Something Bigger

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As the first rays of sunlight

Melt the crystals of dark

I ignite the candle

I close my eyes

And call upon the well ones

All the lineage holders, and medicine people

The protectors, the guides

I give offering, and I call

I give thanks

For all I have been given

This breath

This warm abode

Sustenance and community

A broken, but open heart

And yet I also ask

I ask for what is so gaping

I ask for what echoes, loudly through every sore fiber

Of this threadbare casing

I ask for

Something bigger

To put these hands to

To invest this pulsing in

To immerse this whole existence towards

Something bigger

Than this pain

Something bigger

Than the unpredictable aching

Than the hours of bracing, pretending

To make it through a day

Something bigger

Than the screaming agony

Of the little one inside that just wants

To be done with it all

Something bigger

So the intensity of these daggers

Shrinks in importance

A purpose so immense, so joyful

That when they come, these jagged bolts, stabbing

Are but a reminder of what I’m here to do

They are in the background

Of this bigger story

Of this cause so encompassing

I rise looking forward

Actually looking forward

To another day

Something bigger

I call out to the well ones

To all the ancient, knowing faces

On the whispers of the wind

To show me

To guide me

To help me

Find this

Something bigger

Than waking

Despairing, dreading

Another day unable to see or hear or thrive

Something bigger

Than wandering, confused and shattered

The volume of agony

Riddling my

Entire

Waking

World

Of course, if possible

Bring healing

Lead me to teachers, teachings

Practices, techniques

Herbs, medicines

That may restore the roots of this torture

A recovery so complete, I look back in gratitude to its lessons

A mending so undeniable, I offer my heart compassionately

To those who walk this night

But please

If it is to be

If my teaching is how to co-exist with this deep, deep suffering

Please show me

Please guide me

Please bring magic

To this desperate, hopeless one inside

Please!

Something bigger

Something

Bigger

Revelation And Offering

~*from The Tarot of The Spirit, by Pamela and Joyce Eakins*

**Head’s up–For the next two months I will be switching my posting schedule to Sundays vs Mondays. Thank you for reading :}

Over the past year

I have been travelling

Travelling on the Paths

Travelling on the Tree

Deep in The Hermit’s temple

And now, at this important gate

Into the realms of Creation Completed

I sit, in reflection

I receive, Revelation

Could it be

That the constant seizing of my thighs

The sacrum’s sharp aching

The shooting piercing needles

The burning soles

The terrifying feeling that

All I stand on will collapse and give way

Could it be

That this

Is the force of my own Life?

Teaching, initiating me into my own evolution?

Could it be Universe

Constellating

Crafting my own initiation

Pulling me to my knees

Dissembling everything I know

And once again, stripping me

To the Core

To be rebuilt once again?

Could it be

That child, screaming

Using the only way it knows how

To STOP me

To get me to let go of mind’s flight

And come Home?

Could it be pulling me down

To look at Her?

To listen?

To let her wail and rage

About what, until now

Has been buried deep within?

Could it be the only way?

Could it be The Way?

Like the Moon

Always changing, rearranging

Remembering and dissembling

There is a flash

As I fall down these branches

That it is a value

To be medial, liminal

Beyond the linear voicing

That this, too

Can describe who one may be

From the Tower in my gut

Implanted over lifetimes, lineages

I am putting all my works towards the cause

Screaming, writhing, agony

So be it

This is The Way

This is My Way

To come to Strength

Strength may be acceptance

Strength may be adaptation

And yet–it may also be full revitalization

A pulsing aliveness

Animating joy once more

Dancing, sensual, savoring

Yes this, this is my Revelation

My Offering?

After all of this walking?

After all of this screaming?

After all of this writhing?

Perhaps

If my body is a reflection

Of the care that the Earth may need from us right now

Of the need to to turn us away and within

From all of the ideas, and plans, and accomplishments

We may wish to do as a species

If my body is a reflection

Mirroring this essential need to turn back towards our bodies

To turn back towards the Earth

To turn back towards the illnesses

That are showing up inside of us

This Writhing

This Screaming

To turn towards them as a priority

Is this awareness

Borne from some inner blaze and reformation

My greatest work, the Great Work?

