215

life will be better.

life will be better when i accept that i cannot possess the beloved. i already belong. and the beloved has not misplaced me. when i flail about, feeling wrong or lost, the beloved is there. every time i seek, i am only pretending to forget that love does not hide.

the beloved indulges my need to feel rejected, lonely and unworthy so i may return to love when i am good and ready, not a moment sooner. my urgent need to possess love is a game i play until i exhaust myself and am ready to come home. my hopes, dreams, fears and expectations unfold the path that brings me to love, each and every time. what feels like wandering is just the spiral that shows me the beloved’s many forms. and when i tire of the bright lights and the masks and the drama, love reveals my own face in the dark.

love is there in the arms that don’t reach for me, in the eyes that don’t see me, and the hearts that don’t choose me. the beloved is on either side of the glass. in sun and shade. in sickness and health. in every full house and empty room. in silence and song. when what’s new becomes old and what’s old i finally and bravely outgrew. because when the day comes to remind you there is only the beloved, you will begin to see how the beloved is everywhere and nowhere at once.

214

your superpower.

you have to remember that your actual superpower is turning disappointment into gratitude. and it sounds impossible until you are called to do it every. single. time.

the magician is the fool, initiated. every energetic obstacle must eventually be refined or dislodged before your blessings arrive. rejection is a small door closing to keep you fully and completely available for the double doors up ahead.

the universe will orchestrate your biggest wins to coincide with your sharpest losses. tempering every gain with grief forces the understanding that anything can be transformed into the best thing that ever happened. witnessed enough times, you learn creation from compost, as possibility becomes instruction. the pain is protection, purification and preparation.

what’s lost must always return. and when it does, it will have grown many times its previous size. allow yourself to become so deeply humbled and hollowed out that when the blessing reenters three times larger, your healing has expanded you to hold it in its final form, without leaking or breaking.

213

your art.

you wanted to know what it might be like to live on the surface of your own life. savoring the possibility of one that felt as good as it looks. so you tended your home in earnest preparation for any guests that might stay. even as the universe brought chaos and clearing to help you plumb new depths. how else would you have been made available to your own reflection in every aftermath?

good art conveys experiences made tactile to the eye or imagination. some art walks us out of the dark, while others record movements of light. this is how art tattoos the collective, when what’s inside is ready to be brought to the surface. art is both contribution and relief in not having to carry what is too beautiful or too awful to hold alone.

when you end up just you and your devotion, and your inner experiences are enough to reject the distractions of surface life, reality can finally fully belong to you. everyone just needed to leave your house. the surface of your life can be as smooth as a calm lake once you claim everything beneath the surface. and you no longer scatter pieces of yourself like pennies in a fountain, traded for a wish.

212

the way back.

how old are you now? is that exactly how long it feels you’ve been walking alone? life gave you some harder seasons but when you look back, you realize … all the seasons were the same. what is the difference, really, between this and that layer of the onion? each a translucent and perfect mirror to the one previous.

those three months or three years you gave to that person or project reflects the exact energetic distance you walked away from yourself over the course of an entire lifetime, centuries past. the five days or five minutes it took you to untangle that knot in this incarnation freed you from bonds formed in a life lived five hundred years before this one. the push-pull that dragged you down to your depths closed a contract you signed generations ago. and this is how you collapse the cosmic distance of every possible exile you’ve ever lived. the arrival feels like nothing else.

in his mercy, God will bring you to your absolute lowest, just to show you there’s no one to meet you there but you. and this is where you find yourself in your own arms. you’ll be laughing in the same darkness that held the sobs of your earlier surrenders. you don’t bargain anymore when you come home. you don’t have to promise to be good. your own energy fills the entire field. and when you know your own face in the dark, you’ll only ever trust your own eyes again. no more hopeful glances into mirrors that waste your time.

