I came to my kitchen table today to finish a project, a piece on two musicians. One of them brings me fast into my heart. The other reminds me of a woman I used to be. Too attached to things and to what everyone else thought of me. Reminds me of a lover I left because I hated myself so much I couldn’t bear that he loved me. I don’t want to write about this other musician, so far from her I am, and I’ve no desire to go back. Cannot. So I am here, writing here for the website. Because that is where I am. In this place for the first time, this underwater place, and I cannot go back, can only deepen and push away from life as I once knew it.
The island and my penis (from my last entry here) have taken me many places in the past month.
First I got to be underwater, in this home that was made for me, my true home, which came to me in a dream. I explored this place. Homework was not just to live in the place, but to live in it and be in the world. Doing this changed me in ways I cannot yet articulate. But there came a point where I felt stuck, felt like there was more, and I needed to get there, to an even deeper place. I couldn’t find a way to write about it, so I doodled, and from that came this: "there are no waves underwater, but I do not miss them. I am thirsty, and hunger for MORE. No one in sight. It’s all inside ME. What is the fear about? Need to let go more. I like that there’s no ceiling. I like that water is skin is water. The bedroom is yellow and bright like there is treasure in the sand on the ocean floor and it is reflecting up. There is more. It is never falling, because the water supports me from every angle. It has been waiting silently within me for years years years. SURRENDER. I am still holding on to something....up there? This is all new, yet it isn’t. I know it."
My release came in yoga (again). I asked for it all morning, and at noon, it came. My heart broke. Shattered and became all I was. I was underwater, and then I was falling, exploding down into blackness that became blood, then pinkened as I felt myself an octopus of light. I felt freed, a new relief. Like the underwater where I was before was just the waiting room for this new place.
This is a place so real and deep, and though I know without a doubt it is where I’m meant to be, I’m scared shitless. BECAUSE it is where I’m meant to be, because it is so big and so good, and I know nothing will ever be the same.
Before my last session, I had a series of dreams where I said good-bye to people I’d been close to at different points in my life. One where I was at my parent’s house, for a day before I was to leave. There were these HUGE butterflies inside the house, each one hanging outside an enormous cocoon. My mother wanted the butterflies to be killed, but my boyfriend and I moved them outside. The next day I said good-bye, and I knew I would never see them again.
It is a new level of letting go, which is exciting and painful. But so utterly essential that the grief flows through me quickly and I am refreshed.......This all happening as I am in my home(work), underwater, in that deeper place I fell into. The changing I feel within is profound. I didn’t realize how much fear I had about it until I was in the circle of the women’s dreamwork group, where, when I was speaking, I felt both the fear, and the intensity of the realness, how all of this is such a part of me. It’s hard to find the words, but it was so helpful and I felt encouraged, powered up, to open up more, trust it all, and surrender. Fall apart so I can feel my heart even more, exercise the poison out.
Then comes another session. I use a dream in which I was walking naked at night on the sidewalks of this neighborhood. Beautiful hot night, which I love. I get to this house and the wall facing the sidewalk is down, so the living room is entirely exposed. There is a woman building a fire who calls me by name. She invites me in, and I say that would be nice. Just as I am about to go in, these two young men come bounding toward me. They are spinning as they run, all energy and commotion. They know me. I recognize them, but am unsure where from. I think:I don’t even KNOW these guys. I want to go in the woman’s house. She is strong and assured. Beautiful. But I can see that the bawdy boys are not leaving, and I don’t want them to go inside and make a mess of her house, bug her. She tells me that I am welcome any time, that I can just come in, build a fire, relax. I tell her I’ll be back later, and leave. The boys don’t follow, and I do not return. I go on a trip with Christa and Gabriel. Everywhere we go into, there are people and their pathologies, who have taken on human form. I can tell who is naughty and who is nice, and I kill all the pathologies as we cross the country.
So we work on the strong woman and the bawdy boys. It is hard, but it seems I should have gone into her house, she is the “Great Mother,” but I can’t get to why I DIDN’T, why I let the boys rule me.
I go to another dream, one I had two nights in a row, most recently. In both dreams I was with a young man, walking, talking, totally absorbed and at peace. I am deeply interested in all he/they have to say, and my thoughts and feelings are met with equal respect and intensity of listening. Everything we do feels intimate. Both dreams ended with these scenes where we were together in small spaces and the energy had taken on an all-sensory sensual turn. Never have I felt an attraction of such power and force. The ache of wanting I felt was absolutely painful, yet there was no urgency. I let it be. I knew we would be together, there was no hurry.
So then I Gestalt the sensual boys and Marc tells me to ask them if they are the same as the bawdy boys who were outside the woman’s house, and they ARE. In an instant, everything fell into place. I understood it. At least understood that part of the dream, remembered it more clearly.
So, in the last five minutes of my session it was uncovered that that woman was a demon, that she represents all the “strong” women in my life who seem to possess what I think- thought I lack. The list is long. Yet I don’t feel it close to me. I am moving away. Learning what it is to be autonomous, knowing that I don’t need to use these women as crutches anymore, I can stand on my own, and burn brighter than ever before.