Sandy Supposes....

Joni is Canadian!

PROMPT: Motivation Monday! Singer Joni Mitchell, born on this day back in 1943, once said, "Chase away the demons, and they will take the angels with them." What do you think about this? Is it necessary to have demons, if only to keep the angels around?

         Whew! Potentially serious, heavy topic here... First of all, I confess, I Googled Joni Mitchell. It's not that I didn't recognize her name, or anything. As I read a bio, I came to realize just how prolific a songwriter she is. I easily remember many of her songs, and now I'm humming their tunes. Ack! I never knew that Joni was a fellow Canadian, awesome! We have much to be proud of, and considerable bragging rights. Anne Murray , Celine Dion, and Shania Twain are not our only exports. Happy Birthday Ms. Joni Mitchell!

          So, back to the prompt... Okay, my first thought is of the old cartoons in which the hero/heroine had an angel complete with a shiny halo on one shoulder, and a red devil with horns and a pitchfork on the other shoulder. It's the good versus evil thing. We are all of us tempted. Our conscience/morality battles our baser hedonistic urges. People are complex. We are capable of both right, and wrong.

         Perhaps it's a balance. We cannot have one without the other. Angels and demons are symbiotic. They each create a need, a purpose for the other. So much of life involves opposites; love and hate, peace and war, hot and cold, joy and sorrow, up and down, relief and pain, serenity and anger. Who experiences, understands, or recognizes any of these without the other? They illuminate each other.

         Maybe Joni was referring to the struggles of everyday life, or remarking on the reality of mental health. There is both beauty, and ugliness, but it shapes us. Here is another quote attributed to her, "Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl. Most of my best work came out of it."