mom, this little girl in my dream last night said you were struggling in the fires of hell. i knew she was indoctrinated into christian religion and hence believing in that myth and that you really were not in hell but in the dream, i wondered if you were in fact, struggling. are you?
the dream the night before, of the snake coming out of my belly button, that was about my grief. a friend gave me the message and it resonated. the pain of letting go of the pain of losing you is an entirely new kind of pain. because it means letting go more. and also the pain of being connected to you and to all of the women before you is painful too because every woman in our bloodline lived an oppressed life.
it’s no wonder that every cell in this being of mine is determined to live my true self. i am not here to survive and if it came down to survival only, i would have no problem leaving this place. my soul is more at home on the other side anyhow. i am here to heal myself and the ancestral line and to live fully blossomed as true self. if i live fully blossomed as true self, i heal myself and you and all the ancestors seven generations back and those yet to come. the snake represents this.
i went through my heuristic research journal from grad school when i did my shadow work. in that messy colorful journal you were first diagnosed with cancer. before diagnosis i was writing about how you were saying that you felt like you were dying, how you feared you had cancer. we all minimized your psychic intuition. you knew. the women in our family are keenly psychic but it’s been repressed by the way things are. you fucking knew, mom. in the journal i was tormented by your pain. i could not differentiate from you. this link between us is so big and strong and like a snake.
the light is the bright excitement of success. of saying no to the temptation to fall into the vault of despair and collect droplets of sorrow like that death cab for cutie line. i am feeling happy since wednesday. happy to serve people and be love. happy to feel a sense of home in my neighborhood. happy to think that being me is actually enough. i am accepting my flaws. i am facing aging with some grace. how the years pass.
i keep waking up too early. insanely early. four am. going through my instagram pictures and realizing i am doing this cause of you, mom. i see the selfie i took in vegas on the last trip before your diagnosis. when we all thought you were just depressed. when you knew you had cancer before the doctors knew. i was a completely different person back then. only 2 years ago. i was much younger in my emotional self. naive to the pain of loss. wrapped up in the wounds of my past. still living halfway in a dream world. now, i am fully here in the present with a heart turned solid gold and knowing the deepest loss i may ever know. you, mom. you.
i wrote in the shadow journal that we are the same soul. i used to say that. because even though we could not be more opposite in our characters, beneath we both felt the same kind of pain and experienced the same emotional sensitivity. but i am the strong one, emotionally. even though i am weak on the material plane. not good at making money or finding a lasting mate or owning a home,. stuff like that. stuff this culture values above all.
i won’t settle for anything less than true love if i am going to commit to a man. he is real and i will be with him and if not, i will die believing i will. but i won’t marry just to marry or commit to not be alone. maybe i will never marry, i mean really, who cares? i don’t care about marriage or owning a home. but i could do both. i could do anything. all i am truly committed to is being a voice of healing and love. the rest is open to interpretation. the rest is emergent. i don’t have a conceptual plan. i follow the organic flow of each moment leading into the next.
i think back to my last ex and how much i clung to him as my home when you were on your way toward death. i was trying to replace you with him. it wasn’t conscious. i was scared and feeling so alone. lately, i don’t feel alone. i don’t seek home in a man. i don’t seek home in anything outside my self. i am unsure how i got here other than making the strong intention to get here. within is my base. if i get to make a man home than great but i am home within myself, first. my dad made my mom home. i mean, most people make their mates home. it’s natural. i am doing what is unnatural.
spiritual questing is an evolutionary thing. consciousness is evolving from animal to soul, it’s not a dichotomy, it’s an art project. i am going against the stream. it’s hard. i still want to have sex and affection. i love touch more than i love food. but i cannot control the latter and i long for it in a deep way. not the shallow way this culture treats sex as being about topical and specific self-centered pleasure. the animal in me may not need marriage but she needs soulful connection of skin, heart, soul. anyhow, mom, you already know this.
i feel like i am the one struggling in hell. but i am not struggling in hell anymore. are you? is dad? why did the little girl tell me you were in hell? is that me worried about you? mom, i was cocky. i though that due to my psychic gift, i could easily reach you once you passed on. this is not the case. i miss you and you feel so gone, so far away. i am haunted by way time passes and humbled once again.
i do hear you give me messages all the time in my head, almost like my own thought but i know it’s you cause i hear your voice and you advise me with the grace death brings. like right now, you say be happy and stop focusing on you and on sorrow. i know. i will. i am. because of you, i am. because i feel you free of your human suit knowing how fast life is and how happiness is of immense value and entirely possible. i know it’s possible cause i am feeling happy right now. i love you.
Winter Soil 