Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

`Well!’ thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! `I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. `I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think–‘ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `–yes, that’s about the right distance–but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again. `I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think–‘ (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) `–but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke–fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) `And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.’

I don’t even know where to start since my mom died. It’s been an entire lifetime. I’m not even near the same person. I can’t begin to describe what it is like to have no family.  None. What do I say about everything I have been through since then?  Like falling through a rabbit hole and seeing an entirely new side of life and somehow getting back to where you were before…nothing will ever seem the same. Nothing will ever be the same.  Because you have seen another side. Because you have walked alongside death. Because you have experienced human pettiness beyond your wildest imagination. Because you always knew you never really belonged and living through it playing out in real life was surreal and validating and unimaginably painful.

However longer later…trying to navigate the unfamiliar familiar upper world

…Falling again, fell, landed, idiotic..looked at the jars of jam on the way down … tried to curtsey…did the math and geography and got the wrong answer….gonna have to fight a fucking pack of cards to get out of it all just to get back to the surface

the surface that makes way less sense than the strange underworld….don’t belong in either place

new experience: wow there isn’t even a word for it

I could not possibly emo any harder. I tried to describe to William how I felt today and asked if there was a word for it……………he said existential ennui………………I said yeah that sounds right maybe

soundtrack : tegan and sara “so jealous” album….. kate bush “the kick inside” album

psychopomp

   

A psychopomp is a mythological being or a spirit that assists the souls of the living to cross over into the afterlife.  Some who practice death midwifery are also referred to a psychopomps.  This is the role I am currently being initiated into as I sit beside my mother’s deathbed. I have only once been with a woman in childbirth labor for a few hours, but I myself have been a woman in labor, and the state my mother is in seems very similar to me. There are times during labor when you are somewhere else.  You are in the room, you are laboring, you know you are in the room and laboring and the people are there trying to help you, but you yourself are somewhere where those people are not.  Time is experienced differently. Communication becomes difficult or impossible. People are asking you questions and you can hear and understand but can’t open your mouth and form the words to answer. Shortly before my youngest son was born I was in the hot tub at my old house and looking at a window. There was a crack in the window and suddenly the only way I could feel okay was by staring at that crack. I myself was in a trance state but a small voice in my mind was aware and functioning: “oh, this is what they mean by that focus point thing they talk about in all the labor books, this window crack is my focus point, it’s really helping.”  that’s what was going on on the inside of me but on the outside I was just staring intently at a window, not able to speak or move my head.  just then my midwife moved in front of the window and I am not sure what she was doing or why…..but all I could think was “please please please move I need to see my window crack” but there was no way I could verbalize my request. 

My mom, I think, is like this.  She stares around the room wide eyed sometimes looking confused, sometimes mystified, I wonder what she is seeing and what she is thinking.  I can only ask her questions. “Do you want some water?” “Should I move your bed up or down?” “Are you in pain?”.  Sometimes she will answer with a slight nod or shake of the head.  Sometimes no response at all but I feel she is laboring……aware……unable to answer.  It is a strange kind of birth, death……birth doulas and midwives often say they help a soul come earthside, and I am helping a soul to return to the spirit side.  Sometimes I think of my mom as a laboring woman but then if I think of the birth metaphor I realize she is the baby being born.  There is a larger unseen force at work…..contracting down on her……pushing her closer and closer towards the spirit side, and sometime soon she will crown, she will break through.  My job is to ease the way, to provide comfort, to be present and witness. One of my clearest memories from being in labor with my youngest son was being on the floor in my old home…..laying on a futon and a pile of blankets and pillows they had made me as a little nest to be in when I wasn’t in the water.  I was drifting in and out of conciousness, maybe sleeping and waking with each contraction. I remember being on the floor, being confused, being by myself in the little nest, rolling over and opening my eyes and looking up.  My midwife sat in a chair just beside me and the sun was coming through the window onto her face and her eyes were closed but I knew she was awake.  She may have been praying, or meditating, but she had a slight smile on her face and she looked so calm and so confident and I felt everything was okay……my looking up at her was a question, her calm and peaceful face an answer.  She did nothing, she said nothing, she was just present, and it made a huge impression on me. I felt I didn’t have to be afraid.  And I learned so much from her just sitting in a chair.  And as I sit in a chair beside my mom who looks up at me confusedly I strive to have the same calm and strength.  I don’t feel fear of her death.  I do feel sad and sometimes I cry but I know this is natural and I know she needs me to be calm and present and to show her it is natural and okay to pass through and to not be afraid.  