Am I actually doing something “more” with my life

In the tending of this body

Body as Earth, body as species

Body as messenger for the depths that hunger to be seen

Is this, and this vision’s transmission

My Offering?

There is no way to truly know

Except to fuck around and find out

As the thighs constantly seize

As the sacrum sharply aches

As the shooting piercing needles

The burning soles

Rip through my flesh once more

As the terrifying feeling that

All I stand on will collapse and give way

Crumbling all of my ability

To move through the world on my own

May I remember

This Revelation

May I remember

This Offering

May my focus on this dear, seizing, screaming body

Affect the collective to tend to these things in deep ways

And may it bring Strength

To my life once more

May it bring Strength

To us all

Cause/Effect

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

The question

At the center of the Tree

Asks

What will guide you?

Yearning for some great Queen

Or archetypal wizard

My answer:

Cause…and Effect

Now, at first

Frustrated breath from nostril

A shaking fist at Trickster

Cursing for one more layer of confusion

At first

There was just more rage

But then

The question sank deeper

The answer swirling, embedding, smiling

And another door, sounding

The query began riddling:

You will be guided by cause and effect

You will be guided by what effect

You want to be the cause of

Your guide will not be something in the sky

Or some magickal being

Your guide

Will be you

Your guide will be the answer

To the hardest question:

What is it

That you truly want?

What is it

That you truly want your presence

To leave in its wake?

And then,

Silence

This question that has walked me

For all of my life

And the blankness that follows

Again,

Frustrated breath from nostril

Fist shaking to Trickster

And rage

This is the question of all questions

Do you agree?

One that I’ve never been able to really answer

Instead, leaving things to Mystery, to The River

To Presence and What Is

How then,

Does cause…and effect

Now decide to guide me?

How then,

In the midst of blankness

Of empty fields of vision

Does cause…and effect

Have any chance

In guiding me?

I breathe

I know there is something changing

Here in the center of The Tree

And I ask:

What effect

Do I want to be the cause of?

I do my best

To listen

Silence

And then

Imagination rises, asking:

What if, when people interacted with my offerings…

They would trust their life more,

Trust its inherent initiatory but hard loving nature…

That they would begin to see everyday occurrences and challenges

As sacred teachings being offered…

That they would begin to see the patterns

And magick happenings for them

The many daily ways

The world and their Life itself

Speaks specifically to them, for them…

That they begin to see their troubles (and awe)

As opportunities to look deeply into those part of themselves

For reconciliation and healing

Seeing that on some level,

We are all just mirroring each other

In order for our species’ wounds

To re-member…

That they would have such sacred experiences in nature

And with other living beings

That it no longer makes sense

To destroy them…

That they would trust even pain and deep illness

As a teacher, coming

Redirecting and deepening their lives

If they would but let it speak to them…

That they would become curious about

And playful creative with

Their own dark sides

Instead of casting blame and lynching

Those that hold it, heavy, for them…

That they could become self-loving

Despite the state of car, job, body, or intimate relationship

They may be experiencing as “less than ideal”

Silence

Whoa!

Where did that come from?

If that is the effect

If that is the vision

Here, in the center of The Tree

How could I possibly be the cause

When figuring that out

Seems like trying to create a business plan

For how

To become God

Silence

Blankness

Am I being asked

To plan my way to embody this cause?

And if so,

Why does it bring such blankness,

Overwhelm, such doubt?

Why

Am I just left

Staring?

I clear the way

I erase the plan

Allowing Life to work through

Staying present

Breath

This is all

I know how to do

And

Perhaps

That is the cause

And the effect

And how Life

And pain

And strife

And joy

Everyday

Here

At the center of The Tree

Perhaps that

Is how

It will show me

The way

I thank the life

Of the question

And the spirit

Of the answer

That just pirouetted

From the vastness

Into my mind

And now

There’s just silence

Silence

Featured

The Wandering Cell

I’ve always been a wandering cell

Cruising around this Great Body, trying to find my kind

At first, I hung out heavily with the immune gang

They were so badass!