211

they’ll be tested.

all your best qualities will be tested. if you’re good, you’ll be punished for it. you’ll understand how no good deed goes unpunished. but you’ll be good, anyway.

if you’re sensitive, everything will hurt. the callouses and scar tissue will make it your daily devotion to somehow stay soft. if you are open, people will come into your house and take from you. you’ll learn when to close your doors and windows while leaving your heart open to the ones who feed you and see you.

if you’re receptive, they’ll overwhelm you with their chaos, opinions and perfume. you’ll share what you foraged in nature and let them win every oscar, tony and emmy for their work.

if you are generous, you’ll see all those christmas presents make their way to the trash before valentine’s day. people tire of what’s good. they want what’s new, what’s next, what they’re used to, even if the real gold never tarnishes.

if your energy is gratitude and abundance, you’ll meet death by a thousand cuts. it will be just enough for you to hate life, and everyone you love, and spoil the taste of everything you put to your lips. you’ll find a way to resurrect your gratitude, anyway. as an idealist, you’ll be dragged down by the realists and pessimists. the optimists will try to join you but you’ll resist the subtle bypassing. they are not your people, either.

why so many tests? because for your beauty to be true, it needs to be rooted in strength and integrity. that’s how you become you, every time they test the dragon’s willingness to abandon its treasure, and are met by your fire.

210

the wolfman.

have you noticed that the wolfman’s garb is that of ordinary men? he comes to us in the nobleman’s tattered waistcoat or the lumberjack’s torn flannel. that’s because he’s not from the woods. his home was not always under the moon. as a boy, they punished the small, scared animal inside him until it could no longer hide.

now, when the night sky is just right, the wolfman breaks his exile. what’s wild doesn’t want the cage or to be made into a circus; it wants softness. it wants a home. but the village exists only to extract and domesticate. why do you think the wolfman is always making away with the livestock and damaging farm equipment? he is trying to set it free.

table manners, etiquette and decorum exist only because human rage, appetite and desire cannot be tamed. the carrots and the sticks are meant to lull us into sedation, limiting the inner world. there’s no actual way to kill the beast. but if you look carefully, you’ll see its face in every cutting remark, stab to the back or twist of the spear. and that’s why the wolfman comes. to remind us who we really are when the sun is gone, the villagers sleep, and it’s just us in the moonlight.

209

the vvitch.

where did God build your house? in the center of town? at the edge of the water? in an ivory tower? everyone has their station, whether found or formed. the vvitch is the one who serves her station where the wilderness meets the divine.

the village made abundantly clear that “none of what i see is for me.” what ordinary men and women share is simple and beautiful, and it’s all around. even if she wanted these same things, the difference is that the ordinary women got to have it and the vvitch got what you get when you don’t.

so she leaves to understand what it is God wants for her, instead. because when heartache reaches the bone, it needs more room to grow. of course, now she has the medicine ready, for when private heartbreak pushes the villagers out into the woods, afraid but desperate to find the vvitch.

the flowers and berries have revealed their names to her in secret, so she knows what to do, even if the truth is that the salve is not in the vial. it’s her. she is the medicine. but she makes sure to administer it with special songs and ceremony, so the villagers can have words for happened, even if healing is just simple resonance with truths too subtle to register above the din of ordinary life.

208

relational.

have you noticed that all horror stories are relational? what is my relationship to this home, to this body, to these people, to the unknown, the land, my past, or this job? will the coven accept me? or am i being prepared for ritual slaughter?

horror stories tell our truths and reveal our fears, even as our fears become our truths in ordinary life. the best horror elevates the mundane into breathtaking operas with the highest possible stakes. we see how our daily motions dance the razor’s edge separating danger and safety. we are all just on the other side of tragedy until the plot is triggered, the monster awakens and the carnage begins.

and there’s always a monster. always something in the dark or hidden in plain sight. that’s the horror. in some stories, the downfall is optional. in others, it’s inevitable only if we continue exactly as we are. some will offer a warning; others attempt to map the exact turns leading out of the labyrinth.

good horror is perfect. that’s what’s so beautiful about it. each piece is precisely engineered to interlock and click shut, trapping us inside, or to fall apart in a single, swift motion so we can run for our lives. they say it’s a good idea to get hit in the face at least once, so you don’t live the rest of your life afraid of what it might feel like. you’d already know. horror invites us to what could be true so it doesn’t have to be.