Death and dying has a smell.  It is not the smell of decay of dead bodies that people may be most familiar with, that is a different kind of death smell.  When someone is dying there is a smell like lillies, like fermenting fruit, slightly chemical, overly sweet, like church on easter sunday. I got into bed with my mommy last night and snuggled her and smelled this smell……….and I got curious about it and looked it up and found that some nurses and hospice workers are keenly aware of this smell and it signals to them that death is near.  Yet other people don’t seem to be able to notice it at all.  Some people theorize that it is a result of chemical changes such as starvation ketosis. I think that could contribute to it but there is something definitely more to it. My spiritual teacher talked to me of the air filling with the scent of roses when something miraculous is happening, strong positive magic, or celestial or otherwordly beings are standing nearby, and I think that something like that is at play.  The smell of lillies/easter/resurrection makes more sense to me now. There was a time not so long ago when people lived in extended families in smaller houses together and a death in the house was something most people had had experience with.  People knew much more about these types of passages then than they do now. We are so cut off from the real parts of life in so many ways.

My mother is taking a breath once every 5 to 10 seconds. Her voice is so faint and quiet and hard to deciper…..just like in the movies when you see someone on their deathbed and they are trying to talk and someone has to literally put their ear over the person’s mouth and say “what? what?”…..that is what I do with my mom.  last night she said the word “beautiful”. this morning she said to me “I’m glad you’re here.” and “I love you.”  

mommy………

my somewhat dellusional mom in the hospital………to the nurse: “don’t touch my arm. I WILL FUCKING KNOCK YOU OUT.”  “Oh. Sorry I am being a bitch.”

The inexplicable part of herbal knowledge

A couple of weeks into my new home and starting to take a look around at the outside….. I notice in my next door neighbors’ front yard a plant that is prolific. I don’t know what it is but it looks like a weird kind of burdock. I can’t stop looking at this plant everytime I am out there, and wondering about it….this is the way a plant can call to you….drawing your eye to it again and again…. and pinging your thoughts with questions and the idea that “I bet that plant DOES SOMETHING”…..I do feel it is the plant willing me to notice it, asking me to learn about it. At first it is subtle….but if your energies are open you can feel the plant call to you very strongly, very distinctly.

Yesterday my neighbor and I are sitting on our shared front sidewalk area and I am looking at the plants in front of her yard….different mints, some sage, some plants I don’t know about (I find out one is a butterfly bush!)….and …..that plant…..what is it?? It’s kind of overtaking her little planted area there and she pulls some of them out. I pick a leaf and ask myself if I can really do this…..I know I can at least try.

I sit down and study the leaf carefully, the front, the back, the stem….it’s a broad leaf with a complex system of stems inside, I see skin…although I know many broadleafed plants are good for skin…..this plant says skin…..I look at the back of the leaf and find some odd protrusions on it dotted here and there…..I think outbreaks, growths of some sort….I ask the plant to guide me. I also see ribs and get a feeling of calcium…….the red stem and small red blotches speak to me of blood.

Hours later the leaves come inside for identification. I still don’t know what plant I have held in my hands. Careful searching and careful reading of descriptions and plant identification guides lead me to yellow dock. Used for skin outbreaks, warts, boils….also the very plant I have been discussing with one of my encapsulation moms as a great iron supplement, for I have known OF yellow dock but I had never met her in person before now. I was talking to the mom who was suffering anemia and telling her to find a yellow dock supplement and wishing that I had some of my own that I had made so that I could just give them to her…..telling myself I need to buy some yellow dock root and make some tinctures soon…..the next day she is knocking on my door saying Hello!

Her leaves can be blanched an eaten as spinach, her seeds are edible wild buckwheat. Her roots are full of iron (and a decent amount of calcium,) they can be used to make a beautiful yellow dye. Besides skin outbreaks she treats coughs, is a mild laxative, a wonderful source of iron, menopause, and pms.

