“At some point in time, I was a new thing. I was a thing that had not been hurt, had not been beaten, had not been cast out, had not been rejected. Maybe it was only for a day or two (or maybe more) but I dare to think that, once upon a time, I was even loved wholly and completely, if even for a moment.
We all start this way: new. We all start with our hearts in tact, our spirits strong, our connection to soul and self: solid. We start with our ten fingers and ten toes and we hold that newness for as long as we can. Or for as long as life lets us….” – from Meadow DeVor’s latest post.
The above quote is taken from today’s incredibly powerful post from Meadow Devor concerning the Japanese artisan practice of kintsugi (otherwise known Kintsukuroi :(金繕い) [Japanese: golden repair] – the artistic method of repairing broken ceramic vessels with lacquers imbued with gold, silver or platinum…
And how kintsukuroi can be seen as a metaphor for spiritual self-repair and moving beyond trauma toward healing and wholeness.
“…When you’re feeling overwhelmed, like you have given all your energy out to others and need to recharge yourself, always remember:
1.) You deserve happiness; take time for yourself
2.) Your feelings are no less important than anyone else’s
3.) We are all connected – when you hurt yourself you are hurting others”
I have been wanting to write and I promised to write – it was the reason for this month’s writing project (which was not so playfully named ‘Keeping it 100’*) – but as you might notice, I haven’t been keeping up with it this particular July/Month for Loki.
There are reasons, and I am trying to decide if I really want to get into all of them, because Heaven knows, I had plenty that I’d planned to write about, plenty that I’d promised to write about.
It’s more serious than usual in that not only had I promised myself that I’d carry the project through the whole month, I promised Him that I’d write about these topics and that I would carry it through by writing in this blog every day for a month.
We struck a deal of sorts, and I reneged in the sense that I did not follow through on my part.
I had promised to tell a story that I have not told.
It’s not that I had a shortage of posts, or that I never intended to tell the story. As a matter of fact, I have enough posts sitting in draft as well as several other posts written that only require that I cut and past them from the file folder on my laptop where I’ve stored them. They are in order, as I had planned.
You see, it is not that I stopped writing. It is that I did write but I refused to post, and that was what I promised Him that I wouldn’t do. I promised Him that I would share as much of the story as I could, no matter how uncomfortable things got, no matter how controversial the topics were….and yet…
I have not.
So what happened?
I got sick around the 15th of the month, as I may have mentioned in several of my latest posts.
A few of my friends pointed out that if I hadn’t been keeping up with my writing, of course that was understandable.
If I was ill – and I still am recovering from that double ear infection and sinus infection – that it stood to reason that I should rest and recuperate.
Several opined that I was being too hard on myself to think that He wouldn’t understand, that He would insist that I write anyway.
But I wrote every day. The writing is not the hardest part. It has never been the hardest part. He knew (just like anyone else who knows me well) that the purpose of the project had nothing to do with a writer’s block or an inability to express myself.
In essence, what He asked for was that I stop censoring myself; that I stop hiding – privatizing posts, or posting my thoughts in my less-frequented blog. He was asking for me to make my writing entirely public and highly accessible, to post ‘where it counts’ meaning where people could see and respond to my thoughts if they so chose.
He wanted me out of my comfort zone. It was an exercise to force me out of my social anxiety.
And so, He wanted me to stop keeping secrets, to be authentic and unashamed of who I am and what I am and what I do — for one month.
Just for one month, and then I could go back to ‘hiding’ if I so chose.
He didn’t care (because, if you know me, you know that I argued with Him) if ten thousand other people had written about such things ten thousand times before I wrote about them, before I would write about them.
He wants His people to express themselves fully, and He doesn’t care if you’ve all heard the stories before; He places great value on self-expression.
Perhaps it’s more than that: It’s about self-knowledge. It’s about fearlessness.
He wants us all to tell our stories….or at the very least, be fearless and unashamed about telling our stories.
