going outside in

I started to try going for walks recently. It’s difficult with no energy and legs full of clots and arthritis. I rely on a cane to assist the walking. While its good mentally to exercise, my body fights me every step of the way. Yes, I need the exercise for my physical health too, but I could do exercise more suited for my disability at home. It’s just not as stimulating mentally. My plan to get shade in the yard and a pool will help tremendously. However, that all takes money. That leads to my feelings of uselessness and depression that Is followed by anxiety. today’s walk was more difficult because we’re getting into warmer weather. The combination of the heat and sun wreaks havoc on my body with my autoimmune disease. I start feeling sick and tired. followed by body aches and a fever, but I still walk. I know I’m going to be sick for a few days after this, but still, I walk.

I get home and start to drink lots of water and immediately elevate my legs. I pushed it too much, but it was good. knowing full well I am not doing anything for the night, I pack a bowl and go outside to medicate and meditate. while i am relaxing I sit and listen to a friend who is online singing songs. Mikey From the band outside in is telling stories about his life and his music. I no longer am thinking about my problems. Instead, I am going on another journey with the group. The songs are sung differently and with a different purpose. I found myself happy to be lost in the story teller’s web. Simultaneously I feel other stories coming in. I try for my pen and paper, but my hands fail to grip them. I scribble down what I can and again find myself wallowing in self-pity yet again. I no longer feel that I am in the web. but on the ground with a head full of mangled webs and dust. Have I become another image of the aging person? The ones struggling with loss of something that’s too far away still to concern themselves with. Yes, it could be around the corner, but I don’t want to sound like some anecdote. “How can you live life if you’re constantly hiding in fear of it?”

I sit down in the chaise lounge with the sun setting beside me. still trying to write my thoughts. Again, finding metaphors all around me. Can the universe write a louder joke? I’m sure it can, but while I am depressed, I am laughing at the image of me complaining of getting old against the sunset. So let me now tell you that I am going to try to learn how to laugh. I know it sounds like a bizarre statement, but seriously I feel like I forgot. I need to laugh at myself. I need to laugh at the irony. because worrying about the destination ruins the entire journey. I focus on the evening air cooling down. The amazing colors of the Arizona sunset draw a calm smile to my face. The peacocks in the distance bring music again to my ears. They draw the picture together with the dogs conversing with the others in the neighborhood. the busy roads in the distance get muffled out by the mariachi music on someone’s radio down the street. The smell of a barbecue grill cooking meat fills the air and again i feel calm.

As the calm comes over me, I am visited by a couple hummingbirds. They greet me as they pull up for a drink. After a few moments they buzz by my head and pause to look at me showing a sign of appreciation for the food. I feel thankful for that moment. I feel accomplished. The ravens fly over and roost in the tree for a while. The peanuts I have put out for them every day have made them feel at home here. I notice one of them dropped something that falls to the ground heavier than a peanut shell. I walk over to find a shiny washer that looks like it was polished by course sandpaper on one side. This was a gift for the food. I look at them and say thank you. They caw in acknowledgment and then fly off again. Again, I feel grateful and accomplished. The sun sets lower and it’s getting dark.

I will see you tomorrow My friends.

Criss-crossroads

For the past few days I’ve been struggling to sleep and feel grounded. I kept feeling like someone was calling me. Something needed my attention. Then while looking I find a person on a TikTok video. She’s in pain not only physically but emotionally and spiritually. She was sent into hospice care. She was young and obviously scared. The emotional overload was intense. I saw it was an older video so I followed her story. I watched every video she posted after that. It was emotional and I saw in some videos a couple paintings. They were of me. Well my avatar (snowy owl) anyway. They were of snowy owls. One specifically was just like a painting I did over 30 years ago. It was one she painted herself. This made me even more intrigued. She had a need or request for a taste of New Orleans. This as well piqued my interest. I followed every video until the final one. I wept. I sobbed feeling loss deeply. She passed away the same day I felt heavy air around me and was struggling to sleep.

I had already done my crossroads work with Papa Legba so I had spent a lot of energy already. I’ve spent the past couple days preparing and will be doing some extra work while I’m in the crossroads to help this familiar soul that faced fear and death as bravely as anyone could. She accepted that she couldn’t stop the inevitable but she did what a lot of people do when facing such a finality. She mourned the life she was losing while she was still in it. I know that feeling all too well. It’s the trigger of 99% of my panic attacks. This made me realize how much time I continuously waste on inevitability. I should just say it’s my time when it’s my time, but it’s in our nature to fight to survive. To cling on to it but in the end it’s all the same and we lose to the infinite power of the end. Why do we spend so much time worrying about it? Regardless, we always tell ourselves that we will live out our life until we can’t But I’m sure there’s always going to be that ugly little presence of fear that will peak it’s face occasionally. It seems like a waste of time to worry about what you can’t control, so why do we do it? Is it a lack of faith? Is it fear of losing control? Whatever it is, I haven’t figured it out yet. I have theories but until I can definitely pass from physical life to death and back again several times. It’s happened a few times already. A couple overdoses back in the late nineties, and a few internal bleeds that brought me close a couple times. But It’s not something I want to play with regularly. However I go there existentially all the time, but doing it physically is far more dangerous, because there’s most definitely a chance it would be permanent. Maybe it’s not meant to be understood. Maybe it’s just a part of the journey you need to experience. Time will tell.