One of my first herbal mentors told me that the wild herbs growing around a person’s house often are the very herbs that could be used to treat the health problems of someone inside the house. At the time I kind of brushed it off as folklore, yet I have seen it to be true again and again. I may ask my neighbor if she has trouble with anemia….at any rate if she wants the plants gone I will happily dig them up and replant them elsewhere. When a plant picks you to learn about it, it is a gift beyond words or explanation. When a plant tells you to notice it and explains what it does to you while you ponder it….before you even know what it is or what it is used for….that’s the kind of thing I had heard of but not truly believed from some of the herbalists I’ve studied. But my goodness, it’s true. Plants can communicate and wild herbs want to help us. And if that makes me sound crazier than you already thought I was, well I at one time thought that sounded crazy too.

prescient/empathic/psychic

Today I was in the car driving to do an errand, driving down a stretch of road that I’ve driven on a million times before, on a pretty sunny day, when I suddenly had a bizarre sensation that I had lost control of the steering wheel and was about to hit the van coming towards me head-on.  This was not actually happening, as I checked my hands on the steering wheel and checked the car’s position on the road and also that of the van, and a passerby on the side of the road – the kind of thing you do in a split second when under duress but it feels like it took much longer to do.  The sensation was so overwhelming though, that I made a mental note to myself to drive very extra carefully from this point out, because it was just too strong of an experience to ignore.

Probably a half mile to 3/4 of a mile further down the road from that point, I turned a blind curve to find police flashers, a half a dozen cars pulled off to the side of the road, and as I looked left I saw a car off the side of the road into the woods, flipped, top completely crushed, car totaled, and police helping a woman to crawl out of the wreckage.  She was with a man who had apparently also been in the crash, they were both able to walk away from it from what I could see….it was surprising that they weren’t more seriously hurt from the looks of that car.  

The site of the wreck took me so by surprise that I didn’t even put two and two together until about 20 minutes later…… OH.  The flash that I had definitely came from that wreck.  Thinking about it further, I think that there were strong energy reverberations from the driver’s experience, like waves rippling out from the time he realized he was going to crash, and somehow I picked up on them when I got close enough to where they were….. I keep going back to how specific my flash was.  Losing control of the steering. Crashing head on into something in front of me. The steering sensation was the strongest part of it. Was this a part of the driver’s experience that discharged somehow in a great burst of emotional energy? I didn’t feel “crash” or “flip” or “help” or anything else, just that one specific moment of him realizing he couldn’t control the car, and the fear. 

I can’t call this prescience because I didn’t feel it BEFORE it happened.  Can I call it psychic? “The ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses?”  Well I definitely received information hidden from the normal senses, but as it always happens with me, I had no idea what it was about until I found out what it was about.  I think this might  have been a empathic experience….”the ability to sense and experience the feelings of others”….although it was not just his feelings I experienced but a very small but very strong part of his actual experience.

I think of how some people describe ghosts as energetic imprints on a particular space….still there for years and years after a very strong emotional experience.  I don’t know if all ghosts are like that but I do think that some of what we experience as ghostly probably is just that.  It interests me that there is a physical proximity that seems to play a part in how that works.  The energetic imprint on….space? time? place? physical surroundings? seems to stay near where it happened.  With those types of ghostly things and also with my experience today….I didn’t feel it until I got within a certain physical range. 

I have had other experiences like this that I might talk about later on here….very interesting.  I would like to know of other similar experiences others might have had.  

sst.1

things that were told to me at sst.1….I am happy, I like to laugh, it is hard to not be happy when you are around me….I inspire glittery girlishness in others…..I have a great ability to do many things at once and to reach out to the community around me to create things for others….

this surprised me as I really don’t feel like I am happy and smiling and positive all the time! I guess that is something I do outside of the house and nobody sees the battle with depression that goes on inside me, inside my house….I do try – so hard – to not give in to depression and I must be a good fighter for people to have that impression of me. I do try so hard to be positive! because, really – what’s the alternative? walking around cynical and miserable and jaded? no thanks….as one of my gurus Rob Beszny has taught me – cynicism is boring. well wait….here’s a direct quote: “Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.” that is what I strive towards. when people see me happy, it is not me being fake, I really do have a great capacity for happiness despite my continual sadness, if that makes any sense at all. it’s all real. it’s hard to reconcile “seeing” myself through someone else’s eyes though, with how I see/know myself to be.

miscellaneous

Project X shall heretofore be known as SSX or SST, depending.