207

the fire.

at first, the fire, it burns you. but when you bring it inside, you can sit down to that breakfast of humble pie, with a heaping side of exile, and a dollop of rejection served in a chipped ramekin. this is your daily bread. it’s what God prepared for you, chef’s special. nothing like just-squeezed grapefruit juice to wash down the bitterness that has now become sweet. you take your coffee black, hot and fresh, or stale from the night before; it doesn’t matter. because this is everything you need. and you send the dirty dishes back clean. breakfast is the morning ritual that grounds you.

the fire burns until you become it. anything meant to smother the flames just makes the fire burn bigger and brighter than before. nothing can put it out, now that you love your fate. amor fati. you know what you’re here to do. the warrior’s only duty is to live in the moment and die with honor, recognized by himself alone. to be of one mind, unattached and knowing nothing. hagakure.

true sovereignty is to serve. at his essence, the good king is a good servant. moral pride is a dangerous illusion; you must meet each day with sharper discernment into the failings of yesterday that must be cleared today. and that’s why you need a breakfast that nourishes you.

206

giving it up.

giving up separation consciousness is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. why? because it’s hard to imagine that the pain is coming from inside and not outside; that the wound is mine and not theirs. it’s easier when we are separate and you are the one hurting me and that’s the reason i am in pain.

it’s hard not to imagine what i want as always outside me, just out of reach, and not inside me, where i am always able to find it. it’s easier when i don’t have what i want, if someone else is holding it hostage, because then it’s not my own fault. i’m not choosing to go without, so i get to feel rejected, and i don’t have to become my own solution. i feel lighter when someone or something else can be my center of gravity so i don’t have to be responsible for the whole thing.

we made it make more sense (even if it doesn’t) to treat the world like a vending machine, than to believe in an unlimited Source that is all around and within us. we don’t like “the entire ocean in a drop” because that level of sovereignty is too dangerous, luminous, magnetic and divinely radiant. how dare we, mere mortals, shine like the face of God?

much better that we devise a hierarchy among men, a dichotomous morality, a separation of self and other, because it circumvents the logical next step: remembering that the illusions of time, space and motion are mere constructs we collectively and temporarily adopted so as to forget there is no actual separation between man and God; that we are not some of us closer and further from the Light. that all of it, all of this, is just us and the Light.

205

simplify your life.

when you truly love someone, it doesn’t matter what they think. it doesn’t matter what they did or what they do. it doesn’t matter what they say anymore. you love them forever, even as they come and go.

now, think about the person you love most. bring them to the front of your mind. do you love them no matter what? or are there 100 conditions on what they think and say and do and did? do they breathe weird or chew too loud? is there a story or joke they can’t ever stop telling? is it bothering you? or do you think you can actually bring yourself to love them as they are, as they were, and as the person they’re still becoming?

unconditional love is the cleanest love. and once you can love the person you love most without condition, everyone else is easy. all of a sudden, you can love your boss and your colleagues, and family and friends and neighbors. they don’t have to be any different from how they are in this moment. you can begin to have compassion for yourself through all the ways you continue to disappoint and fail to understand. this is how you take back your own nervous system.

you’ll find that people start to matter more even as they begin to matter less, the deeper and truer your love. your conditions and expectations are what keep you unfree. separation is anxiety. unity consciousness is simple; it’s just the one thing. nothing and no one is separate. what you want is real. and what you think you don’t want—that’s all part of it, too.

204

everywhere or nowhere.

everything you love, seek and value, you will see it everywhere or nowhere. if you’re still seeing it “nowhere,” this moment is calling forward the version of you for whom it is no longer hidden. there’s a version of you whose level of consciousness allows the Beloved to be perceived in everything and everyone. it exists for you; it exists as you. but you’ll have to dig deep. you’ll have to use everything you have, and everything you are now, to unlock who you are truly meant to be.

because why would your soul bother with an incarnation where everything you want simply doesn’t exist? you can’t believe that; believe it and you’ll fall into despair. did you know a person can drown in two inches of water? in her own pool of vomit? don’t do it. you have to believe that everything you want and need is already here now, waiting to be revealed as you, by you, in this lifetime, and that you hold the key.

what does this mean? it means you will be tested. you’ll be presented with every possible obstacle, inside and out, just before your next victory. the test is whether you believe in what belongs to you and only you before you can see it, not after.

before you receive the love, peace and abundance you desire, you will first be shown the fear, chaos and lack inside you. conquer that and you will then be shown the fear, chaos and lack in everyone else. that’s test #2. after you destroy the lies of the first test, you will be called to demonstrate compassion for everyone you used to be. only then will the third gate of manifestation open to let you in. feel it close softly behind you and listen for the lock to click gently back into place.

203

no prices; only prizes.

do you ever think about the price you pay just to be who you are? what if there’s no price; only prizes?

on the other side of everything you didn’t get is everything you get to have. it just takes a minute for your eyes to adjust. for example, lucky you that blue skies make you happy and clouds make you sad. why should colors and gray feel the same in your soul? what a gift! who would want to be ambivalent or untouched by a sunny day?

disappointment is a gift, too. it bores a hole straight into your heart for joy to make its way through. cry long enough and your sadness melts into gratitude. gotta maybe cry more if this hasn’t happened to you yet.

how do we know this is the way it works? because we are here to create. we are here to create meaning, to create this life, to create art. we are here to make a way, if we haven’t yet found one, or if all other paths have been closed to us.

all things exist on a continuum. all prices eventually become prizes and there comes a price for the earlier prizes. everything is a function of time. even as nothing changes if nothing changes if nothing changes if nothing changes …

202

inside voices.

all of the outside voices are just screaming what the inside voices dare not speak aloud. whether it’s to do with your gifts, shortcomings, fears or doubts, what you’re hearing from the people, places and things around you is in resonance with what you carry within.

you wouldn’t know what your inside voices were saying if the outside didn’t reflect it for you. and why would you? the negative voices, especially, are just trying to stay hidden and stowed safely in the belly of the ship, hoping to secretly steer your entire life into the rocks without you even knowing, for as long as possible.

and this is where you source your gratitude. because if you don’t like what the outside voices are saying, that’s not where you fix it. you fix the inside voices. you tell yourself the truth. that’s how the outside voices begin to change their tune.

some would say that the outside voices inform the inside voices. that’s possible, too. life can be understood how you like. but what if the outside voices come around for the sole purpose of triggering the rot so you can finally release it?

karma doesn’t really get spread around. we choose to take it on and we can choose to clear it. it’s up to you. we become free just as soon as we remember we are.

201

seasons were enough.

what if the seasons were enough? enough reason for a soul to come down. what if the only reason you decided it was worth one more turn of the wheel was to be able to witness the moon wax and wane in different parts of the sky? for the energy of the ram and the scales and the seagoat every year-and-a-day? to watch our stars rise and dance in the dark?

to see how the clouds paint sunsets and sunrise through fall and winter? just to see chartreuse emerge triumphant in spring? for pure blue ocean and sky in the middle of july? for cinnamon spice and nutmeg in autumn, pine and peppermint winters, florals for spring and ripe fruit in summer?

for the way we use color and symbols to mark time as celebration of death, decay and life. because if we live time as a flat line from birth, we are only going in one direction. but if we allow existence as a spiral, we get to visit the pumpkin patch and strawberry farm and apple orchard and christmas tree lot, first as children, and then, as we recreate the holidays, we continue to see through new eyes.

it doesn’t just have to be bills and scheduled maintenance and vacations that get us out of the house every time it’s too cold or too hot. it can be magic. it can be why we came back for another look around.

200

personal myth.

each day, you tell yourself a story. is it the right one?

who is the hero? is it you? what’s driving the plot? is it your body or your soul? are you rushing character development or do you allow the unfolding? is the sun always shining in scene? is the moon always full? or do you allow seasons in this story? are you putting everyone under the best lights? or are you saving budget for something else more important?

stories, like nature, demonstrate balance and reveal asymmetry. if we want men who can offer presence, and can protect and provide, we have to show them they are valued, protected, provided for and held, consistently, without them having to earn it, from when they are small. if we expect women to soften, connect, nurture and create life, we have to show them they are worthy of softness, connection, safety and nurture, without them having to perform or censor themselves, from when they are young.

when we don’t do these things, when we tell the kids they have permission to exist only under certain conditions, they act out the imbalance into adulthood. until it hurts enough to stop. until they can reclaim the personal myth and embody what was not provided at the start.

