  You may or may not have figured out that I am an avid journal-er. I have been keeping journals since the summer before I began highschool, so since 1995. For Christmas/ birthday this year I cleaned out the attic in my parents house. 2 days of intensive memory releasing drugery. At one point I found my journals. I think that I have about 20 volumes, some written in code, some tear stained, some scrawled, some neatly and tightly written.
It's slightly traumatizing whenever I go back and read them. When women give birth it is (and this may be an obvious statement) extremely painful. Not just a little painful, but one of the most painful things ever. Not having done it, this is as descriptive as I can get. Women are not dumb, and unless you are an endorphine junky this kind of pain is ridiculous. So how does birth keep happening?
Science has recently told us (and I can't sight a source, sorry) that during childbirth a chemical is released that acts as a memory suppressant. Basically, you reach a certain pain level, and your there, and its horrible, and you forget all of the things you said about it being sacred, you stop being a goddess and start hating everything because this pain is seeping through your entire soul. Then, when it is over, this chemical starts kicking that basically lets you recall that it hurt, it hurt a lot, but other than that its really rather vague. What I'm wondering is, looking back at these journals I can hear myself howling in emotional turmoil. There are passages where I look back and remember how dark and hopeless and terrible I felt, for any number of reasons. Some of this was pure angst, pangs of teenage-ness that happen.
Others, well it just hurt. Do we create some sort of memory block, something that lets us forget pain? You may be thinking, "Ummm, yeah. Have you learned anything about psychology, cause that's called repression, or is something Freudian or something. " Yeah, I know, but think about it. Think about the last time you were really hurting, and think about how you were there, in the moment, full on in this icky emotion.
Or for that matter, when your heart was soaring, stupid fast beating at the thought of another person, their smell, dreams where you wake up from flying and everything is permeated with magick. These emotional peaks or valleys are clearly not where we spend our lives, or not most of us. They seem to fade, become surreal, until they come again. They are memories of an emotion, without the emotion part, like food without flavor, or sleep without dreaming. Where does that go? When emotion is there, it is there, and personally I can do very little to stop it.
It is a pure moment. I have a tarot card (this deck called "Morgan's Tarot" that was given to me long ago and has served me very well) that says "illegitimate Feelings. " When you read about the card, here is the joke, feelings can't be illegitimate- they just are. What you feel is. Just is. You can't have a feeling you are not suppose to have because emotions are just that, pure, free.
Now, say you are a woman who has body issues and you feel embarrassed at the beach because of it. Some may argue that you should not be feeling this, yes? That it is a social construct. However, you are feeling it. Plain, simple, that emotion is. Emotions seem to manifestations of the present, even if they are triggered by the past or future.
They are. There. Now. Could this be why our memories of life's pains, and joys, become hollow, or less full? They are slide shows of the beach, devoid of the immersion that is the beach. Emotions are a beach?
If you are still with this rant, I congratulate you. I think that it would be almost an example of train of thought writing. One last comment. I had a dream my freshman year of college. The details are hazy but I stepped out of the dorm and the sun was out, and it was snowing very faintly, and there was a small black boy standing by a bench. He looked up at me and said "Be," but at that moment it was all things: it was "B", "b", "Be", and "Bee".
What do zen monks mean when they say "just be"... 