Tried so hard to be a killer, wasn’t mean enough

Spent a lot of time with the memory crew, kept forgetting

A bit of life with the neutralizers, I did that pretty good

But not good enough

They knew I was pretending

So then, I began roaming

Trying on organs like roles on Broadway

Auditioning to be a heart…nah, too cheesy

Attempting to be a liver…geesh! too laborious

Having no business…being an ovary

And a stomach? Forgeddaboutit

I just kept wandering, wondering

Why nobody wanted me

Just busy, going on about their duty

Everyone so certain

And me, just a big ol’ question mark

Wandering, wondering

Why I never could quite fit in

Why I could never seem to find my place

Years and years I wandered

And finally became okay with it

Saying hello as I rushed on past

Even if I wasn’t acknowledged

I smiled

Somehow, I began to understand

That if heart cells tried to be liver cells

Shit…there would be a trainwreck

Somehow, I began to understand

That we all had our own lanes

But me? What was my purpose?

Was I really meant to just wander alone, forever?

I began to fantasize

That I was a special type of cell

And that there were maybe others like me

Us wanderers, wandering

It’s just what we do

It’s our purpose

And I began to do that

With certainty, I spent a long time

Wandering

Lately

I’ve found myself hanging out again

With those heart cells

Those guys I totally laughed at

In my attempts to be a killer

And strangely, although they’re still distant

I feel like I’ll hang out here awhile

Swimming in all that Presence I’m finding

They’re really not all that bad

And maybe, even though I can’t really proclaim a destiny

Beyond this incessant wandering

Maybe

I’m part heart too

Freedom

She rises, arms outstretched

A bright beam penetrates the pane

Lap warming

A moment, with feline vibrations

Soft fur, gliding beneath palm

Transitioning, transitioning

Breath

Dream to waking

A vision emerges, the image nation beckoning

A purpose, a plan, a grand plot for the day

It fills her with Fire, an excitement for living

To do this one thing, this one thing

In the minutes of the sun

Hand gliding

Across feline vibrations

All mindforms redirect to this creation

And a deep sigh comforts for what is beyond

She pauses, she opens, she forms

Without deliberation, she’s now in the kitchen

Feeling into what deliciousness can be received, as fuel

Her senses guide her, plump peaches gleam

The cool, smoothness of vanilla to greet them

She feels, with her mind

A dancing across her tongue

Instantaneous

Without deliberation

She’s pulling them close, plopping and slicing

Swirling admiration of how chunk and silk and silver

Arrange in vessel

Together, inside her, without deliberation

A deep sigh comforts for what is entering

Fuel for the larger, the beyond, that which keeps beckoning

The vision, beyond, this sense explosion

Calls to her

Satiation guides, and she rises

Now letting the cool water trickle over

Clearing, clarifying the weighty brown ceramic

The spoon

Gleaming, gleaming in her wet hands

And pulsing, now, stronger

The visions, grand purpose

Call her, undeniable strength

Away from the kitchen

She knows not when she’ll return

She trusts it

And full belly moves into

Manifesting the dream

The sensation explosion

Controlling, plotting, leading into, moving out of

No longer is all that matters

The visions, grand purpose

Calls her, undeniable strength

Away from the kitchen

She knows not when she’ll return

The feline, vibration, reminds her

She trusts it

And full belly moves into

Manifesting the dream

Core

Swirling galaxies

Tendrils snaking lifetimes

Whipping across unfathomable

Wormholes connecting

Astral hands reaching

Twisting, turning

Helix merging

Align

Slipping through cellular cracks

Sluicing red waterways

Embedding

Releasing

In primal screams

This

Terror?

All of them

Wrinkled

Fragile

Body

Eons

Lifetimes

Wisdom paths

Devastation

Murderer

Saint

Pedophile

Beggar

Insanity

All these times

All these directions

All these passions

Leading down greasy dark alleys

Into temples

Sparkle

Guiding sensual

Unlocking

A wizened old woman

Sits in her hut

Snowy tundra blusters

And she knows

That they know

She knows

Creator Nature

Mystery

Orchestrates

Community invites

True power

And so she waits

She knows

In her

Core

This is the way it is

Shaking her head

Grieving

As the stellar tendril tugs

Opening portals mind eye

She sells

Flaying before masses

For witness

For approval

For identity

For…service?