~~~
*Believe me, you have heard this story before:
And yet, you’d better believe He never gets tired of hearing that story.
~~~
So, as you might imagine, I haven’t any VALID excuses.
“You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people, but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed.
You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life.
You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them”
Since I am still struggling with several overlapping illnesses at this time – ear infection, sinus infection, and general malaise – you may that I haven’t had much of the wherewithal to write these past few days.
Hence the reason that I’ve gotten so behind in keeping up with my daily posts this July in the Month for Loki.
But I have been reading a lot – and this powerful post came across my WordPress feed today, concerning Loki as a God Who is rather popular with folks who have struggled with various forms of abuse, difficulty, and dysfunction in their lives. I agree with her especially in this:
One of the biggest groups of people who tend to find themselves interacting with Loki are those who have been abused in some way. The ones who have lost themselves and need to be guided back – who need to learn who they are again. Loki teaches us that it’s okay to not be okay. He teaches us that it’s okay to be wounded and feel the wound so that it can heal properly.
While my experiences were not exactly the same as those of Ms. Kyaza, I can relate to a lot of her experiences, especially in regards to dysfunctional family relationships.
I can definitely identify with the ambivalent feelings that arise out of having suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of those whom I trusted most to love and respect me.
In fact, there were several occasions wherein I found myself dangerously close to tears while reading her post, as her description of her thoughts and feelings about her mother and their relationship so closely resonated with my own experiences so powerfully.
Reading her post made me feel a strange mixture of feelings.
I felt both a sense of exposure and a sense of triumphant relief in reading this post.
I felt an incredible sense of exposure and shame – as in reading her words, I was so acutely reminded of the immensity of my own desire to please my mother (and in turn, my siblings) who often rejected my efforts by responding with anger, ridicule or outright dismissal. And yet, I remember that guilt, that shame. I had grown up feeling that somehow, if I could just do better, work harder, love more – then finally, I would receive love; I would deserve love.
And yet, while reading, I also felt an undercurrent of strange relief – here was someone who writes so eloquently of navigating emotional landmines that I understand.
I felt understood. I felt heard.
I am not alone in this pain.
I am not the only one.
You see, I have both loved and hated my mother and my siblings – and as a result, in turn, as a woman and as a mother, I have both loved and hated myself. I struggled – and still struggle – with the emotional scars of my upbringing. I crave to feel understood, to feel safe, to feel loved, and yet I have been skeptical of the existence of a relationship wherein I can feel understood, safe and loved. Sometimes, I find myself skeptical of those who have tried to nurture me, so deeply ingrained was my belief that I did not deserve even my mother’s love, the love of my brothers and sisters.
It took me years to decipher that it was not my inadequacy or failing, but the lack of self-love and incapacity to receive love that my mother (and perhaps of those even further back) suffered with that continues this horrible chain.
It affects all of my relationships. I have tried valiantly to be the mother that my own wasn’t, and yet, I still find myself wondering if I’ve fallen short, if I’ve done a disservice to my children. As a person, I have endeavored to be emotionally reliable, compassionate, and kind, and yet, sometimes, I am a victim of my own perfectionism and pessimism, and my own distorted habits and worldviews.
I am estranged from my family, even today.
But the truth is, I am no longer estranged from myself. I am no longer lost.
I had to learn to break the cycle of the past. It is daily work to remain mindful of my emotional responses and reactions whenever I interact with others. (Is it kind? Is it necessary? Am I responding from a place of love and understanding rather than from fear or anger, for example.)
I have learned to be acutely aware of my own negative self-talk and self-limiting behaviors and beliefs. I am learning to accept myself and recognize my strengths and weaknesses, as well as accepting and recognizing that everyone else also has their own struggles with similar issues, with similar emotions, behaviors and beliefs about themselves – and none of us are perfect. Perfection is stagnation.
I am learning to allow myself …to feel vulnerable. To feel angry. To be open to my own emotions and not fear the emotions, reactions, or responses of others. I am learning to be accountable. I am learning to let go of what doesn’t work and focus on what does. I am learning to let go and trust the process. Trust Him and trust myself.
