Reddening

Laying down that red thread, laying it down to rest. I sat in the bathroom stall and looked into the brown and green of the linoleum door and realized: i’ve been living the life others have set out for me, not intentionally, no, but I picked it all up along the way. Their ideas of me, the stories they told. Visions of child abuse and mental illness. Could it be an entity or was it actually you? Are you really the one suffering or is it an attachment. Maybe my most controversial piece yet, more to come I’m sure. Ideas of what to do and how to be. They reminded me of who I really am and how to get back home, yet don’t we find ourselves wandering lost when we only travel through the portals of others words? Isn’t the only straight and narrow way through within?

A song I have heard many times before draws on, twangy, yet calm. The room smells warm, fresh laundry. I sit here and I release in the corner, a dark entity who has picked up at the grim of the shadow realms. I told a friend who I would be within the circus and she said it makes so much sense. “I know, I’ve been her before” I say. If I speak in too much of a roundabout way let me know, yet maybe that’s part of the journey back to the true destination point. The zero point, the space of all creation. Maybe the stories and the context make the journey all the more fun. Prose within a poem, a way to really see and sense and feel the fullness of all that’s experienced. I practiced the art of listening. I saw an informational post on instagram about how to be good at it. If a train goes by it means you’ve been a “good girl” a client told me today, a gift from her mother to her when she was young. If I get it all out maybe it will no longer be inside of me.

A man to my right, an ancestor of Sasquatch, pale skin, tall and large and gray hair and beard. He is of the same lineage. It is felt. Ethereal and slow and wise and beautiful. He tends to himself, he moves his laundry.

I wear purple and black. A friend mentioned way way way back that I resembled a black cat. And this is the reddening.

Reddening:

In alchemy, "reddening" (rubedo) signifies the final stage of the alchemical process, often representing the culmination of transformation and the attainment of the Philosopher's Stone. It symbolizes the completion of the "Great Work," where the Philosopher's Stone, a red powder, is believed to grant immortality, perfect health, and spiritual enlightenment. 

The rubedo stage is characterized by the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, a red powder that is the ultimate goal of alchemical transformation. 

The rubedo stage also has a psychological and spiritual meaning, representing the integration of the individual's inner self and the attainment of a higher consciousness. 

Rubedo is often depicted in alchemical texts and art, using symbols like blood, a phoenix, a rose, or a crowned king to represent the red stage. 

Sources: google AI

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The warmth of this space, unlike a coffee shop or the library. It’s different. Comforting, homey. It’s warm in the air. We all move around one another with an inherent flow I haven’t taken note of before. Weaving in and out letting another pass without a single step back or to the side. We dance. She sings as she wipes the top shelves and reminds us that the machines won’t accept payments past 8:30. I smiled when she walked in, the kindness of a women who cares for this space as if it’s her own. A question offered “can I ask a question?” Pause “does water help with…..” it trails off, I catch the glimpse, and what I feel is familiarity. A smell of a past intimate, now friend. The words and style or another friend, and past intimate. And she sneezes twice, maybe we wait for a third time to see. I bless silently, though maybe I’m not supposed to say that. the third sneeze makes its mark.

I’m writing in the laundromat.

I am reminded of grandma. A fourth sneeze. Farther away this time. The music is still slow and breezy, like something you may hold a beer and lean back upon your heels and sway to if it was on a stage in front. A 5th sneeze! A blessing pulls the grim looking feel from my face. And I am gently finding my way out of the old skin. The one I prayed to release, for it felt unlike the true me, it felt rooted. I question this mark, and am reminded I can always return back and change what once was written: the tue me is rooted, the old skin was rotten. Right. Got it.

I meander my way around to try and to get to the points. If there are really any, or are we swaying around not present in the here and the now. Presence draws us in, brings us all closer. And as I feel this, I feel such depth and pain rise up in my chest “I’m tired of feeling all the damn time!” “I’m tired of this grief and this pain! I want this to be over”

He said “I’ll pass the message along. I’m trying to fold laundry, sorry. We’re in the same boat yet I just don’t need those things. I understand that… did you get a hold of mom?… ok, hmmm. I’ll see what I can do. If I can Venmo you anything I’ll look, Zelle is better now? Oh I suppose. Ok. .. ok… mhmmm… mhmmm” I listened in on the conversation of the man kiddy corner to me, not the Sasquatch, a different one. This one has clear eyes yet a disciplined demeanor. He washes engine rags, wears an ice skating coat. A calm way to him. I observe without being seen, I like it this way. I am here, yet I am alone. Present in this space yet not noticed fully. Hidden or cloaked in my own shadows. A protection in ways. I hope that I will figure out how to collapse this whole game before the streets are lit with fire. I hope I will crawl my way out and into fullness of remembering before food systems fully dismantle. How will I go forth without knowing? I guess I will learn. We all will. My laundry will be done soon, I promise, I’ll be out of here shortly.

