Me
I walk with God.
That is why I am.
Safe
In a sphere I forged of my own
Where my companions are.
Kindness
Compassion
Generosity
Love
Honesty
Worldly far off from.
Greed
Deceit
Hypocrisy
Betrayal
Envy
Absolutely giving this a five star review/rating, it's a very unique experience of life, grief and everything inbetween and we are left thinking that at some point in time we have gone through these. Yes, our circumstances different, but very similar and we can understand and empathise.
Thanking with gratitude to the author Rima Jbara for her insight and wisdom. I was gifted a copy for an honest review.
.
Do you enjoy poetry? Rima Jbara is known for her prose poetry and she takes us along on a journey of self discovery that I deeply appreciate. Rima's poems are placed at the end of each segment as a conclusion. I love it so much.
This is my favourite poem
You Don’t Know About Me
I walk with God.
That is why I am.
Safe
In a sphere I forged of my own
Where my companions are.
Kindness
Compassion
Generosity
Love
Honesty
Worldly far off from.
Greed
Deceit
Hypocrisy
Betrayal
Envy
Absolutely giving this a five star review/rating, it's a very unique experience of life, grief and everything inbetween and we are left thinking that at some point in time we have gone through these. Yes, our circumstances different, but very similar and we can understand and empathise.
Thanking with gratitude to the author Rima Jbara for her insight and wisdom. I was gifted a copy for an honest review.
November 3, 2023
A Book for Warriors:
Sometimes the shortest books need to be read the slowest. Or twice. That’s what I did.
Authors of the confessional genre often invite their readers to go on a treasure hunt or a desert trip. Many readers however, glibly only read the words, tabulate the main themes, assess the narrative style, place the author/ protagonist in a ready-made box and then pat themselves on the back. I took a different route …
What is the void the author boldly proclaims in the title? Why waiting in the void? And is that illusive moment of epiphany, of illumination and sense-making revealed in this book?
Many mystics, gurus and honest seekers know and suggest that true self-enlightenment and self-knowing comes from a place of emptiness. In his intriguing, but difficult, personal project that resulted in “The Red Book”, Carl Jung says “the desert is within you. The desert calls you …” All of us have our deserts. For Jbara is seems her (protagonist’s) desert is called by many names: a wounded soul; a wandering soul; the one fearful disease no one likes to mention; a battle between my nerves; the most dreadful place … is in my head; I drifted from one state to another; fading like a flower; that second alternative child; and a troubled body etc.
Various recollections, memories, poems, musings of past relationships with lovers/ parents, streams of consciousness and short stories are delivered with intense emotional and soulful presence in this book of 10 short chapters. The inner desert and the void are palpable in each section.
Then, like an oasis in a desert, some moments of epiphany and hard self-truths show their faces. For Jbara’s protagonist it appears there are at least two such moments of self-realisation. One is that “most humans are greedy, disloyal and two-faced to one another” coupled with the recognition of what it means to be a “humane human being”. The second ah-ha moment is where the protagonist declares: “my dog is the epiphany I waited for all my entire life”. The dog is given the hallowed title of family and a therapeutic healer.
Each one of us have a desert or a void. Or multiple. Whether we choose to acknowledge and battle these shadows is another matter.
Try and look past the apparent gloom and despair of the void in this book. Many of us grow and see ourselves more clearly from these spaces of emptiness and nothingness. This seem to be the case for Jbara’s protagonist who confidently asserts at the start of the book, “they don’t know the warrior I am”. Maybe that’s the magic; finding life’s meaningful insights when we are at our lowest.
Returning to Carl Jung in The Red Book, I find his words fitting to summarise how to engage with Jbara’s latest offering: “My speech is imperfect. Not because I want to shine with words., but out of the impossibility of finding those words. I speak in images. With nothing else can I express the words from the depths.”
This book is a seeker’s treasure.
Sometimes the shortest books need to be read the slowest. Or twice. That’s what I did.
Authors of the confessional genre often invite their readers to go on a treasure hunt or a desert trip. Many readers however, glibly only read the words, tabulate the main themes, assess the narrative style, place the author/ protagonist in a ready-made box and then pat themselves on the back. I took a different route …
What is the void the author boldly proclaims in the title? Why waiting in the void? And is that illusive moment of epiphany, of illumination and sense-making revealed in this book?
Many mystics, gurus and honest seekers know and suggest that true self-enlightenment and self-knowing comes from a place of emptiness. In his intriguing, but difficult, personal project that resulted in “The Red Book”, Carl Jung says “the desert is within you. The desert calls you …” All of us have our deserts. For Jbara is seems her (protagonist’s) desert is called by many names: a wounded soul; a wandering soul; the one fearful disease no one likes to mention; a battle between my nerves; the most dreadful place … is in my head; I drifted from one state to another; fading like a flower; that second alternative child; and a troubled body etc.
Various recollections, memories, poems, musings of past relationships with lovers/ parents, streams of consciousness and short stories are delivered with intense emotional and soulful presence in this book of 10 short chapters. The inner desert and the void are palpable in each section.
Then, like an oasis in a desert, some moments of epiphany and hard self-truths show their faces. For Jbara’s protagonist it appears there are at least two such moments of self-realisation. One is that “most humans are greedy, disloyal and two-faced to one another” coupled with the recognition of what it means to be a “humane human being”. The second ah-ha moment is where the protagonist declares: “my dog is the epiphany I waited for all my entire life”. The dog is given the hallowed title of family and a therapeutic healer.
Each one of us have a desert or a void. Or multiple. Whether we choose to acknowledge and battle these shadows is another matter.
Try and look past the apparent gloom and despair of the void in this book. Many of us grow and see ourselves more clearly from these spaces of emptiness and nothingness. This seem to be the case for Jbara’s protagonist who confidently asserts at the start of the book, “they don’t know the warrior I am”. Maybe that’s the magic; finding life’s meaningful insights when we are at our lowest.
Returning to Carl Jung in The Red Book, I find his words fitting to summarise how to engage with Jbara’s latest offering: “My speech is imperfect. Not because I want to shine with words., but out of the impossibility of finding those words. I speak in images. With nothing else can I express the words from the depths.”
This book is a seeker’s treasure.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews