Old Bones (aka why I won’t let myself die.)

I spend much of my days lately going through my past, reading each post, filtering out those that say little and creating what will be a book out of the others. Remembering who I was, and trying to figure if there is still some of him inside of me, or if he’s still there, buried under all that’s happened since and trying to dig his way out.

Some of the things I’ve written are still saturated now with the same pain I felt then – but some things I read make it worth it.
This is one of those things that make it all worth it…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
’06 – – – Because this makes me feel that everything in my life that got me to today was for some sort of reason…
I’ve been reading this almost every day since I received it in the mail about a week ago.
Every time, I get choked up.
Frequently, tears fall.
and I don’t think I will ever understand what I do to deserve things and people like this in my life
simply by living it the only way I can believe in…
***
(Sometime in ’05)
Dear kSea,
I find myself hesitant to write this as I don’t wield words nearly as deftly as you do. There is very little art in my language – pragmatic ramblings at best. And yet here I am putting paper to pen anyway. Because I miss exchanges with you. Because the internet feels cold and incidental. Because I’m hopeful that intention can affect distances, mental if not geographic. Because it’s so nice to get real mail!
There’s a part of me that’s worried about you nearly since the day I met you. Me being the mother that I am and you with your constant chaos and complete lack of social safety nets that I rely on in my own life. Yet some how you have managed to amaze me with your resilience and your will to survive time and time again. You’ve given me pause to question some of the things I give power and importance to. Boiled life down to it’s essentials.
When you were leaving S.F. for Boston my worry spiked. You seem like a mythical creature on the endangered species list – magnificent and otherworldly, but fragile and only possible in certain realities. Your disregard for those social construct nets is something that seemed possible only in a defiant city like S.F.
7.4
Wow, I wish I’d put a date on the first half of this letter. I wrote it possibly over eight months ago. It got lost in my papers and I suddenly found it just recently. But I read those words and realize it still holds true – all of it. So, I continue…
Nonetheless, out you ventured into the cruel world that never seems to appreciate it’s mythical creatures until they’re gone. But in a world stingy with it’s magic you’ve milked it, found the leaks and siphoned it, nurtured it’s growth in sidewalk cracks, passed it on like notes in class. You NEVER cease to amaze and inspire me.
This praise and awe does not come blind to the darker side. I know that you carry anger, bitterness, resentment, malice and cold along with all the glitter. It doesn’t make the wonder any less real – more so, in fact. The fervor with which you hold on to the beauty of the world comes in part from your knowledge of how ugly it can be. In times I’ve heard you resent your will to live. The thing is it’s not just a will to not be dead, but a will to live. To really live and take life for all it’s worth.
I guess this is really just a long winded way for me to tell you that I love you and I’m immensely grateful to have you in my life.

And I’ll never forget getting mailed a PB&J sandwich.
And I found this picture and thought you’d like it.
Much Love,
Whit

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There was a time when I loved myself.Thought I was indestructible.
I’ve learned more since, but I still believe the latter. Not many people live through what I have been through – they give up.

I never will… but one day I just might want to go. IF I ever feel like I have given all I can.
I don’t see that day being anytime soon.

I love you. All of you. If you read this – thank you. I will do whatever I can for you. For us.
Just in something of a low spot for the past years.

I will fly again.

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and I rejoice

The San Francisco heat wave, our yearly week of Summer, finally breaks & I quietly rejoice. I am not made for hot weather – or at least hot weather where there isn’t a clean ocean or river or lake or large puddle to go swimming or stomping in.

September is knocking on the door of October, and if I had to choose a favorite, I think October would be it. I remember the way some of the places I have lived changed their color, the reds & oranges & hints of stubborn green flooding the air & ground as if the world was on fire, sacrificing itself in some sacred way to become the stark, haunting & beautiful bare branches of Winter.

The energy of Change is in the air. It finds its way into my blood – and my memory.

Twelve years & four days ago I decided to follow my dreams, whatever they were & whatever it took. Shortly after I was working with The Dresden Dolls & my life changed forever.

It was on this day that my beloved Bean was hit by a train in Austin & killed, a few hours and eleven years ago.

Ten years less a week ago I received an email from Mike asking if I was interested in becoming a permanent part of the Vau De Vire family.

Six years & eight days ago I first stepped into the hospice, walking in easily enough but rapidly dying one week later as my body began to shut down.

