The Moon is a Siren, I howl back my Consent into Lunacy.
The old story is a gold mine. Excavate it for the goods.
(A thing I felt inspired to make when the title quote came into my mind a couple years ago.)
For a long time now, ever since I decided to open the flood gates to my true self, and subsequently, my true writing here on Substack, I have contemplated how I want my Substack experience to be. What I want my reader’s to see. Who I want to show to the world. I think it is a process that we all go through here and should take it seriously. I spent much of that early process in fear, which I mentioned multiple times. And for good cause. After being pretty much invisible my whole life, the fear of being visible was very strong. However, several times, the world reflected back to me that fear, and showed me that I should still be authentic despite my natural invisibility cloak. I recently discovered ayandastood on YouTube, and I am so glad that I did. Her video on the fear of being seen helped push me through the door into being authentic and showing up here that way.
In fact, the world is continuously showing me signs, symbols, and omens with which to reflect upon myself with. That is because I consider it my teacher. I consider myself in an continual act of learning and I consider the universe to be directly and absolutely involved with my well being. I consider myself to be an Alchemist. My life is increasingly more spirit-centric, and I cannot separate myself from that fact.
When the world is both the teacher, and the study material, life becomes exciting and invigorating. Every thing that comes my way is a potential goldmine. Both negative and positive aspects of life hold value and can be utilized. The world shows up to me in a consistent way for a portion of time relating to the lesson I am to learn. There is always a consistency, a synchronistic thread that is a clue. Something I can pull and unravel to gain greater understanding of myself. Something to Excavate from the mire of confusion I used to reside in. My most beautiful writing typically coincides with what I have risen from deep within myself, what I’ve excavated from Life’s Lessons. Poetry I excavated from an old journal:
"this time around I came as a housewife driven to madness under the weight of the disguise. Wondering the desert looking for a hand to serve. Pretending the ultimate hand was not mine. As if I were saying "You shall tell me how horrid I am." And more accurately "That is until I tire of this nightmare and wake." I look around and see this prison couldn't possibly contain me. I'm a bird, only my wings are made of fire. I'm an eye pretending it can laugh. That I am not laughter in itself. That the clapping in all the audiences and the actors in all the plays are not me. Is it not I sitting in all the thrones? Not I scoffing at another as if that word has substance in the world of fire? I demand a lover. A caressing tender love. One who is his own self. One my shadow cannot erase. And when the soil crawls with invisible bugs and I awake in the Earth, I am her as well. Pretending I did not ask to be tilled. To be fertile still. And when my words demand to be known as if there's another someone who seeks them, I laugh and sit back in my throne I cast out this spirit who has entered my castle. My thoughts are like crows flapping at their own shadows. And my self is the seed they cannot swallow."
(Edited to address the housewife mention in the beginning of the poem. I came back around to being a housewife again and I’m very happy doing it on my terms. So I came this time around as a housewife)
So lately, it isn’t very surprising to me that a common theme I am experiencing is Excavation. My neighborhood has had cause for three excavators in the last week, one parked right outside my house. We live on a country road, so it isn’t common here. Before that, I was hearing the word excavation randomly, and even Blippi mentioned the “Excavator song” in a recent episode my littlest was watching.
So what have I been excavating? Myself. My external reality has nothing to do with that part of me that is unseen by anyone except me. And at the same time, it is entirely a reflection of myself. Even during the worst times of my life, I had gold within me. And that is why I talk about the old story. There was a time when I felt insane by what I was experiencing in my mind. All of my coping mechanisms were breaking down and my eyes were beginning to open to the fact that what I was being subjected to, I was allowing. I know that is a very uncomfortable thought. It was maddening to believe that I had allowed myself to be objectified. On the surface, I didn’t want to accept it. Why would I do this to myself? Why would I have traumatized myself all these years. But it is true. And I believe this is the difference between a Lost Girl, and a Found Woman. A lost girl was taught she was unworthy, valueless, and has nothing to offer. A waste of space, and she lives her life in a state that represents that internal feeling.
Regenerating the old dust into the new bodies like the memories he cannot let die the crooked man tells you he'll save you while at the same time, making you cry "Remember how your mother didn't love you, and your father wished you'd died" He'll say "I'll make sure you walk straight and the monster within you survives" He'll lash your good and whip your shame and relive his righteous deeds and smile while you stoop low to the ground to escape his ire Green with envy when you reach out Red with rage at your impertinence "How dare you discover your true brilliance"
And a Found Woman knows all of that is untrue. She has found herself. She has the power to cast aside those old ideas like garments. Or the papery layer of an onion. As if they are made of burning coals, they’ll burn to ash to float away on the wind. And what is left is pure liquid gold. The world is simultaneously showing one that they are that primordial substance, while trying to pretend they aren’t. And in this way, the world is always doing us a solid. As it is always reflecting back to us what beliefs are holding us down.