Tears and heavy beating weightedness

Draw her breath

Into

Into this Core

Of galactic swirling

Potentialities

Of that which she knows

With all of this trapped and terror

With all of this

Thin humanoid skin

Stretching

Screaming

Billions of fractals dismembering

Clawing

This

An unshakeable knowing

An unshakeable listening

An unshakeable stillness

An art

Of falling apart

And letting it come

She knows

She floats in the portals

Of illusion and Nadir

This core

It is nothing

It is something

It is

Everything

And so

One gleaming eye

On callow fretting threads

She waits

“If Only One Person Is Helped…”

One of the major visions/goals that helped me write through, and edit through, and self-publish through the doubt, skepticism and fear of creating this book was the vision of at least one person being helped by it. I told myself that I was writing for that one person, and if it reached them, my reason for going through all of this mess was worth it.

Well here I am, on the other side of getting through the creation and birthing phases, and I gotta’ tell you it’s a weird feeling. To date, I have had at least three people write me and tell me how my book really helped them with their food and body issues (not including my editor, as synchronicity would have it!). And in the moment, the warm honey-like glow that came over me as I received their feedback felt like Yes. This is the reason I wrote this. My work has been done.

I received most of this feedback from women, but there was one man who responded and this was the one that took me. He spoke of his struggles and his healing path, how it mirrored a lot of mine, and how it was helpful to read someone else’s journey that wasn’t of the “perfect recovery in a box ilk.” And that also wasn’t like the typical female struggle, so that it was one he could relate to. This was my biggest hope, not that my book would provide “linear steps to freedom,” but that my words would be read, my cyclic journey with healing felt, and that this would resonate and give hope to the less linear journeyers out there. Regardless of gender. So yes, this reflected a dream, a hope, accomplished, and my gratitude for this healing effect on others was sated. Temporarily.

It’s now been almost a month since the release of Food Memories and all the flurry of facing my fears of what would happen if my story went public, of the release party and appreciations, of these dear people who bought and reviewed and wrote to me and told me of the impact of the book on their life. It’s been almost a month and at this point, it is very, very quiet.

No sales. No new reviews. No more feedback.

I knew this might happen. I allowed, of course, for the shiny possibility of the book finding its way to people’s hands and building an organic, magical following without my effort. That was another dream–that if this book (and my friggin’ private insides) needed to be seen by more people, it would happen in this way. I had no interest in forcing that, through marketing, etc then, and I still have no interest in doing this. But now, as I suspected might occur without my direct involvement, I am in the dead zone, or at least seemingly so.

I have done some work to move the book into the world, in ways that don’t just blurt out and splay said insides to as many people as possible. I’ve mailed it to several healers, therapists and experts in the field. I even mailed it to a father of a young woman who is struggling with severe Anorexia, to help him with perspective and to offer my time as a guide if needed. This all felt good to do, putting copies of Food Memories in the mail to do its work in the world. But now, after some weeks, there is just this silence. Who knows how my story is working its ways with these people, or whether they’ve the chance to read it in the craziness that is our world predicament these days.

In this silence, I am left to wonder what I am to do next, and whether I should force the publicity of this book or wait for it to simmer. I wonder what the most aligned thing is to do. I am terrified, still, of having masses of people know my story, but am willing if it is the best for all concerned. I am not really concerned with the sales for money sake, more just wanting to see the book–and all I was “guided” to put into it–out and fulfilling its purpose. I fear it will just die if I don’t feed it in some way. But how? What is truly authentic for me to do?

I plan to follow up with these people I’ve sent the book to. I wish I didn’t have to, that the book would have affected them so that they would feel compelled to contact me. That something bigger than myself would move this into larger fields. That something bigger than my own need for feedback would take place. To prove it was worth it. But that’s not how it’s panning out, and I’m making this mean that there is still some part I have to play in bringing the book to more people. Maybe it is part of my life-game, to explore polarities further from silence and humility. Who knows.