Five years & a month ago I did what the doctors thought impossible, and walked out alive.

Four years & a month ago I talked with my Birth Mother for the first time in my life.

Nov. 23, 2013

Two years & a week ago I first spoke to my Birth Father, who until shortly before that had no idea I existed.

And now I feel the story of this man should – will – change again. I’ve already begun to kick a nine-year morphine addiction & plan to have that entirely behind me in less than a week… yet I feel that is far from enough. I want more. Monumental change. I thrive on the shit. It’s my lifeblood, my constant need. When life gets too comfortable, too predictable, I have a bad habit of stepping into a dangerous dance to bring back, to summon life’s music – and far too much is dangerous these days.

The dreams I still have, but the energy to reach for them is as scarred as my liver. I will keep moving forward, doing my best to rip through the barriers, the walls both inside & out. Both physical & mental.
The failed Kickstarter shook me. It hit hard and I fell.
It’s time to rise again. Dust myself off and move on.
I will keep moving forward.
I will live to make my dreams come true.

I see the sun shining outside, feel the sharp chill of the breeze that cuts through my window. Today will be cooler…

and I rejoice.

Getting out of the way of myself

(Begun)Saturday night, roughly 12:30am. GrassFish 2016
Post laydown recharge –
(Semi-completed) Monday, 5.17.16, the early waking hours before my feet hit the floor…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I’m tempted to say that I almost didn’t make up here, but now, ultimately, I know better. Some things are simply *meant* to happen, and we end up using more effort to ignore and fight the call than we would simply listening to the ‘Verse and accepting that it will *always* know what we need.
Of course, it’s simple to ignore or simply not notice, to have what *you* thought remain true to your expectations. It’s safe to remain in the bubble that we’ve created and go on with our daily lives, digging for any excuse available to remain in our world of woe-is-me. I never was like this before. Before the hospice.
I’ve let fear take over my thoughts.
A few months ago when this event was announced, a week of camping on a sublime campground 3 hours north of San Francisco, at that moment I resigned myself to most likely not being able to join.
All of the reasons and rationalities ran through my head in a valiant attempt to justify my decision: Finances, first & foremost. I had already asked for and received, in my mind, more than I deserved. Even though it was to help keep me alive, it still felt – will always feel – like I am asking for too much. If I asked for something simply to *enjoy* life instead of not dying, that would be abusing the kindness that has already been shown – and could possibly take away from the assistance that I actually *need* in the future to not only stay alive, but in the effort to get well.
Then of course there was Ruby, my dog, my companion, the one, who with her smiles and snuggles and dependency on me takes the sharpest edges off the loneliness that is an ever-increasing part of my world… and of course, the book project. Losing myself in the work & words & all of the things that need to happen so *it* can happen… no. I need to work. To dig my way out from under the poverty that keeps me stuck here, to finally be able to give back.
In my mind, it was settled. I simply couldn’t go to GrassFish.

I’ll tolerate the daily drudgery because the daily drudgery is easier than actually changing the ways that have been set for me – but that is *NOT* me. I wondered who this person was that I had become, wondered how this fearful bastard took control.

I looked back to the time before the sickness took hold of me, to that very moment I gave everything that I was *supposed* to do up and ran with a smile & wild look in my eyes to the edge of the cliff – and jumped – not even knowing if I even had wings but hoping that they might unfold… and if they didn’t, if my body & soul was shattered on the razor-sharp rocks below, then so be it.
I was done being someone else’s pawn, someone else’s work-horse.
I wanted to remember who I wanted to be, and become that person who I dreamt of as a child.
And I was more than willing to pay any cost to find him. To find, for the first time… me.

And I fell. I lost my car, had to sell off everything that I could simply to feed my dog & me in-between the odd-jobs I took – at one point I couldn’t help but laugh as I was surrounded by over $7,000 worth of original French Art-Deco lamps to rewire & had $3 & change in my pocket… but even though I was broke, hungry, and days away from getting the eviction notice on my apartment – something felt more right than it ever had before. With the odd-jobs I was helping people, and the stain left on my soul from my last “official” job was fading. I was absolutely terrified of what might happen next, but I had never felt so alive. There was a strange feeling inside that I remember then, hidden behind the terror and uncertainty, but at certain times it was much stronger and edged its way out to the front. The closest I can come to naming it is genuine happiness… the kind of happiness that begins at the core of your soul and makes your entire mind & body tingle, adds a vibrant light behind your eyes and a peacefulness in every motion you make.
I was doing something right. I was becoming me – and it was noticed.

