Embracing My Dark Joy

Please enjoy Zoe Keating as you read about my Autumn beginnings. Even though it will not take you 8 minutes to read, it is worth a listen for your own seasonal enjoyment. 

On this blustery and cooled off morning the heat kicked on for the first time in quite a while and the heated floor in the bathroom was switched on.  Layers are being layered with leggings, socks and scarves being amassed rather than cami’s, skirts and flip flops being donned to stave off the heat.

Yesterday was a warm-ish day filled with thunder, lightning, then pounding rain. Still I managed to get a smoke in whilst sitting in the side yard, with coffee in hand I watched a gang of blue jays yap about and make trouble for the chickadees and even a lovely peregrine flew above my head. With storm clouds advancing and mist forming, it hits me, I need to let go of the idea that this is a prison sentence and just be ok with being in the US awaiting a decision out of my hands, so I may make my own.

The moment I let myself go into this, all sorts of Autumn thoughts filled my head deciding I needed to make pumpkin bread, buy thick warm tights, and long sleeved shirts.  Just fucking face the fact that this is where you're going to be till November girl, so why not let go and ENJOY it? I mean it’s not like this isn’t my favorite season other than Spring…the other season of equilibrium.

Balance is being set and as a sign Mother Nature sent me a cute pair of raccoons last night as I was yet again smoking in the side yard. One stood up with paws out for balance sniffing the air as my cigarette smoke wafted towards him. They came very close but realized I was indeed a human retreating back to eating the moss off our concrete wall. Being a magical thinker, I of course saw this as a sign. A sign that I need to learn how to wear masks as I transform and perhaps stop sharing every shard of pain or even happiness with everyone. Keep some discoveries close to my heart in rites of secrecy to gain in potency, sharing only with those closest or just with me, myself, and the ones from the/my other side of things.

Soon the smell of fallen leaves in various stages of decay will fill the air with a magic that can only be found here in the cool North. I cannot wait to get back to the perpetual butterfly house that is Belize, but for now I will allow the season of late harvest bring me this particular dark joy. 

Just Say FUCK NO to Suicide!

I did not know till I looked up crisis line numbers for this post that this is National Suicide Prevention Week. We are actually in its final days and so though late to the party, I have something to say on the subject of wanting to end yourself.

I've been working on an article with tips and the what not on how to survive a deep dark depression, knowing the subject intimately, I thought I would share how I manage this feat over and over again.

Today I have only one thing to say...KEEP BREATHING! Call for help when you feel you can't and accept the help given as sometimes we fight an inner battle with life and death leading to fighting the very help we asked for. Ok, that’s actually three things…but try to imagine someone taking your life, would you fight for it? If so, there is a part of you that wishes to live no matter what. I know that sometimes it’s more than we think we can bear…but we do! Some of us cycle this over and over again and live despite how easy it would be to take all the drugs the psychologist has so conveniently prescribed us.

I also recommend finding a tether. Mine is my daughter. I go through a mental list of people who likely would be impacted by my death and how they would react and proceed with their lives. My daughter is the one being I know who would be damaged by my leaving. It is my responsibility to live for her, I made a deal with the Universe to give birth to her and you just don’t go and break a bond like that. So find your bond and believe me, most everyone has one and that bond may not be of the human variety. It could be a cause, a pet, a message meant to be given by you and only you. It can be ANYTHING. Hell it could be a tree in the forest you love, so tether you to it and when you come to your precipice, tug on it and know this is why you stay.

I will not lay claim to know this will work for everyone, I am sure there are people it won’t.  When you’re depressed it’s fucking hard to see opportunity, you only see what’s wrong, and that perhaps it’s just fucking time to say goodbye. And if this is the case for you, finding a reason to live is harder, but if you have spun down into this place and came out the other side before, it means you know how to survive, that your will to live is stronger than your will to die. Managing this makes you one strong mother fucker! You stared death in the face and said ” nay…I have shit to do, some other time perhaps.”

So just keep breathing and share your tales of survival with others. The more people talk about suicide the less taboo it becomes. The more we talk openly about it, the less alone we all will feel. I have no idea how many die because they share their feelings to friends and family and were met with discomfort and no words of support because they didn't know what to say. The crisis line can be a tether in those moments. If it is only for that moment when you need someone to listen, they are there for you, so please make the call.

Be Grateful...Breathe...Repeat

Grateful Thursday

I used to do this as a list and I think I will get to that next time. For this first one though, I think I want to keep it big picture and simple.