All this silence has put me back in touch with that expansive, universe-wide space of void that I feel inside regarding my purpose here on this planet. Without the momentum and hopes of writing the book, without the way the initial feedback felt, and without the clear desire to market it like mad, I am left here to wonder what I’m really doing here, what I really wrote that book for, whether there was guidance in all of that or just some fantasy crafted life meaning I whipped up to quell the existential angst inside.

Don’t know. But what I do know (and am hanging onto with dear life so I don’t slide down that precarious dark slope) is that the goal, the vision, the dream that kept me going in writing Food Memories came true. A major life goal…and fear…was accomplished. And that one person, to my astonishment, was helped by the words I bared on the page.

Blessed, blessed be.

~Food Memories by Reagan Lakins, is available in all online bookstores. If you want to support a small bookstore, you can purchase it through Bookwoman at: https://www.ebookwoman.com or request it through your local bookstore. If you feel moved to purchase and read my story, thank you! I would love to know how and if it affected you :}

A Hunger For Purpose…A Purpose Beyond Hunger

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of the universe. The state of our species and the species we live amongst. Whether the Earth is in danger or just waiting to flick us off like fleas. Whether there’s really anything we can do about that, this, anything.

I’ve always had a pretty intense existential streak, and while there is a percentage of me that plays pollyanna optimistica, it is this part that often takes up most space on the stage. The other day I found a journal entry during a low point of my struggles with food, and it rung with this existential, purposeless tone. After reading it, I honored that it is of course my own struggle, but found myself wondering if what I am feeling with food is indicative of the soul loss of many of my species. And whether those who struggle with food issues, in emergency ways, are canaries in the coal mine rather than disordered weirdos. There again is my pollyanna optimist.

“February 17.

I am full. I hate this feeling. Fullness. Why? Most people want to feel this, but me? I hate it. Because it means I don’t HAVE to eat, that I have to wait for a long time to feel hungry again. It means I don’t get to eat for a while and if I don’t HAVE to eat, if it isn’t the most necessary thing…what else do I do with myself? Everything revolves around controlling my food so I can eat as often as possible with the least discomfort of this fullness. Moderating everything so I am hovering around emptiness. Everything. What the hell would I do with myself if I wasn’t so focused on this? It really is a question.

It is why the vision quest was a good practice, and a terrifying one, for me. Ironic! For a restrictor! Being with myself for a day without the focus of food, oh the incredible grief that comes! Sitting in the vast desert, wishing and wanting to be inspired by something else but only finding silence and sadness. Grief. Wishing for a vision to come, but…nothing. Feeling abandoned by my own soul. And the same silence, this sense of purposelessness when I’ve been in treatment, sitting with my feelings of fullness, waiting for something else to inspire me, to take my mind off of this hounding obsession, a bigger purpose. I’ve put myself through treatment over and over again to find that, and all I’ve found is nothing. Whether hungry, or full, there’s just this vast empty desert of purposelessness.

At least when I’m hungry, I know I need to eat. I know I need to go get food for myself. So I keep myself as near to that as possible.

Some people I know only eat once or twice a day and that’s also amazing to me…what do they do with the rest of the day without food breaks to bring purpose to their the day? I can’t really imagine. It is so important to me. And I’ve MADE it important…like emergency important. It’s my “issue” so I have to eat, or I have hypoglycemia so I have to eat little bits every few hours for my blood sugar, etc…but is that true? Are these all just elaborate stories to make eating more important than it really needs to be?

I often wonder what it would be like to just eat and move on. Move on to something I am more passionate about, something I enjoy more than eating. I wish I had that. But nothing compares to the comfort I get from eating. Nothing. Is that ok? Is it just my passion, food? And if so, how can I make that a fun thing rather than a tragic thing? Where I’m like Pippin enjoying his Elevenses? Or the kitchen witch?