From that moment on, it was easy to compare, in a way, to Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Things started falling into place. A dear friend hooked me up with a band that I had performed with before called The Dresden Dolls, and I started working with them – organizing performers for their shows around the world from wherever I could find a place to sleep after I was evicted – from a fetish dungeon (with rooms for all types of fetishes) to artist warehouses, friends couches and gods, the stories…
From being flown out to Boston, coming back to San Francisco, deciding to move there and being re-routed in route… just going wherever I was pointed, making the best of wherever I ended up.

I can’t say I wasn’t afraid, but I didn’t let the fear control me – and the world just kept opening itself up to me, as if everywhere I went there was the proverbial red carpet laid out on the roads and in my mind…

I created an online magazine, produced events, and even won an award. There was no stopping me…

and then I got sick.

Even though I somehow lived through that, the fear was so unknown & intense – knowing that at literally any moment I could die – that I don’t think I was ever able to shake it.
I still carry that fear, and only when this camping event came up and it came to the point that it would have taken more effort to hold onto it like a child’s security blanket and not go to GrassFish¹ did I realize that the fear that I had worked so hard to move through in the past was now, again, acting as a barrier against living the life that I wanted.

When Tanya Mia offered me tickets, a place to sleep, and food when up there at the last moment, I still fought it. I couldn’t find someone I trusted enough to watch my dog, Ruby, with so little time to spare. Hells – I only had 1 day and with my mind battling me, couldn’t think of anyone… but wait, maybe? I sent a message, and the first person was busy. Good. See? I was right. I can’t go, but thanks.

But then there was another person I thought of. A long-shot as they’re usually busy and active, but… and then the reply came back. They can watch her but won’t be available until late Friday after work.
Okay. Now, a ride…

Ultimately, it worked out, and I was a fool for fighting it so hard – but through it all, I learned what I needed to –
1) that I need to let go of this fucking fear that’s been clinging to me ever since I was dying in the hospice. For nearly six years it has been controlling me, weakening me, and I have been losing me. It’s time to come back.
2) that this book is going to be terrifying to write – but I’m more familiar with fear than most, and I will do it. Hell – I’ve already begun. It is the greatest thing I can give. I lived a life that I couldn’t even imagine at the time and became who I wanted to be. I went (and continue on) a great journey, one that has taken me from the shining top of life to the depths of watching my own flesh decompose but I wasn’t willing to go I had to live and… and as I did what I swore I would do and danced out the door of the hospice, called a “miracle” by the nurses and nurse assistants who (understandably) pegged me for dead…
If I can help or inspire even one person with this book, that’s all I need.

Now, time to write a book.
We are ALL going to win.

^{1- GrassFish is a mid-year campout that has been going on for… I don’t know, 5-7 years? Born from a Burning Man
camp created by Lord Huckleberry & Opal Essence a long time ago named DustFish. By FAR, the best camp on the Playa.}

 

 

 

 

1.23.99 twisted

1.23.99

Of course.

It comes with me everywhere now,
how could it not
in the life I have chosen
to live?

In the pain that was handed to me
on a not-so-silver platter when
I began this fresh life
in an indescribable anguish
and lonely had such a different meaning
for me…

After trying so hard to be like them
I found that I wasn’t at all
so I always searched
for the sorrow
for the passion
for the madness

and the ways to make
all of these go away.

I frequently ended up
giving the drugs power over me.
It helped when nothing was inside.
I could justify the thoughts I had
the absence of feeling
with the drugs

So they became all that I could trust…

but
the fuck has always been mine.

The Fuck is my power
The Fuck is my control
and up until recently

the only control I felt.

I let so few of them see the sickness
and then, only a bit, as even I still don’t know
it’s full depths.

The ones who saw
always came back.
Of course they did.

They were selected for what I could see in them.
Certain ones. Certain women
Something in the eyes, their movements,
a wicked smile, a wanting, a yearning,
a hidden emptiness behind the lust in their smile
the taste of their sweat…

and they always came back,
wanting more of me – more of my flesh,
more of my cock, more
of what maybe they could see in my eyes
before I even dared to realize that it
was there – before I had an idea of
how sick it might be…

but that was years ago,
and as I let it come
as I looked for it in others

it grew.

It Grows.