It’s not entirely that- I just had something else in mind. Taking baths are good I hear, may my new place have a tub for me to fully submerge. Soak. To hold my breath underwater and press my ear the ceramic bottom of the tub and try and listen in to the conversation going on in the basement. Words between sentences, mom comes in, afraid that I’ve drowned. I pull my head up and she exhales a deep breath and exclamation of relief and a short scolding to never do that again, I scared her. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t actually have drowned. It wasn’t on my mind that time. A subtle bridge into another story. Or one thats just just just a few steps over the line of what’s acceptable to share on the internet. I guess only I can decide, and maybe this is part of the becoming, and the releasing, and the tearing down. The true seeing, all that I am and have been and thought and felt before. A voice of caution screams out, to be mindful and wise, though those weren’t the exact words. What I was told was to not share those things. Never. With close friends, maybe, yes even, but with the whole internet? Who could read it!? Who would see!

I gather my things, the dryer stoped a few moments ago. My car feels colder. I remember what we travelled through inside. I walked out without saying goodbye, I think and feel sometimes how it’s more comfortable to not say anything at all and just feel what it’s like to live with a voice shut. What I wanted to say is thank you, thank you to the woman in the back, brown skinned with round eyes. Short with rubber shoes that had blue lightening across the top. She danced out of my way. She let me think my thoughts through, sorting through the born into programs and arriving within resonant truth. Arriving within love, I felt safe with her by the end, when I allowed myself to drop the worry. I didn’t wanna go, I didn’t wanna say goodbye, as if I would know her more than the man at the other end of the space and feel a greater familiarity and home in her presence. If we ate dinner at a home table together I know we would laugh and feel warmth within our chests and bellies after some time. Glimmers of this poke through. We fold our laundry side by side. I wonder if I should say anything as I go to grab my basket beneath her feet, these thoughts forming moments before I make my moves to pass her by. I said nothing and looked at the floor.

I consider stripping down, to put on my warm sweatshirt that I will sleep in. Like a reward, like back in the womb. I let it sit too long and the chance passes me by. Though unbeknownst at the time, I pick it up later and it’s still warm. I wear it and feel such gratitude. I think of being patient and moving gracefully. My feet feel comfortable within my shoes, my hands upon the handle of the dryer feel sensual and soft. Present, I am reminded of my mom.

I felt the pains of another, and mirrored it to my own, I wonder if this is my purpose within it all. How empty and low I felt, like a sinking stone. My sister felt it too as she approached the car, a two block conversation, she got out to pickup her medication from the drugstore, she stops short in her tracks and looks up. 12 feet away, an aura of expanse yet one she can feel is full of pain. In the car she asks if I’m okay. I say I am and validate her abilities as an empath, conversation switches away and covers up whats being felt. Yet I stay present with it, a silent honoring of my inner experience. I’ll love you forever I say to my heart. Later, I begged her to bring me to a show, one that pulled at all my heart strings, she said no. I slept on the couch and dreamt of you instead.

Authentic vulnerability I guess, or maybe just a bleeding heart crawling from one place to the next, I get out from under the crushing weight for a few breaths. It just needs to be relaxed from my center, my heart, a pain body so large it seeks to pull me under, yet I have been swimming my whole life, and though it weighs heavy, I know how to stay afloat and come up for air, and even release the shackles too and then swim and glide and really accelerate and feel the water upon my skin. It feels like praying, it feels like intention, it feels like the flow of all of our movements within this one central space. Observation. But fuck. Fuck, this weighs me down heavy, and within it, I can see and I can know who else feels this. It’s a mutual recognition and a knowing, I recieve the pings of someone thinking of me. She told me her husband is like a horse, “trust me” she said, I laughed and laughed and laughed at the implication and then I cried and cried and cried a few songs later at the beauty of how far humankind has come, underneath such oppressive and restrictive means, under the full weight of all of it, of all the lifetimes, of all the pain, and all the suffering, we have created music, we have opened up to receive the music, and we have shared it. Violin, guitar, and the voice of an angel. High priestess upon the stage, I bow with understanding and respect. I would lay my life ln the line for you, for you to awaken, for you to truly see. And we make our way through.

