December 15 2023

I feel alright.. I don't feel awesome and I don't feel like complete garbage.

It's a tight rope act to hold the various extreme expressions of my personality into a centre point where they can meld together into some kind psychedelic soup for the soul.

On the recent new moon I went to a 6am yoga class, and when I was cycling home the sky looked like something from a Frank Frazzeta painting, with purpley grey clouds cracking into shimmers of maroon and blood red. I cycled down to the Gorge and the sunrise grew brighter and brighter until it exploded into prisms of fluorescent orange. It was one of the most insane and beautiful sunrises I've ever seen, and it made the news the next day. It seemed to be some kind of portal or portent, and I've been reeling a bit since then having dizzy spells, dropping things even more than I usually do, and feeling restless and dopey at the same time.. so ya, I'm just trying to be gentle with myself as the remnants of interstellar goo from this celestial wonder make their way through my energetic body.

A few things I'm doing differently these days:

1. Taking breaks from physical exercise. I'm an ectomorph with a fragile nervous system so I can't do yoga or cycling or anything every day. Also, physical movement brings up emotional and spiritual energy so I need time to process what gets unearthed and not let it get piled up in to a 7 layer dip of etheric excrement. Mostly it just means that I'm crying a lot and spending a lot of time lying in bed. I also haven't been sleeping very well and I'm just accepting that, and trusting that I'll find sleep again when my body is ready.

2. When I feel anxious and overwhelmed by driving or being out in public too much, I go home. I cancel plans and I say no to people, resisting my programming to always be available and always help others when needed. I realized that a lot of my meltdowns were happening because I wasn't recognizing when I was getting overwhelmed, and when I needed to retreat. It's a bit ridiculous how much alone time I need, but it's something I just need to accept about myself.

3. I'm drawing my energy back in to myself and detaching from my connections to others. I have a tendency to hold on to other people's energy after they share stuff with me and then I'm thinking about them and wondering if they're okay and it's very distracting. I also have a tendency to connect too deeply with people who I don't know very well and then I get attached to them, but that can freak people out, and real friendships build slowly over time. It's hard being in a new town, not drinking or smoking weed, and being a bit shy, cause it takes a long time to make friends. I've also had a lot of experiences of people keeping me in their life at an arm's length and kind of using me as needed for an energy supply when they want a friend, but then discarding me when it suits them. I'm doing a lot of work to detach from those kinds of interactions. I'm really proud of myself for not taking the easy route, which would have been to befriend the first crazy party people that came my way and get back in to drinking, as presented itself to me at the first metal show I went to in Vic. I'm staying true to myself and going it alone until I make sincere connections with like-minded weirdos.   

4. Energetic boundaries. Little by little, as I say no and as I express myself openly and honestly to others; and as I give myself loving energy and take care of my body mind and spirit, I feel healthy energetic boundaries forming around myself. I had an incident come up when I was in downtown Portland a couple of months ago where I was waiting for food at a food truck pod with a lot of people around. There was a very vulnerable woman going from person to person asking for money, and her energy was very intense. I expected that she would approach me, as people tend to B-Line for me when they're in need, but the opposite happened: I was invisible to her. She paced back and forth and asked nearly everyone for money except for me. I knew that a big shift happened within myself. I did have a woman come up to me at a bus stop who was going through recovery, but it was a healthy exchange because she had just done a huge amount of work to get herself clean and she was on her way to a treatment centre in California. We talked a lot and I shared some of my own experiences overcoming addiction, and I didn't feel drained by her. She hinted at giving me her number so we could keep in touch, but I didn't respond because I felt like we were just meant to have a short profound interaction; and I knew that both of us needed to break out of dependency in relationships. I gave her a big hug and I truly wished her well, yet knew that her life was in her hands and that I wasn't meant to hold her hand.

5. I'm still staying strong in not getting physically intimate with anyone until I get to know them. This is extremely frustrating at times, yet I'm putting my spiritual and emotional needs above my physical needs.

6. I'm eating more regular meals. I went way more over the top than I ever have with stockpiling groceries and pre-making foods that are now in a full freezer, and I keep stuff on hand that I can snack on right away, like dates and almonds, or peanut butter and toast. It's hard cause I'm vegan and make everything from scratch, but it's entirely possible because:

7. I almost never use social media anymore, and I don't have the internet at home. I can go out on my porch and get 500mb of free internet every 7 days from a local provider and I get crude internet through my flip phone, so I still have some connection, but it's very minimal. This leaves me with so much free time for writing, reading, cooking, and other creative pursuits; and it's been radically life changing. I've been able to accomplish so many things that are nurturing to my heart and soul.

8. I finally relented to living alone. I was really scared to do so because of my fragile mental health. I felt that I needed to be around others and that I needed to find a romantic partner to help me heal. Yet in the end, it's been solitude that's helped me fully emerge from the embryonic void that I was in, and to feel safe. I felt ashamed to be alone and I felt like I was a big loser for not getting my shit more together by now, but I've had to accept myself and my life as it is. Sometimes it's so fucking painful to face, but every time I come out of the other end of my grief, I feel lighter and more whole; and I feel more deeply connected to myself. I've had people stay with me at times, and that's been really great, and I'm finding a balance of solitude and connection. But overall I'm really working to accept that I'm alone and getting in to my mid-40's (holy shit!!). There's so much shame in the world around ageing, especially for femmes, and so I'm constantly shedding all kinds of bullshit conditioning that I inherited from society. Letting my hair go silver has been awesome, and I'm still surprised by how positively people respond to it - though I do live in a fairly alternative place, and I see a lot of beautifully aging people around here that I can be inspired by.

8. Nature, nature nature.. nature heals, and I'm so lucky to be round so many beautiful wild spaces.


I still don't know what I'm going to do for the holidays. I wasn't able to get a bus home. I might be able to find a ride share, I don't know. I have an invite to go to my cousins but I kind of want to let her have her time with her family and not interfere.

I was feeling really anxious about it last night and crying a lot. No joke, it sometimes really sucks to be on one's own and not have solid loving kin to spend the winter time with and be joyful together. I'm not going to drink my way through it like I did when I was younger though. I guess I just don't know what I'll be doing and I'm okay with that. 

A cool thing: I moved near the water over 10 months ago and people told me that there were seals around, but I never saw them despite often sitting on a nearby dock, and cycling along the water hundreds of times. And then last week: I started seeing seals! The first time was when I was cycling over the bridge, though when I pointed it out to a passing pedestrian, the seal went under the water. Actually that's happened to me quite a few times when I've tried to share my wildlife sightings with passerbys, and then the animal will quickly disappear - which I reckon is to let me know that I'm meant to have a solo communion with the creature before me, and should keep some mysteries and secrets to myself. So I won't be writing about the other ones that I saw..