The Journal Deck: Entry One

"The rise of the Feminine is about all of us rising together to form a new paradigm.  How can you be more active in your community or globally to be a part of this movement."

Luck brought me a new deck, one, that like tarot or blackjack, has you choose your card and then deals your fate.  This deck, rather than being full of fortunes, instead gives a prompt.   A writing prompt.  One that asks you as a goddess, (the rebranded word for someone who's felt powerless and now knows their worth,) to reflect on your life and the society we live in.

This first prompt of mine was embarrassingly difficult.  I fight the patriarchy in my sleep and enjoy complaining about those who want us to teach them to be better, rather than doing their own research, and yet here I am not having done enough myself: I didn't know this phrase "the rise of the Feminine," so I turned to Google.

The first listing was this HuffPo article, explaining that the feminine energy lives in the second chakra, and is the source of emotions.  It details that living in this society, men and women are made to feel ashamed of feelings, resulting in suppression and even acting out.  It cites the #MeToo movement as part of the uproar bringing The Feminine to the forefront.  "Where vulnerability and honesty were once feared," the article says, "these feminine qualities are now seen as raw, honest, relatable, respected, and they give permission for people to be real with themselves about what’s actually there."  The rest of the article encourages the reader to share their truth without fear or shame, and to love themselves as they are.

This to me sounds like a pep-talk based on an uprising, but not the uprising itself.  So I did more digging.

Next, I found this passage on a goddess-y website called Purse for the People.  This article describes the phenomenon in question as "the Divine Feminine," something that I recognized turned me off just a little.  I've chosen to surround myself with skeptics of all kinds, enjoying their intellect, but struggling then to hold onto the spirituality I've discovered for the things that can be felt but not seen.  I have a scientific retort for everything I do, and reading the word "divine" made me uneasy.  How will I explain this? I thought to myself, delighted to find the answer within the article itself.

It bases this feminine movement as being rooted in ecology, utilizing Mother Earth as an archetype to create "a world view based in ecology, deep justice for all and an expanded global identity beyond national boundaries."  It cites technology as bringing society within a click of a button, making it easier than ever for us to choose between two oppositions: to conquer or to collaborate.  The author recalls instances where history conquered, quoting Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth.  He outlines the witch hunt by the Roman Catholic Church as "a dark chapter in human history," where the feminine was declared demonic, reducing women to child bearers and men's property.  He describes the impact as leaving our society imbalanced.

Now this I know.  I've discussed with friends recently that the best way to describe being looked at by strange man is to feel like prey.  We've connected over moments where we didn't know that saying "no" was an option.  Of course looking back, we knew it could result in further aggression, but in that moment it hadn't even occurred to us as a word that we could say.

I do hate being a woman in this society, which all things considered is a freer culture for women than many, many others.  And yet each day, I take into consideration what make up to wear when I am "unescorted," what sweater to bring to cover up my cleavage, which color hair makes me gain more respect or be met with more unwanted attention.  As a woman I am afraid, I am afraid always.  I can't sleep in anything but complete silence, because each nightly sound makes me wake up gasping for shelter.

So going back to the prompt, knowing now that the "the rise of the Feminine" is about bringing back power to women and "feminine" emotions after centuries of being seen as lesser, I ask myself how can I harness this fear into something powerful.  Like fearing an arrow, so crafting a bow to wield it.

Words, I know.  Words I can craft, maneuver, chisel, and slice.  I looked up how to make a sword, hoping to further the metaphor, but stopped when I read "first you have to figure out what you want your sword to look like."

That, I do not know yet.  So to answer the original prompt: I'm working on it.  I want to change this world, I want to make the lives of those I love and those I do not know easier, safer, more appealing.  I protect "the Feminine" by embracing it and sharing how it impacts my life, and soon I'll know how to I know how to make my sword, my stance; first, I just need to figure out what I want it to look like.

Here's the card from The Journal Deck by the wonderful Alyssa Kuzins.

Tea Leaf Telling

I read my tea leaves and saw a circle materialize. 

☁︎ It was a dusting of flowers, a momentary wreath pulled together by the winds of fate. And for a brief moment everything settled: it felt concentric and complete....

♠︎ only to then fan itself into two flowers. Strange ones, growing fully but downwards, as though the entire world were inverted, not uprooted, just reversed.   

☽ They then morphed into constellations, rotating rabidly and rapidly, morphing and twirling and shifting, all while maintaining their orbit around the same dirt from which the flowers had grown (or perhaps the dirt which grew from the flowers). 

❍ And then formed the final image: a mysterious and inviting hand; welcoming me into the madness. 