I am grateful that I NEVER GIVE UP!

Never giving up means I get to discover magic in places no one would dare look. I am not saying this is the way one ought to live, I am saying that it is mine, and I am grateful that though it be terrifying, I never let go of my lovely tether and decide…no more.

This first Grateful Thursday post is brought to you by a meeting of endarkened minds, the introduction to a forever-friend I never knew I had, and that I have so much more to learn and share. Sharing is caring and I intend on caring a whole fucking lot, all over the fucking place.

Get ready world, I am coming back…

Photo: my own from Belize during the dry/fire season.

Back the Fuck up Buttercup...

This is just fucking silly. Happiness is not in the wings waiting for you to feel nothing so it can fill in. We feel a great many things both nice and not so nice. These feelings are not killing our happiness, we simply are NOT happy in the moment.

We find our way to happiness, it is not a given. Most of the time, for most of us, this takes concerted effort. To me memes like this one, though intended to be uplifting, can be the polar opposite for those of us still struggling with balance in our enlightenment. There are also the ones just touching a toe in the pool, still feeling afraid and angry, happen upon a sweet tidbit like this and think "fuck! I just killed an angel!" See to some in the fragile state (the gooey cocoon stage) of enlightenment, a message like this can seem fatalistic as one braves their inner dark terrain finding feelings to match.

We need more voices voicing realities rather than ridiculous ideologies that no one can live up to. And why oh why do more not see that this is just a side way step to the right away from Christianity. Stick an eagle feather in your cap and call yourself a white-lighter.

Which by and by…is okee dokee by me, just please refrain from wrinkling your nose in distaste at the knowledge that some of us are in the muck and glory of this gorgeous planet called Earth and finding our way through the dark... naturally.

Goddess Am I

The mind is the birthplace of the imagination, it is here where our feelings are processed making truth that it’s the ones that “act” upon the imaginable, that change the world. Waltz intent right into the world of form and you are making shit BE.

If it were that simple for everyone, humankind on a whole would know there are no differences between us as a race AND all that we survey. In turn the human race would come to the natural conclusion that we all are indeed….deity.  

Winter Is Coming....

There can be no doubt at all, that I am mad as a hatter at present. I’m way deep in it and all I can do is silently scream into the quiet room as I blast music into my brain via ear buds. Winter is fast approaching and I feel that if I am still here when He starts his frosty march…I will just lay down and let him take me into the slumberlands.

I need movement. I am statue-ing into what I'm sure will not be a pretty forever face. My pain will be for all to see and not just the bits I allow access to. As it is my body swells with raging discontent observable to any watching the downward spiral I presently ride since my return to the states.

I need an intervention, but since I make it impossible to dominate me long enough for that sort of thing to be utilized, I shall do so for myself by sending me on retreat. I go to write and to be alone and to chisel off the icy marble attempting to stiffen me into the above mentioned, forever face.

This is not how this story ends.

Babble posts are better than no posts at all.....

Waiting is not my strong suit. Patience is not in my vernacular. Even with a knowing that I would indeed wait with no patience for it at all, I still fell into a puddle in the basement, in my bed, with my iPod firmly linked to my brain. It’s my new coping tool…do nothing but listen to music and figure out the mysteries of the Universe. One day I just know this will be of consequence, for now it feels like limbo on steroids.

Oh and have I figured some big shit out! But it’s as per the usual, hard to put into words readable by other, you know, humans. But I will tell Jana all about it and she will figure out the little tidbits that sound insane to me and make a sense of it. I do so love her for that. I need a decoder ring sometimes and she can be that for me and for this gift I want to kidnap her and take her with me…plots have plotted.

The one thing that is clear and easy to communicate is the release of more control that I insist on attempting even when I know there is nothing for it. I watched me fall into the puddle from an outside place and wondered why I was bothering. It seemed out of date and rather redundant. Still I did it for I had no other avenue at the moment to flow my inertia upon. I mean what do you do with suspension other than get comfy cause its fucking happening.

So this time I paid painful attention to every infliction and regret I set upon myself. I have it all stored up looking to never go into repeat mode again. I know I can alter how I react to these moments. I mean I did! Never did I go into the suicidal ideology moment, well not authentically. I heard the words and they fell flat. It might actually now be boring to want to die knowing I will never fucking actually do it. I live because I fucking cannot allow me to die. That is a FACT, so why fight it. See…I am letting go.

Can I have my Love Cookie now?