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

The Void

There is a hollow core

Of liquid Nothingness inside me

Lashing waters of neverending grief

At lack of direction, spark

Identity, purpose, mission

I’d like to think

It a rumbling Darkness

One that’s initiating me

A Holy Womb of Void

And I, its holder

My only real assignment, as channel

To Be.

I’d like to think

This assignment

Is sacred

Given by the Highest of Orders

Divine and Boddhisatvic

Such is the fantasy nature of my mind.

But who the fuck am I

To carry such a thing?

It makes more sense to think that

What it feels like

When I’m full

Is vast and utter abandonment

Old ancestral feelings

Vast and utter loneliness

Vast and utter despair

That instead of Holy

There’s really just an echoing chamber of anger

At none in human form, but at Spirit itself:

WHY DON’T I HAVE DIRECTION?

WHERE IS MY HOLY PURPOSE?

WHY DO YOU NOT CHOOSE ME FOR A CLEAR MISSION?

WHY ARE YOU SO SILENT?

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE AND WHY HAVE YOU LEFT ME SO ALONE?

And then of course, I wonder

If its a Freudian thing

All about the absent father

A problem

Rather than a sacred thing

And I realize that regardless

Inside this vast and utter emptiness

Whatever it may be

There is something

It is my feeling

Perhaps my sacred feeling

A roiling despair

A roiling grief

A roiling bitterness

And the only direction

In this seemingly echoing desert, this pathless land

Is my pen, to express

This something

Of Nothing

I feel

When I’m full.

Yearning For The Sun

I wake up

And even though you are shining

Inside it is so very cold

So very dark

So very quiet

The hearthfire

Has burned down to embers

Only struggling glowlight

Remains

Unlike an external furnace

I am not equipped with instructions

Of how to revive you

Oh internal Sun

Where have you gone?

I yearn for your rays

Your red hot arms

Ankh extended throughout being

To revive me

Inspire me

Help me

Know who I am

And what I am here to do

Instead it is just this flickering

This flickering

Silence

Of question marks

Evanescence wandering

And perpetual grasping

Oh internal Sun

Would that you burn brightly

Within me

To know this

To give this

To serve from this

My deepest desire

Yearning

I both create space for hope

And wait without hope

That someday

I will feel you

Roaring brightly

Within

“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?

Notes from The Dream:

CREATE ORDER ((FROM CHAOS))

HAVE FAITH

KEEP

GOING