Loki taught me a lot of these things. He has taught me to embrace imperfection, to confront fear of loss or change, to let go of the need to control outcomes, to work with what I’ve been given, and most of all, to allow myself, to open myself to love.
Love the process of living, love the process of learning.
So. I am still sick with the flu that I’d caught from V the week before last.
And I was talking to a friend – who is spirit-touched and a Reiki practitioner – about my symptoms the other day.
You see, I have been suffering a great deal of sinus congestion, a headache, and most concerning of all, I have had a near-constant nosebleed for the past week.
My friend was pointing out that the combination of sinus congestion followed by nosebleeds could indicate the opening of my third eye.
And I was surprised to hear that, as I have always felt that I am almost completely headblind, but since my return from Arizona (following the ritual that occurred there), I have felt more ‘open,’ and as a result, I have had several rather vivid experiences.
Though I hadn’t thought to connect the increase in my experiences with the frequency of my nosebleeds.
~~~
(8:30 AM)
I have been stressing about what I should be writing again.
I woke up about 30 minutes ago.
I hadn’t intended on getting out of bed. I was still in that hypnogagic state, when I rolled toward the edge of the bed, and ‘sensed’ Loki there. He was standing there by the bed, and I distinctly remember muttering, ‘Let’s go.’
I had just awakened from a vivid dream concerning a small body of water, because I could recall seeing Him standing in the water, naked to the waist, waiting for me to join Him. And how, upon wading in, I received a clear visual of a short poem.
It looked like an Internet meme tile.
It was a poem about an experience – a magical experience – written by someone named Walter.
Unlike other times when I have dreamt of written words, the visual image of these words appeared surprisingly clear and easy to read, in black ink on a yellow lined paper.**
I think that I had been reading this paper.
But something had distracted me.
(Oddly enough, I could still hear the TV in the bedroom in the background — and it was distracting me. I could distinctly hear some news channel commentary concerning Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, and all of that.)
I recall that I had been reading this poem to myself, as if I had been trying to memorize it, as I may have been intending to make a post of it today.
But then, I’d begun to wake up.
I am trying to think of what this poem had made me think and feel – as I’d felt that I’d almost had it memorized – but then I’d let the TV distract me.
All I can remember was the first line:
Let us go to the well, and you will chart your first experience here…
I recall that the poem had a lilting sort of subtle rhythm as I whispered the words to myself – possibly an ABBA or even an ABCD-ABCD rhyme scheme. I was amazed that I’d been able to see the words so clearly as I’d spoken them aloud, and I remember thinking that I wasn’t that deeply asleep and yet, so deep and so clear were the words that I was speaking. I repeated them to myself several times – but somehow – how? why? – had I allowed the TV to intrude, rather than to ignore it and focus on what I had been saying?
Maybe this is not about my memory of the poem at all.
Perhaps this is the lesson:
The words, the experiences would all be clear to me if I allowed them to be.
And yet I jump away from away from these experiences and cast about for a distraction to take my focus away from them, from the possibility of recalling them.
(Perhaps this is what He means when He insists that I am still running; I am still afraid.)
We are standing at the Well of Memory and I am fussing over poetry?
Relax.
Relax. Let yourself be like water. The words were flowing over you, were they not?
You asked for a session. This was your session.
You heard [the television], yes, but you still had access to your vision of Me, and what We were doing…
These things can and do co-exist.
These ‘realities’ are nothing more than undercurrents of each other and you can tap into these multiple streams at any time that you wish.
(Am I so skilled as all that…or is it simply that easy?)
Yes…and no. It is that simple, but, as you might guess, it is not EASY.
Do you see the way you struggle with relaxing, with remembering? Let go of your need to describe every detail and just allow the flow.
That is the lesson. Stop putting these rules and all these parameters on it. Stop trying to document the experience as you are experiencing it and just let yourself see, let yourself feel, and you will remember it.
