Questions

((Tales From Dark Times))

I know what to eat, and when

Those meal plans were installed

In my programming decades ago

But, ironically

In trying to escape this cage

Those same structures

Only trap me now

Never was I really shown

How to recognize my true hungers

My true fullness

How to discern when fear

Fills my stomach falsely

How to know when nausea is caused

By the slough of word daggers

Pointed my way

When immersed in a world of grieving

When surrounded by suicidal misery

When it all is so loud

When everything seems too much

When all I seem to do is absorb shadows

When I’m already full of psychic ghosts before eating

Never was I really shown, in this,

How to hear

My hungers

Food hungers, life hungers

How

Do I detect

When it is all so loud

What the body really needs?

At first meal plans seemed the answer

That measuring and plotting

And eating the same every day

Would help me

Help me to know that I was getting enough

Help me to know that if I felt like puking

It probably wasn’t due…to the bread

Help me to know that I most likely

Wouldn’t cross the line

Where I feel

What I don’t want to feel

What I don’t know how to feel

What I fear feeling

Will drive me

Insane

Same thing, same time, every day

I thought

My calculated allotments could ensure me

My rationed experiments could help me

From going mad

But over the years

Of measuring, scouring shelves for perfect numbers

It’s all just left me feeling cold

Disconnected

Isolated

And confused

And here I am

Again

Asking questions

Yes

I know what to eat, and when

But how to deal with

Choice overwhelm

Fullness anxiety

Unexplained terror just thinking about

Throwing out my scales and measuring cups

And why opening a cookbook

Walking into a grocery store

Causes my whole system

To solidify

Frozen

In the frozen isle

Can I even stop doing all of this

Will I ever be able to

Let go of my strange fear of satiation?

Will I ever be able to

Enjoy and feel free with food again?

Will I ever be able to

Trust my hunger and fullness again?

I’ve lived so long by clocks and grams and labels

Why does it linger

What’s wrong with me

And how do I get help

To recover…that will last?

These

Questions

I’ve tried so many times

Treatment has cycled through me like a broken record

Yet, here I am

Still calculating

Still measuring

Still watching the clock

Still fearing fullness

Still mistrusting body’s signals

Still terrified that without all of this

I will kill

Myself

That without this control

My body

Will kill…me

I want to receive the food you gift me

I want to sit and laugh and share plates on the veranda

I want to cook with joy from the kitchen witch’s grimoire

I want to sleep through the night

I want to know what I want

I want

To be free

Questions

Is “free” just an illusion?

Is “recovered” one too?

Does one ever “do the work”

And never look back?

Am I like the person with diabetes, dreaming of recovering

But destined to a process of accepting and managing

Something I have to live with

Forever?

Questions

I keep wondering

What my why is

What my dreams are

What will inspire me to face this

Again

If what I have to look forward to is pain

If what I have to look forward to

Is finding myself here

Again?

I don’t think I’m fat

And I don’t hate myself

And I’m not afraid of gaining weight

I don’t know why I do this

That is the ultimate

Question

Why, when I’m tired of…

Waking in the middle of the night starving

Being overwhelmed by food choices

Needing to weigh or measure everything

Being terrified of fullness for reasons I don’t understand

My hair falling out

Being anemic and weak

Feeling confused and unable to think clearly

Feeling purposeless and lost

Being afraid to go out to eat

Being unable to accept friends food

Having to follow a clock and meal plan to eat

Mistrusting my hunger and fullness

Feeling afraid of pain, consequences of eating more

Having to eat same food same way every day to feel safe

Having to rely on nutritional shakes for sustenance

Counting calories

Thinking about food

Every

Fucking

Minute

Why it is,

After all the reclined leather

Conversations,

That I can’t…

Just…

Eat

Questions

“Maybe you should get more support

A higher level of care?”

Those words, while so dreamy

In my past yearnings to be coddled

To be forced, wrapped, in warm bleach-scented linens

To slurp and chew and receive way more

Than I’d ever let myself, alone

Those words

Are suspicious to me now

A higher level of care?

How would it even help?

Would anyone understand

What I am going through?

Is the time, and money and

DRAMA

Worth it

If I eventually end up

Here

Again

Over

And

Over

Asking

The

Same

Damn

Questions!?!

~If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, reach out for help. Don’t get lost in that maze, alone.

