#mood doodles
Category: Uncategorized
Good Days, Bad Days
On the good days
I rise up, triumphant
Purposeful, sure there must be some reason
Hopeful I will find a way
.
On good days you might hear me chanting:
I am the Spellbreaker!
And this is the Order of the Zig Zag Path
Weary, broken, resigned
If you see me, you are here
I hold you
And rip the webs from your
Forgotten
Longing
Heart
We
Will find a Way!
.
On bad days
Those days where I see
From my horizontal position
The sun shining against the waffling leaves
Where sweet birdsong caresses my ear
And apparent peace surrounds me
Where I have everything
I really need, most than 75% of humanity
And yet, I cannot stand, walk, or sit
Without daggers of lightning
Casting me down
.
On bad days
I lay there
Trying to understand
Trying to find meaning
Trying to be grateful
Navigating the paradox of external beauty
And the world inside of searing flame
.
On bad days
I feel the bombs dropping
All along my thighs
Deep in my sacrum
As I let the illusion of American peace
Wash over and around me
I feel the starving, screaming
Terrorized children
Trapped in the crumbling building of my body
Next to the dismembered parent
Panicked and weeping for something to make sense
When any semblance of safety
Has been crushed and torn away and
Killed
.
On bad days
I try to imagine
What it might be like to see through one of their eyes
And if this pain is a metaphor for the wars
Waged daily, the grief and rage
With all control lost
And nowhere for her to call home
.
On bad days
It seems so selfish in light of her horror
But I find myself asking
What will I do today?
Trying to bring joy
In the midst of such unbearable torture
How do I quell her?
She’s screaming so loudly
Her sobbing, heaving rips me
From attention to anything
On these days
When I wake up already in pain
Lying and standing, all of it hurts
I cannot plan
Nothing beyond
Presence is possible
Knowing, like her
That the day
Will be taken breath by breath
Possibly with crying, weeping
Probably with anger
Hopefully with self-compassion
And care
What will I do today
What will I do tomorrow
What will I do with my whole life
Trying to
Trying to
Not terrify myself
Trying to
Trying to
Not terrify her
Our question, looking out into the distance
Of a life lived breath by breath
No guarantees
Were there ever really any?
.
What will I do with my whole life
I can’t help but go there
When I wake up already in pain
Seeing through her eyes
Where war is all around
Permeating everything she knows
.
But on the good days?
You’ll find me chanting:
I am the Spellbreaker!
And this is the Order of the Zig Zag Path
Weary, broken, resigned
If you see me, you are here
I hold you
And rip the webs from your
Forgotten
Longing
Heart
Come little one
We will find a way
Let me hold you
In the space where everything is nothing
And there is no certainty
And where you cannot understand
Why there’s so much killing
And pain never ending
Neverending
Never ending
Let me hold you
Right here, now
Without promises
Except my arms, around you
That spell
That you are all alone
Let me
Hold you
As the bombs rip it all apart
.
On the good days
I rise up, triumphant
Purposeful, sure there must be some reason
Hopeful
We will find a way
True Horror
.
“This is a story about a person who is walking in the world with chronic pain…
This is a story about a person who gets unexpectedly struck down by intense pain flares and is incapacitated over and over again with no visible reason…
This is a story about a person who doesn’t know if they believe in goddesses or gods or anything for that manner, if there is meaning to anything at all anymore…but who is at their rope’s end and decides to appeal to Hekate for her assistance…
This is a story about a person who keeps getting strange symbols/encounters in their everyday life, dreams, etc wondering if any of it is Hekate responding, if she is real, if anything can help…
This is a story about real horror–living with chronic pain, feeling trapped in this body, with no answers, not knowing if it will ever get better, if there is any meaning to it all, grasping at straws, knowing not what may come…”
.
The above is a description of the storyline for a music video myself and my guitarist are just about to submit for a Halloween contest (original music and amateur filming by the both of us) and I will post it here when it is ready. Wish us luck!
A Letter to The Doc
*This one’s real, folks. I’m a pretty hardy bird, but this back pain is terrifying me. It was all I could do today to cut and paste this little bit of my world here. Thanks for reading and sending some good juju if it feels right!
Hiya Doc
I am wondering
if you can guide me
in how to receive emotional support
for this back/nerve pain issue.
The intense pain is happening again,
and I am finding it difficult to walk
and do my daily activities…
including going to my job.
I am taking Advil and it helps a little,
but I am so afraid.
Especially because these symptoms
have “no visible cause,”
and I don’t seem to be doing anything
to aggravate the issue…
it just comes on unpredictably.
I am waking up more often than not
dreading the day
and dealing with a lot of fear
about how I am going to support myself
if I can’t work,
not to mention
do the things I love.
Any suggestions are welcome,
thank you.
P.S. Could you also try to talk to Hekate?
Tell her it’s a bit much
Memorial Day
“The Scalp Ceremony laid to rest the Japanese souls in the green humid jungles,
and it satisfied the female giant who fed on the dreams of warriors.