My Interpretation:

☁︎ I think this is a beautiful menagerie of what is to come. The chaos and magic, which paces and portends, settling gracefully into the ever changing. 

And I think I should commit myself to each phase. To enjoy the current feeling of completion and settlement, while anticipating it's incoming unsubtle shift.  

♠︎ And that perhaps my world may turn upside down, but to remember that it's still growing.  

☽ And to root myself to that growth, because the world will begin to whirl around me, but will not throw me.

And that is what I know. 

❍ I've been welcomed in; let's see where it takes me. 

The Most Important Post I'll Write for Awhile

I feel alone in this city, which is ironic as this is the most received I’ve ever felt.  People here don’t compare my passions to their own, feeling as if me loving something unusual to them somehow threatens their own passions.  Instead they very easily accept that what matters to me….matters to me, and more than that, they’re happy someone’s loving it. 

For instance, although hermit crabs are more common as pets on the east coast, fewer people here question how I could love Spencer as much as I do.  

In turn, this also makes change less terrifying.   Last week, for example, I started drawing with our store's iPad Pro, and suddenly coworkers and strangers asked if I was a visual artist; quickly I realized I was the only one laughing at the idea of that being true.

I had changed myself overnight and it was accepted effortlessly.  Back in college, you couldn't change your hair color without worrying about how it would be seen.  So it's odd to me, how in an environment so willing to see you as anything you so choose, that I still feel unhappy.

Perhaps it signals the end of me discovering myself: I found what I wanted and that’s who I am. And if having those choices validated doesn’t satisfy my craving for more, then I’m already onto the next item on the agenda.

When I was a kid I knew the type of person I wanted to be, and it seems I’ve finally grown into the shoes.

So that just leaves walking somewhere.

When  I visited Philly in April, almost a year after being away, I started crying when one of my friends/mentors noted how much I had grown; as much as I wanted that to be true, it was hard to believe. 

Life is monotonous here.  Every day looks the same, feels the same, so it’s only logical to feel like you’re the same, too.

But consider a rock at the edge of the sea, longing to be pulled into the magnificent chaos.  Every waves makes a promise as they come towards it, and every wave breaks its heart when they leave it behind.  It’s tortured in the monotony, with each little splash teasing it with the salty taste of adventure. 

And yet.

Each wave that brushes against it helps it glisten in the sun, tugging away at its imperfections, subtly chiseling it towards is truest form, where it’ll only bear the weight of what defines it the most.  And eventually the day will come when the final wave convinces the rock to let go of the final burden rooting it, and the rock will be carried back with the wave, towards adventure it longs for no longer.

So that’s my final business here.  I have to let go of the final piece keeping me here, so that I can move on to greater things.

And I know what it is, too.

I met a dog in our store the other day, and when I kneeled to pet him, he climbed onto my knees, lifted his front legs and hugged  me.  His owner commented that he likes me and that he’s such a loving dog; and how shocking it is that when she found him, he had been stabbed.

The pup had been recently groomed and when he walked away I could see the scars from his wounds.  And yet if his owner hadn’t told me, I never would’ve known.  That dog was more loving and more forgiving than most people.

A few days ago I tried to find a book I hadn’t finished.  My room is still in the pandemonium of moving five times in a year and no longer owning a bookcase, and so I couldn’t find the book.  But I found another I hadn’t finished and I tossed it into my bag instead.  I take so long to read that I continued where I had left off rather than restarting the book.  The book as a whole takes common children’s stories and breaks down what the symbolism means in adult psycology.  This particular chapter was about “the mistaken zygote,” a.k.a. The Ugly Duckling a.k.a. the trauma we face when we are abused as children and have to grow up too fast in the face of not receiving the unconditional love and care that we need in our developmental years.

I also have been watching The West Wing, and there was an episode where a character works with a psychologist who diagnoses him with PTSD.  The worst the doctor says to him are such: “What we need to get you to do is be able to remember the [traumatic event] without reliving it, and you have been reliving it.”

The book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, phrases it incredibly as well: 

“There is another issue to be dealt with.  Mistaken Zygotes learn to be survivors.  It is touch to spend years among those who cannot help you flourish.  Being able to say one is a survivor is an accomplishment…And yet there comes a time in the individuation process where the threat or trauma has significantly past.  Then is the time to go onto the next stage of survivorship, to healing and thriving.”

Now I’d be too nervous to say the threat has past, but I met a customer who understood quite a lot of this and confidently told me  I didn’t need a restraining order.      I’ve been here for a year and was only stalked once.  It triggers me, I’m still coping with the trauma, but I am safe.  Definitely safer than I was then.