National Association for Anorexia And Related Eating Disorders (ANAD) Hotline: 1 (888)-375-7767

Synergy

(You)

As universe itself

In the power of its own creation

Each of us has the ability

To reflect upon our philosophies and actions

As individuals and as groups we can decide

Within existing conditions

How we will take action, and

As we imagine

What kind of systems we want to create

We can imagine the world from various perspectives

From the Neolithic Mind,

From the Industrial Mind

Or from the Synergistic Mind of the New Era

What do you think will be important?

How can we begin to proactively create conditions

In the New Era?

~Image and text paraphrased from Pamela Eakins’ Visionary Cosmology

Gates And Lizards

Finally

I stand here at the gate

The gate of small dreams

The gate of what was once

Unaccomplishable

No longer am I hiding under covers

Racked by waves of grief

Fearing defeat

Raging at the uselessness of it all

I am here

At the gate

I step through the splintering brackets

And onto the once familiar path

Sandy dust kicking up

My mind in meditation as I face the danger

I cry out to the spirits

My spirit that has brought me here

That has enabled hope and vision

That has given me courage to try

To this I ask for removal

Of all thoughts

Of all beliefs

Of all programming

At the root of this struggle

Releasing what oils the wheels of its persistence

I cry out

I ask

I keep walking, slowly

One foot in front of the other

So much slower than this goal driven goat once was

I feel into my body

I ask for its guidance

I ask

What the first place of rest

Will be

I keep walking

I keep listening

And at a moss-laden trunk’s reaching

I know it is where I should stop

While I’m ahead

My fire

It wants to push on, scout the next curve

Reach the vista

But I know, my body is teaching

So I stop

And I look out from this shaggy tree

I see glimmers of a view

I see oaks and pines and soaring hawk

I see

Where I am

I see

Where I have brought myself

I see

Hope for the next leg of the journey

In time

I begin to descend

From this short test of possibility

And in front of me

Is a large lizard

Frequent to these dry, dusty trails

I think nothing of it

Expecting it to scurry as I pass

But the lizard

He remains

He stares straight at me

Even as I inch closer

Even as the threat of me

Shadows over him

He stays

And my fantastical child mind

Asks

“Sacred Lizard!

Sacred Fire Elemental Being!

Why have you stopped me

Here in my tracks?

What message do you want

To deliver?”

I stop

I listen

I hear the slight rustle of the leaves

I hear a faint cry of a raptor

I feel the momentary dread that there will be no answer

And then I hear

“Who is the dreamer?

And who is the dreamed?

Who

Is dreaming you?

Is it you?

Is it you?”

Knowing not if it is he

Or I

That spoke this truth, this riddle

Regardless

I listen, I absorb

And then

I start to sing

I sing to the lizard

I sing to the ancients

I sing to the thoughtforms

And beliefs

And programs that have kept me safe

By creating these struggles

By weaving this dream

I sing to them all

I know it is time to leave

And the lizard stays

I have to walk around his grand presence, in fact

I look back and he’s still staring at me

I turn

And descend

Filled with the questions

Sparked with hope

And having felt magic

I know I will be back

To step through the gate

To let loose the scaffolds

To scout another twist

To try again

Soon

Freeing The Force

Cards from the *Tarot of The Spirit* deck by Pamela and Joyce Eakins

There is a pulsating, overwhelming force

Smoldering, sparking

Seeking its direction

Seeking where to land, seed, focus, grow

Seeking where

To nurture, connect, become

Compass spinning

The yearning is so terrible

And the voices are so loud

A wanting

A hungering

Suffocating and aimless

What stands in the way

Of this sacred force’s aim?

Tens of thousands of swords

Piercing the mind, twisting the strength

Over the centuries, ancestral

Illusory confusions

Bleeding out lifeforce

To stand, to aim, to thrive

What then can I do?

Voices, betrayals of the past

Survival scaffolding that must now break away

Once valid, it is no more

Begin the peeling, the shedding, the grieving

So the pulse, the yearning, the new creation seeking

Can see its target

Can find the direction

Can muster velocity, and belief

To land, and blossom

On its mysterious and otherworldly surface

How then

Do I align the soul’s condition

For this whittling to occur?

So long have these layers sheltered me

So tightly do I cling

How then, do I let go

For this blast off to succeed

After so many failed launches?

And out of the darkness,

She answers.