Within my body, that of a woman, I am a vast ocean. And a garden. And they are one in the same. Sunken deep into the water and the soil is a treasure more precious than gold. It is a seed. A germ. Something with which I have the power to sow discontent, or contentment. At my leisure. On my whims. Which one I choose is the one I see reflected back to me.
Within myself is a spirit. A soul. And with that soul, once risen, I become. My body begins to hum and I am flooded with emotion and joy. And yet not on a consistent regular basis. Not yet. I am always in the act of becoming. Or untangling. Undoing. Becoming undone. Unclothing, unwrapping until the dross, that papery outer layer of little substance is burned away. And this process is an alchemical one. I am an alchemical process. I am turning lead into gold every day.
I have always been an alchemist. And I will always be one. Even when I didn’t know what that was conceptually. Even when the mists of time conceal my true nature yet again, and I am a whisper on the wind blowing my descendants hair.
I once asked a childhood friend why she didn’t want to play with me when we first met. Her reply really surprised me. Paraphrasing it: “You were like an effervescent thing. A fairy of a child that I couldn’t fully comprehend.”
I suppose I must have spent most of my life this way in the eyes of others, because I often ask people if they remember something we did together as children, and most of the time they don’t. It is as if I flitted in and out of their lives like a stone bird who turned into air. I am almost always remembered fondly with a sense of calm and love. However, I am rarely solidified in their mind. I’m forgotten until I remind them I exist. In my memories, I am sitting over my shoulder, following myself around, unable to see my face, but knowing it is me. And I’m doing things with people, and they have forgotten it all. But they remember knowing me. Most of the time, they remember my smile as if I were the Cheshire cat, teeth shining bright across the sky, lighting up the night.
I know why that is. I chose invisibility. I purposely tried to become invisible so that I could stay safe. So that I could disappear into the woods or down the road, doing my own thing like a dragon made of clouds. Like a rainbow.
Being invisible meant that when I forgot who I was, and allowed another to bind me into a reality that felt like the pits of hell, I was unable to rely on old friends to help me discover myself. I had to dive deep into my own shifting sands to reconstruct who I am. It was as if I were drowning at times, and other times, like I was on fire. Often, it was as if I were buried 6 feet under. Sometimes it was as if I were floating on air and flying across the night skies with wings no one else could see. During all of those times, I was a spirit in a human body. I had no family connections to tie me down, other than my children, who I lived for. Who I truly lived for. Never living for me, until the day I was forced to.
This was literally that exact day. I was cleaning house, because I was about to leave. (That’s totally trash on the ground I was sweeping up.) All of a sudden, I felt nirvana rise up within me. I felt so good that I took a picture and it happened to look like I was levitating.
Being invisible has afforded me an immense freedom to be myself, to discover who I am without fear others will ostracize me during an immensely painful period. And my spiritual journey has been painful. It has been a transformative fire. It has been a transmutation. A discovering that any identity I held onto too tightly meant sinking into death. And I died a hundred times, a thousand times. I fell into insanity like a lightbulb shattering across the floor. And I climbed out of Tartarus still intact and whole, as I’ve always been. I was forced to release all of my life by my own will, and my spirit within me. My heart was weighed each time, and anything released was my heart made lighter. It was an understanding that allowing the lead of my past lead me was miscreating. I no longer allowed miscreants to control me. And then suddenly an eye opened wide within my mind that showed me it was all for. Me. That isn’t necessary to be remembered by others. Especially if they spent so much time dismembering me. That it isn’t necessary to follow the lines of sanity. I have been given all the tools to assemble myself with sanguinity.
I know we hear so much that we shouldn’t tell the old story. That we shouldn’t talk about the past.
I think though, there is a missing element in those ideas. I know this because of the struggle I felt trying to keep that advice and having things bubble up out of me like bog gas. My spirit automatically acts within me for reasons I know not of. And it was a long process of abiding, no matter what my world looks like. The difference now is that I am aware of my creating power. And I’d like to reach out a hand to those who could take advantage of what I’ve learned about how to be me. That is why I’m on Substack. And if that sounds like something you’re interested in, well please feel free to subscribe. I’ve written most of that process down, and I’ve been uncovering what works for me through the threads that connect each journal entry.
And, I’d like to make it clear that this is my story. It is one in 7.951 billion. Though I feel like it has a lot of gems, I can’t be sure you’ll resonate with it. That is okay. I never expect anyone to stay where they don’t want to be. I invite you to unsubscribe just as easily as I ask you to subscribe. I say all that because I believe there is a pervasive fear of lunacy. And behind that hazy illusion is where all the goods are. It isn’t a popular opinion, but I opine that we all need to go a little crazy just to figure out who we are.
Beautiful! Love the excavation and unearthing 🌟