Still never able to be fully realized
never able to give
never willing to give

the rightness hasn’t been there in the way
it needs to be,
save for so very few times, and those times
only made me want more.

Always more

always someone who can be for me
so much more than a body
as that’s never been enough to satisfy
this hunger inside of me.

Anyone can offer a body
Flesh is only flesh
but if that is all they are willing to offer,
that’s what I will take,
that’s what I will use,
and that’s what I will control
because I have that need and

I know that I can.

 

And perhaps someday
there will be another
who I might finally unbuild these meticulously constructed wall for
and trust deeply enough

to show the pieces of me

that even I am afraid to see.

To go so far past the flesh
the sweat
and the sweet juice of the fuck

to go so far past the body
because that is far to easy and
this hunger won’t be satisfied
until I lay down with a woman and
in love
in trust
in passion

she is willing to abandon
her soul to me.

I will take it
and in my sickness
I will tear it apart

in my sickness
I will consume it, piece by piece
until it is my own, and we are both broken
and lost.

Then, slowly, I will bring it back
carefully mend it
putting it all back together, piece by piece
like shards of a strange dark puzzle
making us whole again –

in my love making her soul
so much stronger and returning it to her with
almost every piece

pure and shining like the stars
her soul glowing and white and strong and nothing
but peace inside …

keeping the bruised parts
the parts where the pain came from
the parts that twisted her
made her afraid
and made her hurt

away from her, inside of me
keeping my own shadows company…

so that maybe,
just maybe
she doesn’t have to feel them

for now.

shovels, digging up the past.

Digging through the past, successfully finding the now. Shovel load by load over my shoulder, there are many layers to get by. Rip out the weeds, down to the soil, bricks of clay for protection. Dig out the bones of who I once was and putting the gristle of life on them.
I found me again.
I am a friggin’ archeologist of the soul.
If only I wrote when I was a child, full of wonder and daring, looking at everything anew, learning how to walk again, to dance, to speak, to sing, to write.
And then I remember. Just a couple of years ago I couldn’t do any of those things, and had to relearn every. single. one.
Careful what you wish for, yes?

What were we when ‘impossible’ was not an option? The cliffs I used to jump off of into the sea are now closed. Too many injuries, too many deaths. Too much risk.
Too much life, exultation, living.
The dangerously narrow path that we rode on our bikes is now flattened for a private golf course – or was. I haven’t been there in years.
The fences I jumped walking to grade school, the life I lived without any type of helmet or protection on my skateboard, surfboard, and only a crossbar pad on my bike hoping my balls wouldn’t get crushed. Fuck life, protect the balls.
In dirt clod armies I almost lost an eye, cut above and below, the dirt wrapped around sharp cement. The scars are still there in my skin, the laughter in my soul. My right eye will always be a bit more protective.
I have been held under the sea by waves. I learned not to panic, but to open my eyes. Gods, what a beautiful world there. If only I had gills.
BREATHE. I didn’t want to come up – but there was always another wave to catch.

There always will be.

Give in to your passion, give into love, give into your heart. Look at how much you have fought for to bring you here.

I love you.

This is still happening, and we need it.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ruby-needs-your-help-and-mine-i-do-this-for-her/x/451145

You can do direct help through Paypal, if you don’t want to read about hos beautiful a pup Ruby is. kSea@culturefluxmagazine.com is my paypal addy.

Ruby in her favorite place, after playing in the park.

Made of This (Sweet Dreams)

I dreamt of her last night, an unknown woman in an unknown place.
The shared laughter, the light that was in her eyes when she looked at me, reflected in my heart.

It has been a long, long time since even my subconscious dared dream of such a beautiful feeling…

…to me

6:41am – Hot coffee, a smoke, looking on the interweb for places to in the mountains to dissapear to for a few days or weeks, and getting my hair chopped & died today. Happy birthday to me.

On this day I always wonder where she is; if she thinks of me, if she’s even still alive. Searches in the past for her turned up next to nothing – I might have my nationality, but that’s pretty much it. She was a college student, so was he. Norweigan, Irish, Mutt & mutt – but I like the Norweigan & Irish so I’m sticking with those. With no known mother or father, I get to choose who I want to be.

No known beginning. I just… was. Of course with the amazing things that have happened all through my life once I started paying attention, the fact that after it all I should be dead a hundred times and am not, I fantasize about being more in the supernatural realm of things – but really, aren’t we all if we let ourselves see?