Sister Fire says

I dance

I place myself in the center of the trees

I lay down my obstructions and fears

On the altar, I offer

A sacrifice

I let the wind pivot my limbs

I open my mouth, spinning

And let the wildness sing through me

Sister Fire says

I am the one who brings forth the knowings

I am the one who has travelled through the fire

I am the one who cannot be denied

I am

The Master of Spontaneous Expression and Liberation

Sister Fire

Mouth open

I let her dance me

I become her

Envisioning bold stance, supple curves, chin to stars

I twirl

And scream

And partner with the rhythms of dirt and sky

Allowing it all to burn away

Letting her reveal me

Letting her open my eyes, my channels

Loosing the magma

When it is time

And the layers have dropped away

Lion, lizard, and flame my allies

And Fire Sister, a twinkle in her eye

We will be soaring

We will be aiming

We will be burning

Towards the one True Will of my heart

This pulsing will connect

This blazing will form

Like supernovas and our great central stellar core

This yearning

This wanting

This hungering

Will finally come

To Be

Verse or Curse

This morning I awoke

To a bible verse on my phone

My first reaction was cringe

And an urge

To reject

The sender, sweet

But in no way knowledgeable of my being

So I stopped and listened

And I heard “wait”

So I waited

And I walked

And I thought about

All the reasons I cringe

For the witches

And the women

And the oppressed

And the ancient ones

Many persecuted with these very

Verses

I thought

Of the shaming of the body

Of the simplistic duality

Of the good and the wicked

Of the woman’s penance

For the downfall of man

And then

I was there

Thick trunks smoldering beneath me

Witnessing the jeering faces

Thumping these black books

As my skin began to burn

As my loving heart

That worshipped the beauty of trees

Began to break

Their fervor, like arrows

Against me

Liminally wafting

The lifetimes informing…

And then

Back to my here now feet walking

I thought of the archetype

Of that man that carried love in his heart

That fought for the downtrodden

That held both the light

And the struggle

With compassion

I wondered

As I reread that bible text

Did this man, Jesus, exist

And if he did, were any of these words

Actually his, spoken?

How much of these verses

(Now perhaps turned curses)

Are lost in translation of the projections

Of humans, of fear?

Not new thoughts

But interesting they’ve been called

Into reflection

I look at my phone as in a dream

And wonder why the message has come

This bible text beaming before me

These questions

Such a veering away

From this fence sitter’s witnessing of it all

So, having waited

I felt a strange challenge

Battling in my throat

Shall I stay silent

Shall I swallow the message

That does not align?

Or shall I share my truth

On the dark wings of respect

And Love?

Forming my letters

I did my best to express

My response did not reject

But inform

I am a believer of belief

Enjoying what brings you pleasure to share

But let’s get this straight

I’m not right

And you’re not wrong

And we can live in this

Strange and mysterious dance

Together

In between words

Feeling

The wind

Just think about this

Before you assume I’m neatly in your court

And please

For some future misuse and slander

Don’t quote me on that

VI The Lovers

image and prompt from Pamela Eakins, *Tarot of The Spirit*

The Lovers

Children of The Voice

Splitting Apart

Making Connection

Crossing The Abyss

Does the Gap Between Worlds

Help us

To Realize Love?

Past Lives, And Fences

I’m not sure if past lives exist

Or if ancestral/epigenetic memories are real

But I feel like this lifetime

Has me reliving, re-membering,

And disbelieving

All the various forms of magical paths of previous skins

From cunning folk

Hunting down leylines with dowsing rods

Scrying by the augury of nature

To Druidry, Spiritualism, Crowley-esque seances

And skyclad Gardnerian circles under the moon

To dabbling in dissolving and coagulating via alchemy

And achieving Masonic handshakes and Golden Dawn initiations

Upon checkered floors

Tendrils travelling through portals

Ancestors tugging from all directions

“Complete me! Finish my work! Carry on the magical line!”

Like being torn apart on the rack

I do not know how to handle it all

I do not even know

If it is real

I sit on the fence

I’m a lifetime fence sitter

Watching all of this approach and retreat

I’ve found myself role playing, smirking inside

Each time the opportunity invites me to embody identity

I step in, explore, and bow when I part

But nothing sticks

And I wonder at how so many

Can be Sure

Lately, though

It’s been getting pretty real

Egypt keeps coming up to me and introducing itself

As if I need to wed it and bed it

To learn all over again

Coincidences of two, mulitplying

And I find myself questioning my disbelief, my impartiality

I also find myself questioning

My urge jump off the fence

To become a believer

To be that person saying that thing

“I have received a message, praise be the Lord!”