I never know when I’m completely out of the crossroads, or if I ever really was or will be. However as crazy as I feel, it seems to feel completely normal. As with everything I want to thank Jessica for sharing her story with me. Her experience really made me look at myself. Rest easy.

The faceless

In a fight to save others from a controlling man from a violent and controlling society, I was caught. Held prisoner I was forced into the endoctrinement process. They beat and tortured me until I was no longer recognized as the person I once was. They cut off my hair and even peeled the skin from my face. The entire society was like this. They considered the process of removing the skin from your face a holy and noble gesture. There were only 2 types of people in this place. Those with face in tact. They were considered most holy and descended from god. Then there were those who must have no face and must remove their evil to be worthy of mercy and love.

There was a time I knew peace and beauty. Love was natural and free of tithing. Then the faceless came. Followed was fear, fighting, brutality. The world started getting sick and dying. Nothing of the love and beauty was left. Love and beauty were so forgotten that they changed them r meaning. Now it was only the faceless.

Curtains

From time to time I step away from the part I play in life. This thing we haphazard play a part of. We never really know what we’re doing in this role we play, but it tends to occupy a vast part of our existence. Once in a while I come back to this role of being human and I realize that not everything we do is random. There are parts that feel like they’re played out to serve a purpose. The problem with that is we forget there is a purpose. We forget we have a part to play. we feel momentarily like a deck of cards that has been spilled out on the floor and need to be resorted and all turned to face the same direction again. For that brief moment we have a glimpse at the collective consciousness that we all draw from. Then and only then do we find it easier to accept our part in the story being played out before our eyes.

Echos and voices

Another night I’m sitting in the corner. I’m hiding from the world that surrounds me. I’m not here and I’m not there. The echoes don’t stop talking over the music. Getting lost in the background drowning in the mud that’s sliding all around. Can I have a minute to breathe?

The smoke fills the air while we chase away the screams. Fleeting voices whisper secrets that were never meant to hide. Singing loudly from a muted pillow hiding in the fear of being heard. Feathers fall in the crimson pools below. Never should have been so quiet before it was time to go.

Now we sit here together but in places so far apart. Nothing being said but stories being told. Too many times I’ve been alone in a room with so many people. Another night lost to the anxiety that keeps me from my peace of mind.

The chimes are ringing.

The road to ur’anus

Writing down the random images in my head sometimes leads me down a strange path. Sometimes there is no clear path. So we have to navigate blindly through the chaos of our individual mental illness or physical handicaps. One minute you’re walking a very familiar stretch of road. On the side walk, passing by the corner convenience store, then your suddenly stuck between floors in a stairwell with no doors. You can see through the spaces to the places you want to go, but there’s no way to get there. It’s out of reach. Panic sets in. Frustration and desperation floods your active thoughts and actions.

Stop

Breathe

Close your eyes.

Looking inside yourself, picture what you see outside the cracks. Where is it you’re trying to go? Is it something you thought you wanted or is it that you find yourself someplace else? No destination is ever written in stone. The stone merely is carved out by the path your life has flowed. You can’t truly enjoy the beautiful pattern until you step back and see the whole thing. We are insects working to burrow in the earth or in a tree. Maybe we build great combs of gold. We are no different.

A lot lately I have realized that my anxiety and panic comes from the questions of why, or What, or how? Accepting that I’m only here to eat, shit, fuck, is to boring and mundane. I’m not some mindless organism strictly here to multiply and help decomposition of the planet, am I? conscious thought sometimes is some cruel bullshit.

Elevation and evolution

Moving past thought and limitations of self preservation, we find so much clarity in the flow of exploration. If we stop limiting our thoughts of what we were taught to believe, we can discover the next step of our journey through following our instinct. It’s truly a beautiful thing to find that you have the ability to do something without having to understand it first. By turning off our conscious thought we can tap into the subconscious link into the world around us. The concepts of physical and metaphysical, conscious and unconscious, real and unreal, are all just a perception you choose to follow or not.

Housekeeping

Today I published a couple items that have been sitting in my drafts. They’re incomplete like most of my thoughts. However they needed to get out. The ideas are only words, but just because I had an idea doesn’t mean I need to finish it. It’s very difficult to complant task when you’re so typically ADHD. So I figured it’s just best to start with what I know and let the reader take it from there. Besides a seed not planted will never grow.

Believing is seeing. Not the other way around.

As a seer of stories, I tend to be dramatic when sharing those things. Whether it’s just images, or words. The vessel changes as the story grows. This too in life, changes how we see the world around us. When you see with your whole self you can only then really see what life can become.

How does a tree look when you only use your eyes? Does it change when you breathe through your nose? Does it change when the wind blows or a bird on its branch sings? At what point does your heart open up to what the tree means to you? If your only half seeing something, do you really see it at all?

I understand why some Christian folk are so fanatic. It’s good to have an idea that there’s something more. More than yourself, and that it’s worth your love. They believe it s much that they preach and try to convince others to share in what they found. That’s sharing joy. But that joy is soon turned to burden when you won’t accept that not everyone sees it like you do.

Instead of putting faith in an idea of a god, we truly worship your god. What if I told you we all are gods? We were created in their image? What if you loved yourself as much as you loved your god? Could you have the strength to endure any hardship? Would you have the wisdom of patience? Would you have the feeling of love for what you are? Can you look in the mirror at yourself with all of your being, and really see how truly Devine you are? How will your story change and how will it change you?