I’ve been reading a book that an acquaintance said I should, said I might like. By Deepak Chopra, it’s called The Way of the Wizard. It is based on Merlin & his teachings, and though I don’t really go for your common “Self Help” book these days, choosing more to remember all of what I’ve already read & experienced, there are many parts that I like in this one, that resound in me. One I particularly like is towards the end of the “Lessons”, where Merlin & Arthur are parting ways.

>>>”I wanted to give you a parting gift, and I could think of nothing better than this.” Merlin pointed to the road beneath their feet, which had also appeared overnight. “Roads are the sign of the wizard. Or did you know that?”… “Although you may fancy that you own a part of this world, in fact you only walk it. In spirit you are the dust on the road, the restlessness in the wind. You mortals build homes to protect yourselves from the world. To a wizard home is this moment, and moments are always moving–”     “On the road of time,” Arthur said, finishing the sentence for him.”…>>>

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I’m excited about the changes happening in my life right now. There is much of the past to let go of, many ways that I’ve become accustomed to, comfortable with, that I must transition away from – but with each death comes a new life, and hell, death is certainly no stranger to me. In order to learn how to live I had to accept the idea of my physical death over half of my life ago. In many ways, this is perhaps the most incredible gift I have ever received, even with all of the loneliness that has come with it, the sorrow, pain, and… and the child who would have been named Blue. It took me years of ripping myself apart, years of struggle, to realize I wasn’t getting anywhere. The problem was the struggle, and that in simply letting things be, looking at them, and truly seeing the clues, invitations, and finding the hidden treasures buried deep inside devastation & disaster.
That is where peace lies, where the answers are; and where I only recently realized what love truly is. At least I think so – the idea is there, but putting it into practice? Hell, I’m sure that will be a different story altogether. I still want that someone to share things with, still would happily admit that I’m imperfect enough to look for the person I wrote about in “Enough”, “No Vacancy“ – and ridiculous amounts of other places over the years.

I don’t think I ever want to be so extraordinarily “Fool on the Hill” Self-satisfied as to forget how to deeply value the  perfection of moments such as watching someone I am in love with sleep, and wonder what they are dreaming about, of seeing the world grow brighter when they laugh, watching the little things they do when they think that no one else is watching… of wrapping my fingers through the hair behind their head & pulling them to me – and of sharing with them the beauty of such simple things as the road, eating crappy food & all the goofy junk that we can’t live without at truck stops (Mad Libs!), coming to the crest of a mountain and watching the world stretch out before us, knowing that it is us, and that it is ours, and feeling our love expand and enfold us in the awed silence we share… (Whoa. Whoa! That was intended to be much shorter. Like – maybe one incredibly profound line. I swear, when the romantic fool inside of me is allowed to say a few words ya just can’t shut him up.)

And the magick of life continues to unfold each moment…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I think I need to go do some manly stuff now after the fluffiness of that last paragraph – work on my Motorhome (Alice), sharpen my knives, scratch my balls (whether they need it or not – HA!), make Alice into a monster motorhome – and maybe even be so bold as to put those nekkid lady mud-flaps on her… and then, um –  get my hair done. In a manly way. By a sexy chick. (aka the lovely & talented Raven Amparo – hair goddess.)

It couldn’t be more appropriate that The Temple of Flux burns tonight – and for the first year, the Temple is not a building; it is a much more organic shape, depicting mountains & valleys & the like. Coincidence?

I think not.

flux

flux. A name that becomes more and more appropriate as time progresses; a name that was given from a random thought, long before that Aeon chick got all big and famous, having a movie made out of her and all that. No, in case you’re wondering, we aren’t related as far as I know, but then again, I’ve never known my mother or father – hell, they could be cool cult cartoons as far as I know.