While all of my charred sisters cringe

While famines and wars and violence

Unfold in the name of some crazy-ass and

Unseen certainty

I stay sitting on this fence

Looking at the whole menagerie of beliefs

At what is real, at what Real is

Asking who am I?

Am I an amalgam of all of these beings?

Am I some crazy wizard priestess

Reincarnated over and over again

Just now meeting my “Soul Family?”

Just now receiving “the Teachings?”

There’s something so tempting

About deciding to jump off and join

And yet something keeps me here

Watching

Something keeps me here

Listening

Something keeps me here

Loving

All

This splintering fence

I’ve made it pretty cozy

With my steaming tea, and my ice packs

I can see pretty far

And most days the weather is fair

I’m not sure if past lives exist

Or if ancestral/epigenetic memories are real

Even if it’s fun to entertain

That I’m some crazy wizard priestess coming back time and time again

Even if they keep coming

Swearing they’ve seen me in ceremonial gowns on the Nile

Even if holding my measuring cup, counting grams

Hearkens me back to some cold and specific ancient laboratory

I can’t quite do it

Decide with all my being

Who I am, why I’m here, and who is

Wrong

Even with all the tendrils, pulling

I think I’ll stay here

On this fence

In this lifetime

For now

Issues

Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano on Pexels.com

Why did you go, Daddy?

Was it something I said?

Why didn’t you call, Daddy?

Did I do something wrong?

Was I not enough

To make you stay?

All those years, wondering

All that

Silence

Sometimes I get so angry

At the hole you left behind

I do my best to forget it

Yet I keep recreating you

To find the answers

But Daddy

You’re dead

And I’ll never know

And this longing

Confusing, sexual, childlike

This rage, Daddy

Has nowhere to go

Is This Love?

Is this love?

And I, running

My heart stands

Confused

Is this love?

Or do I trust this hesitancy

All these

Good Reasons

Do I go with the gut?

Do I draw the line?

Is this love?

If it is

Does it matter?

Can I enter

Fresh from multiple ER stays

Disembodied from pain

Terrified of past emerging present

Heartbreaks, deaths, betrayals

All the usual defenses

Can this be love

And can it be right

To refuse it?

It taunts me, pulling at my core

Is this love, instead

Something to open into

Something to receive

((I am so faulty at receiving))

Is this love

The Medicine?

Is it the counterintuitive move

That will fill the cracks with gold?

Does it even matter

Whether I run

Or stay?

If this is love

Will it wait?

Will it wait

For the months

For the years

For the decades

Before this body

And all Her terrors

Are ready?

Will it call again

Will it

Return?

Yesterday I said no

But now there is a space

I am thinking about you

And a wondering haunts me

If I threw it all away

If all of my stories

My can’ts and shouldn’ts and

How could I evens

Decimated a sprout, so gold

Before it reached out of its casing

Before its right to bloom

Was given a chance

Did the sword of my fear

Slash it to the ground

Before its innocent yearning

Could even begin

To radiate?

Is this love?

And can a love

Hold a broken body

A terrified, can’t make it to dinner

I am hemorrhaging again

Kind of style?

Is this love

And will I ever know

It’s been so long

The firefighters and soldiers, always at the ready

Defending

Is this love?

And I, running

While still, thinking of you

And your pictures of sunsets

Of past lives and magicks

Is this love?

My heart stands

Confused

Who Am I

Exercise One: Who am I?

I am a woman

I am a prisoner in my body

I am 50 years old

I am someone who has been through a lot

I am someone who has felt strong as a result of this

I am someone who usually sees the positive in things

I am compassionate

And

I am angry

I am scared

I am tired of being in pain

I am not sure I can keep doing this

I am a shell of who I used to be

I am tired of feeling fragile and powerless

I am tired of being sick and unable to do the things I love

I am not sure what to say anymore

I am not sure who I am anymore

I am nothing

I am nothingness

I am presence

I am acceptance

And

I am rage, resenting

I am a fire burning, perhaps burning clean

I am a Tower

I am crumbling

I am old foundations disappearing

I am all comforts and surety erasing

And when this is done, I hope

I hope I am dancing

I hope I am laughing

I hope I am writing

I hope

I am free