As I sat down to write this post, I put on some music. I felt suddenly compelled to put on ‘Travis’, a band I used to listen to profusely 20 years ago. I clicked on the song ‘Sing’, sorta randomly, but had to chuckle as it started to play and I was whisked back to another lifetime. In some ways. In other ways its the same old story, the same old ways of trying to stay sane.
Baby, you’ve been going so crazy
Lately, nothing seems to be going right
So low, why’d you have to get so low?
You’re so
You’ve been waiting in the sun too longBut if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
For the love you bring won’t mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, singColder, crying over your shoulder
Hold her, and tell her everything’s gonna be fine
Surely, you’ve been going too early
Hurry, ’cause no one’s gonna be stopped
Now, now, now, now, nowBut if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
For the love you bring won’t mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, singBaby, there’s something going on today
But I say nothing, nothing, nothing
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing
So, now, now, now, now, nowBut if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
Francis Healy from ‘Travis’ the Invisible Band
For the love you bring won’t mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
Ah, baby, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
For the love you bring won’t mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing
Ive been going back and forth about how to frame the narrative that is starting to chip its way out of the prism cell that is my mind, so effortless it wants to flow out, and I could use any number of filters to see it and speak it and sieve it through. I have been going through old journals and writings from way back to barely teen all the way up through recent times. The running theme, almost frighteningly so, is madness and moods and the mercurial mind. And in light of that, I have come to realize that the only authentic lens to write from is the pulsating pendulum of the opposing states of Mania and Depression that have characterized my existence. Ive spent my whole life with a subtle deeply ingrained terror that the white coats would be knocking on the door at any moment. Ive spent 23 years now in deep research into psychology, neurology, spirituality, astrology, healing, pathology, trauma etc……..simply to understand my own Self and the ‘madness’ that lay at the root of all I am and do. Most people who know me identify who I am, with the Manic side of my nature. There are others, particularly me ex-husband/sons father, who would have a very different story I am sure. To be fair, I met him at 19, not long after the life-changing Trip (story at the end of this post) that I describe elsewhere, which ripped what semblance of a cohesive self I had at the time, into a million pieces. Which catalyzed my entire life since, into a journey of self-discovery, healing, and understanding the precipice I feel I have always teetered upon. He was the only stable tether for almost 10 years as I dove consciously into the underworld in obsessive preoccupation with healing and wholeness. I was a shattered and fragmented madwoman, essentially; My maddening moods and breakdowns were the undercurrent of everything, I was clinging to my highly lucid and lightening fast mercurial mind which attempted to carry me on its wings out of the oozing swamp of unconscious emotional energies and frothing underworld demons from many lifetimes; what little boundaries I started with in this life, were completely shattered at age 19 and I have spent the past two decades putting all the puzzle pieces back together, to gather all the soul shards and gain some footing in this strange place called Consensus Reality. It is not a comfortable place for me, I live more fluidly in the Imaginal Realm, and I know that my Intention in this lifetime was to go down into what I call the ‘psychic gulags’ and rescue all the imprisoned selves that have been splintered and lost for lifetime after lifetime. If I were to try and write the story that is my Life hereNow, without acknowledging the impact that my own wiring and disposition and temperament has played in the narrative, it would feel delusional. And there are so many threads, ‘too many clues in this room’ as Gordon Lightfoot sang……….that untangling them finally will free me to explore another reality. If I had not discovered and immersed myself in the deep undertaking of Astrology and Psychology, I would , no doubt, be locked up somewhere unable to exist in this world. I know a few of those alternate selves, I have been inside their lives in the DreamPlane, I have seen some of the parallel tracks my potential has played out……and I believe I am in the best of all possible worlds.
Lyrics
Dear diary
What is wrong with me?
‘Cause I’m fine between the lines
Be not afraid
Help is on its way
A sentence suspended in air
Way over thereDear diary
What else could it be?
As nightshade descends like a veil
Under the sail of my heart
Be still, don’t stop until the endDear diary
Francis Healy, ‘Travis’ the invisible Band
What is wrong with me?
‘Cause I’m fine between the lines
Astrologically I am a Scorpio Ascendent/sun/uranus/mercury. Sun and Uranus are in exact conjunction………in the first house. If you understand what Uranus represents and expresses, it will make sense, the Mania aspect. The Million-watt electrical connection to the All, that cannot be separated out from my basic sense of self and vitality. Mercury sits almost exactly upon my ascendant. in the 12th house on the other side of Mercury, sits Pluto and Venus in exact conjunction in LIbra. There he is, Hermes, the trickster, the psychopomp…….straddling the very line between the unconscious/conscious self………mercury the winged messenger, the only god who could safely traverse the underworld the realm of pluto/hades. Neptune and MArs sit conjunct in the second house of sagittarius, adds some more intensity. But the kicker for the up and down pull of the madness of opposing highs of euphoric ecstatic delight and the morose leaden disconnection of despair……is perhaps the Moon(Moods/instincts/primal experience of self) in Aries(fiery/impulsive/intense) in close opposition to the 2′ conjunction of Saturn(contraction/depression)and Jupiter(expansion/joviality/cheer)….Those are just a couple short snippets of some of the things I will unpack over the course of writing. Ive gone so deeply into all of it for years, but never articulated it in written form. Its a daunting task, really, when the mind is super mercurial and sees the infinite patterns and connections of everything on many layers, one single sentence can have me fighting to stay focused on the point at hand instead of branching off into a hundred other fractal directions of experience and understanding.