Stop thinking of these experiences as something unusual that is only given to you in pieces with all those attendant fears that suddenly you will forget.
Let yourself remember. Let yourself relax.
The fear drives it away from you, pushes it away from your understanding.
You will forget if you are always afraid to forget.
~~~
When I realized that I’d fully awakened, I blew my nose. There was blood coming out of my left nostril again.
(Clear out this logic…trust this process rang in my head.)
Perhaps this is what was meant when another Lokean friend and I were discussing this project at the beginning of the month.
I’d asked Him for a clue, a means to begin the project, and He’d said (through her, through some automatic writing):
Be fluid. Be more fluid.
~~~
And related to these hypnagogic conversations, here’s bit of pandoramancy:
There is so much that I still need to write about…and tonight, I got this little bit of pandoramancy that seemed to confirm that.
This song:
Evidently, Someone seems to be waiting for me to say something in particular
…as three different friends of mine have pushed this song on me in the last two days:
Do you know Drowning Pool? No? Not so much? Well you’ve got to listen to this song!…it’s a great song. I promise you’ll like it.
and then,
Do you like Drowning Pool? Well, this is my favorite song of theirs. Listen to it!…
And finally…
Hey. Listen…listen to this song, OK? I think it might be… important.
And so, I did.
One friend even sent me a link that to the first copy of the song that she found on YouTube that not only played the song along with lyrics (since I prefer to look at the lyrics while I listen to the song for the first time through) but then had the song lyrics posted a second time through – without the melody – for a total video length of 7 minutes, 40 seconds.
So, it was as if the Universe *really* wanted to make sure I had the access and the opportunity to study the lyrics not just one time through, but twice. O.o
So what could it mean?
Perhaps this song has a specific message that is supposed to serve as a nudge toward me.
Perhaps it’s supposed to be some subtle encouragement from Him
to continue along the same vein as I have been
concerning the story that I’m supposed to be telling this month.
You know, that story that details the main things that I’ve learned on this path, followed by discussion of several of the major ways that my path has changed?
Yes, that one.
Or maybe, there’s no message; the song might signify absolutely nothing at all.
But still…this is a powerful song that has created quite an earworm for me today.
What I took from these two posts was to mean was that I have allowed this little writing project of mine to limit myself in my words already.
I promised to write and yet I have allowed the words to separate Loki and I from each other.
He doesn’t really care what words I use, as long as I write the truth of the story.
And the truth of the story is difficult for me to admit to because it requires a certain amount of writing with an openness and eye towards vulnerability that I am not used to.
I have begged Him to take me deeper and yet it has been the words that have always separated us.
When I taught other kinksters about words as ordeal and how words can make thoughts manifest –
How with the use of words alone, one can create powerful connections!
I was also acutely aware of the concept that Gage Wallace speaks of concerning about how the distance between lovers can be created just as easily — created by the words on the tiny screen of an iPhone.
Words can bring together and words can separate. Names, titles, concepts, aspects….do they matter?
Well, it all matters just as much as it doesn’t matter, because words have a fluidity of meaning and power than is entirely dependent upon context and meaning.
We give words the power they have, and yet once they are said, or heard, their power becomes dependent upon others’ understanding of meaning and context.
Whether one is having a conversation or an argument, words are means by which access is given to thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
We connect with our words. We encourage with our words. We open up to others with our words.
But we can also wound with our words. We can shut down connection with words. We can separate ourselves from others with labels, titles, names, designations. We can lie, confuse, obfuscate meaning. We can hide behind our words.
Words can open and words can limit.
~~~
When Loki first came to me, almost from the beginning, I wanted to know Who He was.
But I realize that Loki encompasses all of these words…and yet, none of these words.
~~~~
**I love that last line, by the way. It is a perfect description of where my devotional practice with Loki seems to be going this month. I was equally tempted to use those words as the title for today’s post.
bloodteethandflame 