But there was something else now, as Betonie said:
it was everything they had seen–
the cities, the tall buildings, the noise and the lights, the power of their weapons and machines.
They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land…
Every day they had to look at the land, from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with them;
it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of the lost going on forever.
So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost.”
Thanksgiving, Gratitude and Whatever
Thanksgiving, gratitude
Whatever
This week
I sit and remember
The litany of what I have and hold
That so many will never see
The warmth
The shelter
The creamy bittersweet reishi-infused liquids cascading over tongue
The lack of pain
Or extreme imprisonment
The solitude
The health
The vehicle to transport me into varied realities of my choosing
The consciousness
To transform pain to blessing
Almost instantaneously
The wise, deep, cackling crone
Deep within, everpresent
The guides
The teachers
The plentiful food on my plate
The laughter
The sunrise
The immediate access to webbings of knowledge
The freedom to say
“I want a relationship
Where we’re aware and committed to
Working on our shit together”
And the self-love to not care
If the listener runs screaming haha
.
The voice
The sound
The art that now can come through unobstructed
Through this vessel
The witnesses, holding deeply
The love, the carved out
Empty full compassion pulsing
.
But
Whatever
What lies beneath
On this day of great trespassing
Aware of that too
Not gratefully bypassing
The millions of original beings
Paved over, passed over
Starved, forgotten, shackled
Extinguished, tricked, lied to
Forced to psychically submit
Gutted and soul starved
.
Healing the Soul Wound
Healing the Soul Wound
Healing the Soul Wound
Do we now see it?
Can this day be of gratitude
That we might just be seeing it
Grateful that the festering wounds
Repressed rage, bigotry
Unspoken for centuries
Are being released
Sometimes uncouth, often offensive
But released
Like Wednesday Addams, smiling
Match in hand
Thankful we can burn that old shit to the ground?
.
Thankful
We may be seeing the People
The human and non-human People
These beings, given Voice
Rising up
Transforming?
.
But
Whatever
Giblet laden gravies
Shimmering, reverberating
From distant relative argument
Over recent propositions
And how Sally should have never bought that car
And did you hear the price of gas
And how hard it is to build anything anymore
Without those codes gauging you
Lalala dancing words on aching surfaces
While Sally vomits in the bathroom
While Uncle Jim hides in the car
Taking another hit
To make it through
.
Whatever
Both eyes open
To my extreme Wealth
In contrast to many
As well as the bowed down
Hoping, praying, singing
To our seeing
To our healing
To our waking
.
Grateful
Thankful
Whatever
The Soul Wound
The Soul Wound
The Soul Wound
The Dance
There is a part
That wants to lay it all out before him
In fresh bloomings
Blow by blow
Intensity of the path she’s led
Situation after situation
Violation after violation
Allowance after allowance
Twisted shreds and fallouts
Visceral evidence of the place she stands
.
There is a wild, unbridled force
That wants to see his eyes
To feel his heart
To know his Truth
In the face of the litany
In the face of the pain
To see if he turns
To see if he shudders
To see if he
Stays
.
Hanging by slippery threads
On this fire escape ladder
It’s a long way down
If she surrenders to the fall
.
Scrambling
Anxious
Terror
Old, tattered parts come forward
Protect or die!
Protect or die!
Get it all over with, now
Show the portal he’ll enter
See his choice
With no delay
See if he’ll stay
Hoping he’ll go
To calm these demons
To calm these demons
.
This, of course, is such a metal way
Teeth dripping saliva
And balls to the wall
Go hard or go home
This part wants to live it
Speak it
Shove it
These rumblings have been waiting
These rumblings designed
To push away
.
And yet
Hidden, ephemeral
There is this other, more gentle force
Gentle, but not weakened
Gentle, but not naive
Gentle, and Knowing
Who appreciates
The Dance
.
She wants to unpeel, slowly
Revealing layer by layer
Watching his eyes
Feeling his breath
Tuning into the particles
As the skins gradually fall away
Microcosmic realities
Dancing, dreaming
Mysteries touching
At eonic speed
.
She is an old part
She is a deep part
The one who wants to witness his music
Deep bass resonance on golden crisscross strings
Who wants to hold the gentle fierce line
Of looking for hours into
Trailing light tendrils
Along shivering surface
Stepping back from this Mystery
Allowing space
A roaring, intimate silence
To hold the shimmering portals
Of beauty
And pain
Yet to become
.
She is an old part
She is a wise part
She is a deep part
This smiling-eyed Dakini
Will She have voice in the great trembling?
Will She stand, in her Love, gleaming?
Will She cradle the demons
While making room for the Other?
This time
The wildness
The fierceness
Channeled not to push away
But to slowly
Gently
Fiercely
Pull them into
The Dance
Pain Body
There was one thing you said
(It actually pissed me off at the time)
That I now see is true
“There’s such an intense pain-body around you”
.
I dismissed it
As your rationalization, jab
For why I didn’t want to be involved
A unicorn dancing once more
In a loveless matrimonial tie
.