Things that I need to happen are happening.

If I am sure I did the right thing, why does it make me feel sad? Something is really bothering me about that.

Notebooks, watches, and medicine.

Kale, chia, maca, protein, vinegar.

Isis Astarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kali Inana

Charm, Uniqueness, Nerve, Talent

Don’t Fuck It Up.

and that thing that there aren’t words for
and that other thing there isn’t a word for
and all those things

and her

BE HERE NOW

NOW

HERE

BE

project x unfolds

Project X now has a new name, or perhaps two new names, but I will continue to call it Project X here because it sounds mysterious and dangerous (and in fact perhaps it is). The first live meeting of Project X women is happening on Friday night. I was going through a period of hesitancy because at one point I thought too many people that I didn’t know at all were involved, and as the smaller group grew to a larger one it felt less safe to me. I am still having those feelings. However I will attend Project X Meeting 1 with an open mind and assess the feels in the group. The women I do know, I adore. I want to push myself beyond fear so badly.

Project X is unfolding into something much much larger than the idea that began it. Some spiritual material was discovered that had great appeal to a few of us. As the renovated ancient wisdom was read, it caused some of us to cry – with longing? recognition? It is deep, deep, fearfully deep. The practices are such that this society does not even have a category for them or a word for what they are. Yet they are as old and as human as humanity itself….one of the lost parts that causes us harm for its loss. This is what Project X is thinking about. Entering the temple of the deepest women’s mysteries and truths. I think this is the right timing for me.

being a grownup

I always surprise the heck out of myself when I successfully navigate a “grown up” situation.  To me, grown up situations usually involve work, business, legal things, or other situations in which 100 percent seriousness is expected. I remember when I first started working at the hospital in the admissions office when I was in my early 20s…..business attire was expected, and every day I went in there, I felt like a little girl playing dress-up. I had my real clothes at home and then these other clothes that didn’t really feel like me at all, but I wore them to work and pretended to look and act like a grown up.  The library is a much better situation for me in that sense because it’s a little more casual and I can actually find “work clothes” that don’t feel compromising to my personality or sense of self.  

As far as dealing with people on a grown up basis, I have always felt that it was kind of farcical. Surely nobody inside their heads feels like a totally serious business person all the time, but it was like everyone played this game that I had no interest in playing whatsoever. I wasn’t very good at it – as I have never ever been able to hide my feelings and I hate feeling like I have to act as something other than I am.  

But little by little as I have grown older, I have become more and more able to successfully navigate “grown up” situations.  They don’t seem as intimidating to me and I have a lot more confidence around these things.  Maybe it comes from having built the ability to just see people as people instead of seeing them as roles or charicatures, and that was something that only came to me with time and experience. Maybe it comes to other people at different times in life.  

At any rate, I very successfully navigated a very grownup work related situation yesterday and I surprised myself.  But looking back, I know I had a really good and clear understanding of the situation – I know that my thoughts around it were exactly right and on target- I know that my experience and abilities supported my suggestions 100%  – I had no fear of talking head on with the COO – and I did so with extreme confidence, because I knew I was right.  I banished any fear or nervousness and negativity, called on the Goddess, and just let it flow.  Later heard through the grapevine that I was found to be “impressive”. 

Office politics is not a game I want to play. Anything I said or suggested was in the best interest of the library only. I’m not interested in personal competitions amongst coworkers or  petty grudges.  I believe in teamwork and everyone working towards the same goal together and helping and encouraging each other along the way.  And I learned that those who are too rigid to bend with the winds of change, will instead be snapped by them. But that is not my responsibility. I am responsible for doing my own job to the best of my abilities and that is what I have done. 