199

line in the sand.

what if today is the day? the day you give up evil speech? they say evil speech is negative because it “leaks light.” so if you’ve been going around saying, “the emperor has no clothes,” that’s not helping. it’s hurting. why? because it cuts holes into people’s certainty, sowing doubt and chaos.

when we abstain from evil speech, it signals trust in God; trust that the truth will be revealed in divine timing. trust that we don’t have to take it upon ourselves to make everyone uncomfortable, telling them things they can’t hear yet and have gone out of their way to avoid. not everyone wants the truth. judgment invites judgment. the temptation to evil speech is greatest when others weaponize chaos, authority or mediocrity. it’s a test. chaos invites chaos. do not accept.

let odin, the norse all-father, be your hero. odin cut out his human eye to receive the eye of wisdom. we know that evil speech arises from the human eye, which serves justice through discernment, deftly separating good from bad, right from wrong, wheat from chaff. the eye of wisdom is the eye of truth. and truth is higher than justice because truth requires no process, no weighing, no separating, no balance. truth is the blade. truth just is; it belongs to the gods, to the divine, and you can’t have it if you’re still leaking light through the evil speech that arises from your own discernment.

but what do i do instead? if i’m not bingeing and drinking and consuming to push down the truth that wells up inside me; if i’m not vomiting out this evil speech to let everyone know what’s really going on … what is to become of me?

you keep your truth inside you. resisting temptation expands your vessel for blessings. the truth transmutes into wisdom. and you leave the rest to God.

198

old photographs.

when you look at the old photos, you’ll notice them a bit blurry. it’s not just that technology has improved. you also didn’t know what deserved focus. there wasn’t a lot of clarity back then. and even when there was, lighting conditions could be less than ideal.

you’ll see how the depth of your compositions changed. you always tried to maximize each frame. but the zoom introduces distortion to the obvious lack of perspective; amateurs don’t always understand the magic they’re seeing. are we capturing an ordinary moment in a special way? or are we grabbing a souvenir? the early works feel documentarian, if not obviously contrived; visual receipts of people, places and items, duly noted. no interesting angles; not a lot of experimentation. and yet, there is this sense of wanting more that pushes through. you kept going until all the taking became giving.

true artistry is a way of living. you grow into it. and it’s not about the medium or any formal training. artists interact with the world a certain way. to be an artist is to create. it’s to be so fully present in your own experience, in your own perspective, that you are compelled to share. this is what colors everything around us. even the most seasoned artists are still climbing, spying for the next summit.

197

what you’ll find.

what you’ll find, after you’ve shed your last tear for all those broken connections, is that you’re not attached to anyone. no one holding you is no one holding you back. from the one who only wanted to belong, no matter the cost, is the monster who needs no one.

what you’ll find, after you’ve shed your last tear for the people and places that never saw you, is fidelity to your own vision. no one seeing you is no one stopping you. from the one who wanted only to please, always striving and learning to see herself through the eyes of others, is the monster who belongs only to herself and trusts only her own perception.

what you’ll find, after you’ve shed your last tear for all the people and places that could hardly tolerate you for existing in this field, is clarity. from the one who was confused and unsure and couldn’t understand the rules, even as she was determined to keep playing, is the monster who has made up her own mind that the game is over.

do you want to know how to make a person that always does the right thing? you punish them every time they do. and when you see them choosing what’s right, even if it brings them pain, that’s how you know they can be trusted. you learn yourself as you learn your prison. and then you are free.

196

let it.

whatever it is that arrives to empty you, let it.

how do you know that’s what it’s trying to do? because you’re crying about it. you’re trying to smoke and shop and drink and use and eat to fill the emptiness inside you. the trick is to remember that it’s not growing. you are. that’s why the emptiness feels so cavernous each time. and you’ve already found that it takes more and more to fill it. so stop trying. all that doing is what got you here. it’s time to just be with it, in it.

exist in your own emptiness. let everything out: all your mistakes, regrets and blessings. these memories of your mistakes and “coulda beens” come up for a visit just as soon as there’s a bit of shame, a younger, lonelier version of you that did the regretful thing, that knows it’s safe now to finally be seen and loved and brought home.

sometimes the feelings don’t announce themselves as clearly. some drift in and linger like a permanent saudade; a sense of something missing and gone forever, even as you know how much is actually so good in your life.

do you know why it’s not enough? because you’re growing. and this perennial emptiness that graces you is showing you just how. the emptiness is not for you to tolerate. it’s a signal to the universe that you’re ready.