While perhaps that’s correct
While perhaps a wise woman sensing
The statement you hoisted
That statement is true:
I
Like so many
Have an enormous, unexplainable field
An invisible armor, always at the ready
To attack
Anything that comes in too close
And reminds of unconscious catastrophy
Its hairs bristle, teeth expose
Protecting, protecting
.
Unable to manage, primal
Mind goes murky, tongue ties
Frustration sets in
As I feel the rage of eons
Simmering, thrashing in my field
.
She roars, silent
Recounting unintelligible
Trauma chants
Pushing like the crown
Too large to exit the canal
Nowhere to go
Wailing
(External trained and unrevealing)
Against her ancestral cage
.
To hold and dismantle these plates
Requires more
And to this point
I’ve found nothing
I don’t want to be your mistress
Your fill-in, rebound lay
This same repeating pattern
Pulling me into its spiral
To learn over and over again
.
I bump against it, attempting
And am taken down repeatedly
I back away
I slither
Away from this gigantic roaring hoarde
Ignoring, avoiding
Ignoring, avoiding
In my temple
Of ritual and aloneness
.
Pretty good
At controlling
This pain body activation
Only marginally triggered by passersby
But when You come in close
When you completely step over Her line
(Most just avoid Her quills)
Here I am
Aware of Her pulsing, raging, fiery breath
Dominating and confusing reality
Taking over
Emanating miasmic sludge
My power lost, understanding decimated
Head hung low
Cup clanking on prison steel
Each time
She’s here waiting for me
For You
.
This pain body, hovering, enmeshed
Ironically
I’ve attended others’ for so long
But Her? Rarely do I hold Her, fully
Explore Her, listen to Her
How could I?
Like the Void, She’s massive and yet elusive
Nothing’s prepared me for this task
I stay safe, in patterns and routines
Of nun-monkhood
While She waits, simmering
Simmering
.
This Pain Body
When You come in close
When You completely step over Her line
(Most just avoid Her quills)
Here I am
Aware of Her pulsing, raging, fiery breath
Dominating and confusing reality
Taking over
.
It’s true
A Ritual Of Death
Oh Great Ones
Well and healed lineages from Beyond
Help me, help me
To bring Death
.
Death to the old way
Death to the outworn patterns
Carving catabolic caverns in my heart
To the demons, circling
Ripping quivering potential
To shreds
.
O Great Ones
Well and healed lineages from Beyond
Help me craft, by candle
A ritual of their Death
.
A ritual of honor
Of the many ways they’ve served
Of the protection, shielding
I’ve needed for so long
The Old Ones, shrouding
I require you no more
It is time
.
Help me
Craft ritual of their sacred slaying
Psychopomps, I call you
To guide them Home
Beyond this body
Standing now, in safety
.
Oh Great Ones
Well and healed lineages from Beyond
Help me line the altar with silver blessings
To spread the path with dark kisses and heart
Sword gleaming, turning
Sending, parting
Across and through the veils
.
Help me
Help me let them
Help me let them
Help me let them die
Help me, release, return, unemcumber
These loyal soldiers
Give them honorable Death
So that I
May Live
.
Oh Great Ones
Well and healed lineages from Beyond
I am ready
I am willing
Like a great tree,
Sad to see its cloaking
Release
Sail
Fall
Die
Transform
Sad to see
This turning
Of such loyal, long time protectors
But knowing
Knowing
The time has come
Death Lodge
How shall we begin?
We begin
At the end
The end of all which needs to die
The end
Of the beginning
.
She doesn’t stare straight at me
But I know, I know
She’s calling
Pay attention, She says
It is time
To die
.
Now I’ve heard this before
She’s no stranger in these parts
But as always, when She speaks
I listen
.
Such an odd concept
To have to die
To live
To have to let go of it all
In order to truly embody
.
Listening, I’m listening
But I
Am confused
So many layers already shed
What more do I have to release?
The traditional path
Identity, belongings, desires
Already decomposing miles back
On this Wanderer’s road
.
So I ask Her, humbly
As I accept my place in the Death Lodge
What else is there to lose?
And of course
I know, I know
There is always another layer
Hiding
.
What then, is this layer
I cannot drum it up from my mind
I look around me blankly
And the only thing I can do
Is ask
The only thing I can do
Is listen
The only thing I can do
Here in this Death Lodge
Is open to the Way
The Way hiding
The tendrils grasping
The deep and precious rootlets
That don’t want to be seen.
Way beneath, in this colonized earth
Lurks these questions
Lurks these answers
Lurks these ancestral memories
Traumas
Waiting
.
Here in the Death Lodge
Cailleach laughing
She tells me not to worry
She tells me, simply
To ask
To listen
And to begin
.
~Image https://www.elitarotstrickingly.com/blog/the-tarot-of-eli-the-druid-craft-tarot-key-13-death-and-the-thoth-tarot-atu depicting “Death” from The Druid Craft Tarot by Philip Carr-Gomm.
Letting Go 