|
December 01 2023
Living life on my own terms, standing my ground and stepping
out from the herd is lonely as fuck sometimes. But to live my
life for others or conform to the destructive system that I
was born into would involve succumbing to an even deeper
despair. The kind of loneliness that conformity begets is a
dense blanket of blackness and deceit. My loneliness is
malleable and blooms into brighter colours as the muddy soil
gets tilled and new stars are birthed.
Maybe part of my psychosis or rite of passage or whatever the
crap I went through in my late 20's when I was hospitalized,
is that I’m meant to be a torch bearer, as I was told that at
one point; but I feel like I’m failing in my spiritual duties,
and so often falling in to pettiness, despair and mental
overwhelm. I get wrapped up in delusions and lose touch with
myself, and then I feel like I have nowhere to turn to. I’ve
looked to the spirit world for guidance and support, and they
do their best - but then I’m not following my own heart and my
own soul.
Part of me has been looking to be led and have others make
decisions for me because I feel so lost and confused so much
of the time. The spirits around us are just humans without
bodies and they know no better than me what path might be the
best one to take. Only I can decide which way to turn, and
I’ve been skirting the responsibility for a long time.
It’s interesting, as when I was younger people often told me
that I was spiritually connected, but I saw most of it as
rubbish, and I was very much taking my life in to my own hands
and making decisions for myself more easily. I would have
scoffed at the idea of letting some phantom decide what is the
best course for my life, and anytime a psychic would offer to
do a reading for me I was like no way. But when my
life fell apart I became vulnerable and started looking
outside of myself and seeking answers from wounded souls who
thought that they knew better, and who were happy to take my
money.
I have come across a few guides for myself who are connected
to the spirit world in a way that seems healthy, and they’ve
offered guidance on deeper issues like past lives or dead
loved ones. But for basic day to day existence, I haven’t
found that it’s been overall helpful to seek guidance through
others, and I’ve been led astray many times. The only person
who’s really in tune with me is myself, and I really want to
shift back in to a place of trusting an honouring myself. I
also want to get better at holding space for others in a way
that guides them back to their true selves, rather than giving
advice and feedback so much.
I’m doing yoga a lot lately and it’s been great though has
also been bringing up some very intense feelings, but I'm very
lucky to have the home that I have with such cheap rent and
the solitude to process what my life has become. I’m still
learning how to feed myself regularly and take care of my
basic needs; though I know that I’m on a good track right now
and I’m in a good place being in Victoria even if life still
feels unsettled. A couple of really close friendships of mine
have dissolved, one very naturally and amicably, and the other
with some pain and resentment. The other friendships I have in
my life right now are peripheral – so I'm even more aof a
hermit than usual.
And back to the whole psychic/spirit world thing: I’ve been
overly using pendulum energy as a way to seek guidance, and I
realized that it’s not a very good tool for me right now
because I’m not grounded and centred enough. Basically what
I've been doing is opening up a little portal to the spirit
world and then letting anything come in and guide me, because
I’m so often in distress when I’m seeking answers. I was
wondering why the pendulum was giving me such terrible answers
including straight up lies, and several times I've been guided
to take my life. It's an unhealthy dependency that I've
developed, and it’s something that I’m breaking free from.
I did a cleansing of my space and followed some really
powerful techniques that were shown to me by an elder Cree
woman I met a couple of months ago. These are not mine to
share, though I’ll say that there are some deeply connected
Indigenous people on these lands who have much to offer in the
way of healing; and I feel very fortunate to have been shown
some ways that I can clear my space and keep myself free from
spiritual influences (I adapted them somewhat to be
non-appropriative i.e. I use a hawk feather instead on an
eagle feather for one of the elements).
In being given these gifts I'm reminded of my ongoing duty to
be a part of healing the lands I live on and support the
healing of the people of these lands. I’m stepping in to that
more and more through the connections that I’ve been making
over the past year, and I’m looking forward to the
collaborations that I have planned for the New Year. I'm also
staying open to more layers of my own ignorance being stripped
away, and the painful process of sinking deeper in to the soil
under my feet and recognizing all of the harm that's been
done.
**
The feeling of wanting to die, escape pain and move on from
this life is something that's come up for me a lot throughout
my life, and it’s something that many others close to me
struggle with as well – and some of them have succumbed to
those feelings. I spoke to a counsellor last night when I was
in crisis, and she made herself quite vulnerable and spoke
about her own struggles in holding so much space for others
while working full time on the late night shift. It was really
humbling, and I think that when we can have these types of
connections with others, and reveal how fragile we all are and
be real with each other, rather than take on roles or
personas, that it can be so healing. I didn’t leave the
session feeling necessarily good or full of false promises
about the future, or buzzing in any way. I just felt like I
had more acceptance and understanding, and like I wasn't so
alone. One of the things I took from that conversation was
that I deserve to live. I don’t need to die. I don't need to
deeply internalize every little thing I fuck up at as I fumble
through life. Tying this into decolonial work is complex,
because on the one hand I want to be accountable and recognize
what I carry from my ancestors, yet on the other hand I can
recognize that I'm not able to single-handedly fix 500 years
of slavery and genocide. I know that I can be a better support
person when I'm being kind to myself and taking care of
myself.
Part of my inner strife was that I was trying to cast away the
parts of myself that feel broken and helpless, when what I
really need to do is become aware that they’re there and let
them be – hold the most uncomfortable aspects of myself and
let them have a healthy expression. Harness the pain. Head
bang, Make art. Use the parts of me that want to die as a
force of change and renewal, rather than a force of
destruction and ruin. That’s what I’m stewing in right now.
This came up in a hypnosis session at one point, and the
darkness inside of me manifested itself as a black wolf
wanting to tear me (and others) to shreds like the wolf in the
cave in The Neverending Story. Part of that experience was to
make peace with that entity. And then a couple of years later
a friend made me a painting for my birthday that was of a
wolf, but the wolf was grey and white and had soft eyes and a
kind and gentle presence. It was interesting, as the friend
didn’t know anything about the black wolf spirit, and I knew
that something had changed inside of me. Even more freaky:
this summer one of my aunts who lives up in the Kootenays sent
me photos of a large black wolf who appeared on the side of
the road when she was driving one day and he just stood there
for a very long time. She thought it was the spirit of my
cousin who OD'd a couple of years ago. They were all raised
Catholic and we don't keep in touch much, but I realized that
we still all have a powerful connection with each other on a
spiritual level.
--
I think that part of why these feelings come on so strongly is
that I’m often living through a false mask that I've created
for myself over the years. I can often project too much light
and positivity in a way that isn’t authentic, and then I flip
and become very depressed and cynical. Maybe part of why I was
able to make better decisions for myself when I was younger is
because I was very much connected to the darkness within
myself.
The three cards that I’ve had up on my altar for several
months now are the 5 of Disks, the Ace of Cups and the Art
(alchemy) card from the Thoth deck.
The kind of love I've been giving myself is very conditional
and superficial and I can be so hyper critical of my
appearance, and everything I do and say - and then I start to
project that on to others. It’s so rarely that I look into my
eyes when I look in the mirror. I’m usually looking for some
flaw to hone in on. But recently, I’m looking in to my eyes
and seeing myself as a complete person, rather than a
collection of disconnected fragments to be dissected and
perfected.
Just a few more weeks of darkness and the Solstice will be
here, where the sun be be reborn and bring more daylight each
day.
Soundtrack:
Bathory – Twilight of the Gods
Hulder – Hymns of Forlorn Peasantry
Burzum – Filosefem
Withered – Folie Circulaire
Beach House – Depression Cherry
|