Being a grown up feels new to me, if you can believe that……I still find it very silly in many situations, but I know now that in the right situations, I can do it, do it well, and do it with integrity.  

shaye st. john

Back in about 2000 – 2004 or so, I was on LiveJournal a lot, and through a friend I met a most fascinating person named Shaye St. John. Shaye created and starred in movies I had never before seen the likes of….deeply disturbing, at times hillariously funny, movies that made statements about our consumer culture and commercialism, about celebrity obsession, about outsiders and the shunned and disabled and unwanted. Shaye herself was very mysterious, and although she could be seen on videos and she blogged quite a lot on LiveJournal, her origins and location, and the story of her life were never revealed. Shaye was an internet celebrity and instant phenomena among all who took the time to read her blogs or watch her movies.

Who or what Shaye was exactly was a topic of discussion among me and a few friends. Was she a puppet? A truly handicapped and/or amputated person inside of a rigged costume of some kind? A little person? A man, a woman? Were these movies the result of the inner workings of a truly disturbed person or performance art, or maybe a little of both? We knew she was friends with Carl Crew and speculated that maybe Carl Crew was actually Shaye….and we also saw a name associated with some of the movies: Eric Fournier….who we didn’t know from LiveJournal or anywhere else, but were very curious about.

Shaye’s website: http://www.shayesaintjohn.net

Somehow out of our LiveJournal association, Shaye and I struck up an email correspondence. We talked about many different things, her for the most part keeping up the Shaye persona, but sometimes letting it drop a bit. I tried my best to stay respectful of her wish to keep an air of mystery around herself even though my curiosity was intense! She seemed to be online a lot….often late at night, or overnight. Sometimes I thought I could feel a kind of sadness or loneliness coming from her, of the staying up all night by yourself on the internet variety. She loved seeing pictures of my son River and especially liked one I sent her of him wearing a feather boa. We got around to discussing Shaye as an art project eventually, and one thing that she told me that I remember very clearly is that the fact that none of her videos contained blood, extreme violence or gore, no swearing, yet were able to scare and creep out so many people was something she took pride in and strove towards. I don’t remember a lot of what else we wrote to each other about. I do remember at one point when she slipped out of the Shaye persona and said to me, “You are a person who really “gets me” as an artist, you understand what I am doing and what I am about.” and I felt like that was the one of the biggest compliments I ever could have gotten.

At one point she asked me to make some digital recordings of my son making noises and send them to her, which I did happily. I can’t remember if Shaye asked me to have him say “Kiki!” (the name of one of her doll companions,) or if I prompted him to do it…however the result of the recordings I sent her was a song called “Kiki – AHHHH!” – a version of which ended up on her dvd “Shaye St. John – the Triggers Compilation.” The version of the song on the dvd was redone with my son’s voice taken out and a digital voice replacing it. At one point after she had made the original song, she asked me if I could send her more sounds made by my son – maybe asking him to say “Help me!” or sound scared or something like that. I was all about to do it, then for some reason I was hesitant about it and I don’t remember why. Maybe I didn’t feel good about the idea of a song going out that sounded like child torture…..maybe the fact that I really didn’t know one single thing about who Shaye was, or who the person behind her was, gave me pause… anyway it never happened, and I do regret that I didn’t carry on with what she wanted. After that things kind of died down a bit between us. I believe she asked me one time about the song, if she published it would I care, maybe if I would sign a release and things like that and I remember telling her to go ahead and use it, but she must not have felt 100 percent around that because the version that did come out publicly was the one with the digital voice:

Between 2004 and 2009 we occasionally exchanged friendly “what’s up” greetings online…..and in the summer of 2010 I was informed that Shaye had passed away. That Shaye was in fact an artist named Eric Fournier who was my age, and who struggled with alcoholism and eventually lost that battle.

Somewhere, on one of my old computers, I believe I have the original song file of “Kiki – AHHH!” and also I am hoping to find some of our correspondence. I would like to put the song in its original form online for Shaye’s fans to hear and appreciate. I would not share any private correspondence, however I would like to have it to re-read it.

A very good friend sent me a link to the video below earlier this month….which I just got around to watching today, with interest and amazement….maybe Shaye did not perish with Eric after all! The very thought of it is mind blowing. Shaye….if you’re out there….struggling in the witness protection program…..know that I am thinking of you often and praying for your swift return.