It couldn’t be more deliciously perfect that the Temple of Flux at “That Thing in the Desert” burns on my birthday – the Temple burn has always been the most sacred part of the week for me, commonly visiting it at least a few times during the week for the energy that swirls in and around it – the loss, the change, the transformation…

Life is incredible these days, the Magick I once knew comes back, I’m learning how to listen, learning how to know it again. The lessons come & I pay attention, the clues to a life where Spirit comes and intertwines beautifully with the material world, and I am again becoming. – A small yet incredible example (because after all, isn’t everything incredible? Amazing? Awesome – and exactly as it should be?) is that during the first tow of my home my still camera and video camera, which I had worked so incredibly hard for, waited for, and finally after so much time was able to get because there is some reason I have to need to let you see the beauty that I do – well, in the few moments the cop gave me to pack I couldn’t realize what I was dong through the tears, frustration and anguish and ended up putting a couple of large bottles of water on top of them in one of the two bags that I could barely carry trying to figure out if I had a place to sleep that night, trying to figure out how to exist without bothering anyone else – well, both of them were crushed, the still camera actually bent, the screen on my vidcam, crushed. These are small things, but things I like to have. I like to be able to occasionally go back in the past – or share the present with you in ways that sometimes simple words can’t convey… and of course, for CultureFlux & where I am planning to take it. Still, they were gone, & that was it. For a few seconds I was pissed off, but then – why? I’ve lost & given up more things than I can even number to live this life, & detachment has become a part of it. Not a bitter, false detachment, but a way of the heart that says that everything is fine, exactly as it should be…

Then. Then towards the end of last month, for the first time in weeks because there was no reason to before, I checked my bank account.

Umm, wait. before I go any further I need to wind up my generator & plug in my laptop. I have taht exclamation mark thing on the battery monitor. Back in a minute…

k. back. Anyway, at some time during the month SSDI realized that they shorted me on a few checks at the start of this whole thing – and the amount was just enough to replace my cameras, not for the old ones but for better (because eBay *rocks*), get almost a full tank of gas…

Just an example, a small one – a material one.

There is so much more going on inside, so much more remembered, so much changing bring me back to Spirit. The Universe is working with me. I am a part of it again.

There is so incredibly much changing  –

and it is beautiful.

Infinite possibilities…

You might say that it began as a child, was ingrained in me, the first lust I knew. Did it come from a previous life, the first hint of who I was/am, without even the knowledge of this?

I thought it was because I simply liked to create; to create new spaces – or perhaps it was the only way I knew how to reach for the unknown, escape from the everyday school & back, “How was your day, Casey?” …”fine.”  The same thing ingrained into me, day after day…

but in my room I began to find magick. A posted sign on the door “This Is A Place Of Solitude” ripped down by the parents within hours, but the message remained…

I would re-arrange my room every month if not more. It began early, before I was even strong enough to slide the weight of the dresser along the thin carpet. Creating something that was not known, creating something new, feeling the delight when I woke and wasn’t certain where I was… erasing the boundaries, the prison of the commonplace and familiar, feeling a strange sense of happiness when I stubbed my toe on something that wasn’t there before, or going in a completely different direction on the way to my bathroom in the darkness of night. Small, silly joys…

In order to live a full life the boundaries of what we think we know must be erased. As soon as you enclose an experience with the words “I know” something wonderful looses its magick. You can see the same thing – a tree, a building, a person every day and find something new each time. If you look close enough at any object, the  boundaries begin to fade and it is new again, alive.

I don’t want to believe that there is anything truly known – but still, there is a paradox. Things become too familiar perhaps, and that leaves the true unknown out there to bring the shine back into the eyes. That awakens the magick that might have been forgotten…

It’s as simple as opening my door in a different place every few days, stepping outside of my home, and lettting the unknown wash over me again, realizing that this is a life of infinite possibilities, and each one is answered with a resounding yes.

Now it’s time to sleep – but are  the dreams I will have only called dreams because of the boundaries that we deem as reality?

There are many worlds out there, we only call this one “real” because it is confined bu the boundaries that we have been conditioned to impose on it – because it is familiar, because we don’t know better, or are afraid – but without us deciding what our reality is, what would it be? What could we be?

Infinite Possibilities…

Is what we imagine to be reality truly real?

Five Years

the road and life twisted out before me, the world was mine and playfully called…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years. So much then, so much more

to become again.

https://kseaflux.wordpress.com/2005/08/17/231/

Pursuit

8-21-10  3am Saturday

In just a few hours, leaving the insanity of the past few weeks behind and getting into the peace of the mountains, a river, and rafting with a group I’m in at the hospital. Something they do annually to help ease the trials – the extra trials of everyday life that most in the group go through in order to just simply not die. To celebrate the fact that through it all, we’re still alive. I can’t express how much this is needed, at least speaking for myself. The past three weeks have been so draining it’s difficult to convey – my home towed twice, never certain that I’ll actually get it back until the last minute, and using everything I have to keep fighting, to keep on going, to not ever give up – though the thought has done much more than just cross my mind at times.

