I Hold the Line

           I'm a bit obsessed with this Peter Gabriel song lately:

I've always liked it, and I always knew it was vaguely Native-American themed, but I recently read an account of where the idea for the song comes from, and now I like it even more.  Apparently, it's a fictionalized account of a coming-of-age ritual where 14 year old Native American boys would accompany the Medicine Man up the mountain, where the Medicine Man would take a rattlesnake out of his bag and let it bite the boy.  The Medicine Man would then travel back down the mountain.  The boys would hallucinate for a few days, and then either make it back down the mountain and become a man in the tribe or they would die.   

I've been finding it very inspiring.  Strength and hope in the face of uncertainty and pain and fear.  Holding on.  Maybe failing/dying.   Plus I love that repeating sample pattern that runs through the whole song.  

I'm a different person than I was a year ago.  

Not better, not worse.  Or maybe both better and worse.  Happier and sadder.  

I've noticed that the songs I've written over the last few years all refer to feeling empty.  

I no longer feel empty.  I feel pain, I feel joy, I feel calmness, I feel anxiety, but I don't feel empty anymore.   I feel everything moving through me constantly changing.  It feels good.  Even when it feels bad.  

Why is this text center-aligned?

What am I holding on for?  

What comes next?