I love food so much. It is kind of ironic that I struggle with restriction when this is the fact, but here’s why: restriction makes it okay to eat. Restriction makes it NECESSARY to eat. Do you understand?

Somewhere I got the programming that it is not okay to just want to eat all the time for the joy of it, beyond what I need for survival, but if I am restricting then eating is necessary, important, urgent. There’s something too about feeling an undeniable signal from my body, undeniable direction, that I treasure. Nowhere else do I feel this clarity from my body in what to do with myself. When I am hungry though, when I am starving, I know exactly what to do, the most important thing to do to survive.

What life would be like if I had an internal guidance system that told me exactly what it wanted in other areas, too. If I had inner direction that was so strong to focus me on tasks, I wonder if my need to have hunger as my direction would fade? Hunger is really the only clear conversation I seem to have from my body…where I know what it wants, where I know how to decipher its messages. Otherwise, I’ve not a clue what my body/soul is communicating to me most of the time, what it really wants and needs or what it wants me to do with my life, in this big, overwhelming world. Everything, besides the clarity of hunger, is so cloudy, murky.

And there is of course the shame of making this my purpose, when so many people don’t even have enough to eat. Layer on some of that and it is a wonderful soup to be swimming in. But I cannot pretend it isn’t true for me. It is blatantly and embarrassingly clear.

I hope someday I find some other purpose. For now it is the reason I have for getting up in the morning, what makes going through my days tolerable. To have to create hunger to have to feed myself. And as someone who has walked the line of death in that struggle, it is always somewhat of a dramatic issue. My own little dramatic issue. Or is it ours? Yours?

The ironic truth is that as a restrictor and controller of food, I definitely live to eat. Do you understand? It is astounding to me, the energy spent in this, and the paradox. And that there seems to be nothing else. Maybe someday I will find out how to eat to live, a purpose beyond hunger.”

*I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I am not looking for advice or sympathy, more for a dialogue about the parallels to soullessness in our society and what we do to feel any sort of purpose within it. The extremes we go to to find something, to feel something, to be involved in something important. Do you understand?

Longing

I saw you today

Just a hint

Your primal wispy coat

Flashing

Grace and portal

Into something deeper

This longing

Rests rooted, buried

Far within

Although skilled in denial

Now

Hollow grief fills me

Memories

Searching, your absence

Now

I admit my longing

Seeking connection

To merge with you, The Larger

I long I long

For so long I’ve longed

And when I see you

I want to enter your skin

What Do I Have To Offer?

This question, again? I’ve asked myself this question so many times, regardless of all of the trainings I’ve been through, the compliments I’ve received when sharing one of a number of skills I have with others. I know I am helpful, I know I have something to share, I just can’t formulate what it is.

I’ve often had visions of me sitting by the sea, looking out and scanning the waters for something to emerge, hoping for it to swim directly towards me and choose me. I fantasize that this image would grasp my shoulders, look me directly in the eyes, and say that I belong to it, and it to I. That it would tell me of the work we have to do together, and how to begin building it. There would be no room for guessing, wondering or doubting what this work would be. We would just know what it is and begin.

This undeniably clear message has been a yearning for so long now, and it has taken me on many journeys to “find” this “thing.” I have met many, learned much in the process. And I’ve mostly come to the point that the more I have learned, the more I feel I know nothing. I’ve also sat with the possibility that this thing I am looking for isn’t so much an end purpose, but an urging to propel me on this journey, this process…that the thing IS the process. I’ve sat with that being true, and surrendered to this possibility, for years.

So it is a strange thing to have this consistent yearning rear its head with such strength once again, as if something in me had learned from the surrender but is now ready to do Something More. I don’t know what that is, like a dream I get fleeting bits of information, of possibilities, and then these evanescent sensations submerge themselves back into the deep blue sea. I know I have seen them, and I know they are under this water. I can’t really even describe what they look like, just that I have felt them rise from the depths to get my attention somehow. But now they are unseen, although I can feel their tug from below. It is as if they beckon me but so unclearly I can do nothing.

Nothing but sit on this rock, scanning, scanning. Nothing but looking out across the deep waters for them to rise up and swim towards me.