… but then I forget the strength we can find when we need to. I’ve been though too much already to let this take me down & keep me there, and it comes to the point where all I can do is laugh, know that everything will work out as it is supposed to, and do as much as I can. I’ve remembered that strength inside of me, the inner peace, that I had completely forgotten about in the everyday grind – it just wasn’t really needed, wasn;t used, so it faded away. I had become relatively complacent, just going through the day to day life of working on CultureFlux, hospital visits, cafe’s… dead eye smiles, empty laughter, the light in my heart darkened to a facade, a faint shadow of who I can be, have been…

I’m finding my heart again, realizing that passion doesn’t come from outside, doesn’t come from a new adventure, a new place, new people – it’s inside me, inside all of us, always – we simply need to remember where to find it, and how to keep it shining so fucking bright in our hearts that it blinds people with its beauty.

It’s nice to remember – to be coming back…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And then I finally take the time to read my Rob Brezsny horoscope thang for last week…

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning August 19
Copyright 2010 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Ever upstream from myself,” wrote Belgian
poet Edmond Vandercammen. “I advance, implore and pursue myself.” I
suggest you adopt that attitude, Virgo. Assume that your best self is
sailing along at a rapid clip, somewhere in the distance ahead of you, and
it’s your job to catch up. Your highest form of expression is eluding you,
but you’re hunting it down. The most beautiful possible embodiment of all
your potentials is surging toward the future, and it’s your fun job to close
the gap between you and unite with it.

Creating the Chrysalis

I’ve been sitting here trying to find the right words to begin this entry – words that will help carry it past the beginning into what I truly want to say, words that will inspire me to put the following ones in the right places so that all that is inside might be just beautifully sucked out of me and go splat right where they belong, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. There are just too damn many of them that I want to say, but on the same note it all comes down to something so ridiculously simple that if I were content with just writing what the outcome of what I have been learning from the recent ten days has been teaching me, it could be as short as a couple paragraphs…

…but writing for me is a therapy, a way of cleaning out the things in my head & heart, a way of purging the old and in putting the words down, preparing my Self for the new.  I need to write of how after my home back after it getting towed again – this time through no fault of my own (it was an illegal tow & I’m fighting it)  brought me much more inside, I am able to realize how exquisitely perfect life is and how incredible the lessons are; how in working with my Runes they have not only answered so much but reminded me of the questions I need to ask. During those ten days however, not able to understand why when things are going so well and I’m trying so damn hard to straighten things out in my life and succeeding, each day brought me closer to ending it, to the point where I had it all planned out. It was not a decision made for something as small as losing my home again, but the constant feeling of futility, of failure,  and how far to many things in regards to relationships with people were made clear.

Life isn’t meant to be spent in a bubble, yet when someone meets with adversity people become afraid, go running away. There are so few people who asked how I was doing, & that is definitely something I will remember, of how important those words were & how grateful I was for them. A very small part of a much larger lesson, though a simple one…

There’s something I need to figure out. Something that needs to change, I think perhaps something I’ve lost that I need to get back. What that is I’m not exactly certain yet, but change is happening, whether I like it or not – and I believe that I’m going to like it. After all, change & growth have always been the things that are most instrumental in keeping me excited about life, and ultimately, without question – keeping me alive.

8-15-10

PASSION. Passion passion passion passion passion! It hit me last night – I’ve been living a life of fighting for dreams, talking about them, pushing them – but recently with no heart behind the words to give them reason, to give me reason, to make things make sense & have purpose. To live a life without passion is no life at all… and that is what my life had become. This, perhaps, is one of the lessons that I was supposed to learn, as each time my motorhome got towed, that, as terrifying as it was, was when my blood was pumping, when every single moment meant something, had an importance, when I was fighting as hard as I could just to keep running in one place…

The road screams my name, but there are things that need to be rectified, healed, made right before I can leave. Today I began the formidable process of weaning myself off of my pain medication – two and a half years of morphine is enough, and I have a justifiable reason to believe that it is something that has taken who I am away. I would much rather scream in physical pain & be able to feel the fire that is shielded in my heart, instead of feeling nothing at all.

Things are changing. I am changing, I need to, and at long last I’ve finally realized that. There is something I need to let go of though… some fabric of the past that needs to be ripped away so that something new can emerge, someting perhaps beautiful… the chrysalis is being created.