Understanding myself through the astrological framework, has been instrumental in giving me some objectivity from my own temperament and even the gifts and traumas inherent in the very blueprint of Me. I had been convinced I was utterly insane and there was no hope, no way Id ever be able to integrate all of what was destroying me; in retrospect, I can see how far I have come in stabilizing myself and finally learning exactly what I need in order to have a functioning nervous system that is not destroying myself or others around me, and which can take advantage of the vast creative capacities I carry and have found expression for in the world. The terrible fear that I will die without having developed my talents in this life is the cattle prod that keeps me delving ever deeper into my Body and Soul in order to bring the two together in the arms of Spirit, to truly Bring the Fullness of my Unique Individual expression of Self into this reality.
As I laid on the floor in my blindfold bandana, 5 hours into bodywork and somatic meditation, It came to me how the see-saw had ripped me apart my whole life. But since I had started to prioritize Embodiment and working with my physical body in a variety of intense ways, I had finally found the path to stability, at least, as much as I am capable with this particular wiring and nervous system and astrological blueprint. I had tasted this years before when I obsessively did several hours of my own style of yoga/pilates/movement every single day……it was the only thing that saved me from leaving this reality completely, something to balance the Mind that drove me to madness. AT the time, for years, I still fought the twin demons of Anorexia and Bulimia, but the bodywork allowed me to get some kind of grip on my emotional dysregulation. I only rarely missed a day. I have a tendency toward OCD and my life is very ritualized in many ways, even still, so the over-control at the time of every single thing in my life was vital to regaining some footing in physical reality. AT one point, I woke every morning at about 5:30am, did two hours of yoga, showered hot/cold/hot/cold etc while doing more breathing practices, walked the two miles to West Portal (SF) to get the same Golden Dragon Oolong from Peets Coffee…….I walked the entire way reading a book…(I read up to 10 books a week, used bookstores being my favorite haunt….buying piles, reading, and returning some for the cashback exchange for more)……silently stirred my honey into cup for several minutes, in a sorta trance I would assume it looked like to others, walked back with tea and reading. That was my morning ritual for 1.5 years while living in the Sunset at that dwelling. I still have ritualistic things that I do, but I change them up now and again. AStrologically my moon is in 6th house in whole house signs, and in the evolutionary astrology framework my Pluto Point is in that same house. The 12th house where one of my my stelliums of planets resides is the house of the diffuse boundary realms/subconscious/deeply buried/dreamtime etc…….the 6th is work/service/the daily ‘chop wood carry water’ and the health and purification of the body etc. So it makes sense that the form my healing would take is through the constant and dedicated discipline of Bodywork and daily routine rituals; my natural tendency is toward the Dreaming reality and altered states of consciousness/OBE etc, Its natural, the challenge for me is to stay grounded. To BE HERE NOW.
How many times over the years have I come out of the low tide, the chosen isolation and reclusive despair state where I have zero tolerance for anyone or anything outside my own company and grasping mind, to think ‘im free now. Im healed. I did it, Im better, Ive sorted it out, im finally totally sane. The sweet shift into mania and high energy and lightening thought and desire for human company etc, the proof that Im superhuman and flying high and from now on I shall accomplish all the infinite desires in my soul, constantly without fail and I can be depended on and life will never lose its golden glow…….’
And hovering one fractal dimension away, my Daimon laughs maniacally and watches as once again the inevitable plummet with wax wings burnt, and the cycle starts itself over again.
The only salvation, is the Body. When I am able to stay true to my bodywork every single day and my grounding rituals, I feel balanced and great and high energy, with excitement and joy and creative fire, I have patience for the daily requirements of living, I care about people and things and have great warmth and appreciation for everything. It is not the euphoria of mania, but the ecstasy of truly being embodied, and loose and feeling and experiencing life through the flowing fascial network of the bodies wisdom. Its as far away from mania as it is from depression. Saturns cold leaden fingers cannot get to me when I devote myself to being in the body, through fascia work, yoga, intense dance, playful movement. Over the past few years I have made a point that when I start to feel Mania coming on, which is usually when Ive left the realm of body and gotten lodged into the mercurial uranian lightening mind suffocating in the infinite patterns and possibilities of all that I can and should do and be and write and say and want and dream and the adventures I can create……I step back and force myself to go deeply back into my body. I trade the extreme highs for the less intense but embodied joy of the simplicity of life. I still cycle through the pendulum but the lows are more like chosen retreat and renewal and refocusing and resting of the nervous system instead of nervous breakdown and collapse and despair and terror that the white coats will be here any moment, to take me away finally.
There are those who somehow find some simple way of living that carries them through, enjoying the typical distractions of what this society dances around. There are others who come into this game with a fire that threatens to consume them, driven by creative intentions that rip them apart and taunt and mock; Moods that make everything and everyone incidental to the crushing weight of manifesting that which is within the mind and soul, clamoring to get out. There has always been a fine line, they say, between genius and madness, and a huge proportion of those who have left the most vital and inspiring and insightul works of art and literature have danced with the very same demons (or Daimons) that keep me pirouetting on a tightrope between chasms……..uranian multidimensional awareness pulsating through a fleshbody with neural synaptic rapture as the Plutonian Dark Underworld of emotional terrors rises like molasses and the Jester Mercury juggling life and death and light and dark tries vehemently to rescue all these personalities from all the lives from all the playground capers in this Infinite Time Game……and integrate them into a Whole New Me.
BlissNinja 