The vision of another comes through, my presence is requested in the woods, they want someone who can understand. Bring the ether down to earth through dance. Bless the patrons with the light. My hands feel bound, they feel shackled under this responsibility. Divinity is received and shared, it happens naturally, though in times it is coaxed out. I am reminded that I cloaked myself. Sapphire robes. Shadows underneath. Bright gemstones of light aligned and active to hold together the body of bone and blood, yet to me she appears in full waves of smoke. At least the centers of truth shine bright. I pray to bless all of you, fully, there is no “other”: lights dim, we are one.

He says he has four flights tomorrow, I pray that he arrives where he’s going safely, angels ride with him and assure safe travel. The man in the laundromat.

The more I write, the clearer it all becomes, and I question my true intentions, yet in the moment I know they are pure. Did I add things to make myself sound better? To make this whole presentation something more acceptable to read? Did I sprinkle in more magic as I walked away to compensate for my ancestors oppression towards others? And it happens naturally, though the illumination if it makes it so known. Why would anyone wanna tackle all of this? When all that’s presented and seen is so full of density: it makes it clearer I guess, I clear passage into and through the heartland. This is what I hope to buy, though my ID is expired a few years now.

***&^%e#21!2##4$5%%5%%_```

I think of staying at a friends house over the summer. ‘Learning how to mother’ yet the heartbreak of being away sounds far too great. I drove home, I stopped short in front of a deer and blessed my breaks for working so smoothly. I passed the bars and remembered what one day the future will feel like as they all fill themselves with light. A coworker says our jobs are recession proof and for this I hold gratitude yet also the unknown, how could I charge for something so non essential when others don’t have money for food?

I am reminded what the root feels like and why I have sought to escape it so frequently, a friend who once cut me to the core with her gaze told me that not all are meant to be. Upon first meeting I was brought down to smithereens, though what I saw clear and true was her tattoo, a spiral that brought pain to my eyes. I forgive you, that’s what I’m supposed to do. Bust thought the walls and see right through. Then ask what the walls are here to teach you.

I drove and I thanked all, for I feel free, though held so low by gravity, I need not have another. I noticed how there was apart in the clouds from dreaming and scheming about a potential love that doesn’t think in the same way that I do. And maybe all my dreams, all the noise is fantasy, yet I know how you feel and what is real, that’s what we use and how we heal.

I remember another who is breaking to the core, feeling unable to move anymore, she knows how I can, and I do feel this too, that’s why she whispered and called me out of the blue. There’s the one that I want, I think, no, I feel, and there’s the ideas of what should be. I pressed him out of mind a blank space, a dark patch, a shadow that filled and fed the grief. Is it greedy to hold on to these feelings and write this here now? I preach to let go yet how could I trust the man with hollow sunken eyes, yet I remember what it felt like to be held and how I laughed and in ways it’s a surprise. I had allowed the memories of the dark to cloud the vision for so long.

I stepped out of the car and wondered if this is passion; I picked up my bag and questioned. Yes there’s drive, there’s drive like no other. I came inside and felt what it felt like to ride that wave of creation with another, syncing breath at some unknown space and place of time. A bellyache, I just want to live for free, at home is where I follow my destiny, because I allow myself to leave and to exit my body.

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There were so many comics about the light coming out from the dark, written and drawn by faces familiar and foreign. And there’s so much I wish to say, there’s so much to share and this feels like the short synopsis of my life and there’s so many more things to say. I wondered if you love me, I write to an unknown face. Blurred from memory, something I tired to erase for in my dreams It was a terror. Guided and ruled by a man cloaked in evil, darkness drilled from him and I watched as you followed. Chased me out of my own home until the crow called. That last part is the only lie of this whole story, I promise I speak only truth.

I feel called to write, to write and to speak to you. All of the faces feel so heavy and weigh me down, trying to be the one to hold them all together, I may just drown. And this is the thread I am here to bury, the hope I am left to leave. My clear eyes speak of great perception and yours of innocence, a face of 40, “how’s George?” my coworker asks. My friends don’t know what to think, I’ve spun them in as many circles as I have myself. Twisted up in knots yet I stand here free, unbound, holding gently to all these golden threads that extend out of my body. I promise to meet you where you’re at, and this is why your grief brings me down, so you will not be alone, so you will not drown, I promised to be a guide and for you I will surly ride, these waves of sorrow by your side, hold you face in my palms until we’re morning-side.

The grief we share brings us closer I pray, yet I’ve given you more than my own light of day, poured into your vessel at the emptying of my own, what am I to do, how can I travel home? How can I truly thrive if those I pray and wish to have by my side suffer and die… I must allow the processes to unfold. Allow the story to be told. Can I trust the light that brights me joy, lights me up, feels like a toy?

Politics of the mind, I start to write in rhyme. Save it for your notebook, and cut half the time. I love you.

Goodnight

♥️

Exiting from the depths