The book continues: “One can take so much pride in being a survivor that it becomes a hazard to further creative development.”  For me, I think it’s that I went so many years on my own, people not knowing how hard my life was, before and after the abuse, that saying I survived validated the struggle I still felt I needed to prove.  

But,  “at some point, allying with it exclusively begins to inhibit new development…Liken it to a tough little plant that managed — without water, sunlight, nutrients — to sen out a brave and ornery leave anyway.  In spite of it all.  But thriving means, now that the bad times are behind, to put ourselves into occasions of the lush, the nutritive, the light, and there to flourish.”

That’s greater than “making survivorship the centerpiece of one’s life.”

That dog did it.  He is a creature made entirely of love, and still he was betrayed and almost killed by those he had chosen.  Miraculously he survived, but he didn’t remain in his abused state, bowing his head to those he feared would hurt him again.  He forgave and trusted and let go of the burdens rooting him to the shore — and now is as happy as he could be.

That’s my next step.  I didn’t just accidentally bump into all of these themes in the span of a week.  They’re the waves that have chosen to come towards me, highlighting that which I’m gripping to tightly, which in turn is gripping tightly onto me.  They splash me with the importance and safety of letting it go.  Ultimately, I’d rather say I’m happy than say I’m a survivor.  So if I can change myself overnight, tomorrow I will wake up in the direction of health, moving  a step closer towards being a thriving individual.

I No Longer Believe In What I Want

I want a family more than anything.

People or even one person who’s literally or even figuratively by my side forever, supporting me and what I pursue, loving me no matter how I change throughout my life.  Not trying to control or alter that growth, but watching me choose, and coming along wherever those choices take me.  There during the hard times, to remind me of how far I’ve come; and they know it too, because they’ve seen it with their own eyes…..

I no longer believe this is possible for me.

There absolutely are people whom I love that love me too, and because of what they have done, whether it was sending me a Facebook message or taking me in: I wouldn’t be here without them.

I am not writing this to discredit anything that others have done for me — in fact, those that have helped are all the more incredible, as their acts of love weren’t due to familial obligation — I just need to change my mindset; what it is that I wish for.

For a long time, I was hoping someone would make me a part of their family.  When I moved out here, I thought that was the case, that I was being taken in by a family, who had referred to me as their fourth daughter.  They would let their children stay with them as long as they needed, continuing to love them even after they moved out. I assumed that the same offer was being extended to me.  It wasn’t; I was asked to leave, and haven’t heard from them since.

I can’t be upset, because taking me in at all was kind.  In that time, I was able to find my footing in a new city, I was well fed, and it was a brief period where I wasn’t alone.  I am grateful.

My mistake was in assuming.  Assuming how long I could stay, and that calling me their forth daughter meant their love would last.  I assumed I had found my family.  And it was that assumption that made it hurt.

I made the mistake, once again, of thinking a family had decided to keep me.   I need to let that go.  I can still be grateful for any piece of love, without hoping it’ll come again.

It’s not like anyone promised to love me forever.

Well.

A few did.  Three promised they were my family.  To be here for the ride, never letting go.

This year they all let go.  And they were joined by others; I’ve lost about a person a week since I was in the hospital. And I can’t feel betrayed, as they were kind enough to shared their love with me at one point.

Still I was crushed.  I still am. 

And in order to prevent hurting again as much as I have this year, I have to stop trying to fit into people’s families, or taking people in as my own.  I can still love and be loved, but I can’t rely on that love always being here.

So no more wishing for a family, or a guardian angel to come along and magically make my life easier.  I’ve been on my own for six years now; and I need to accept that it isn’t going to change.  Just like my Crohn’s Disease isn’t going to go away, my familial circumstances aren’t either.  I have to accept that this battle is mine to fight alone, and if I fail, it’s only on me to fix it.

In some ways this will make me appreciate love even more. When I stumble upon help or love I’ll be endlessly grateful; but I won’t be shocked when that love moves on.  I won’t feel as crushed as I was when I lost my family.

Fortunately, it’ll be a long time before I see someone that way again.

25 Things I Wish I Had Known Back in College:

Things I Wish I Had Known Back in College:

1. It’ll never be this easy to find friends your own age with similar experiences.
2. It’ll never be this easy to find friends, period.
3. For my entire life I’ve been able to make friends at school.  Sure, you may not feel connected to everyone you meet here, but it is not this easy when you’re in the real world.
4. There, not everyone is trying to make friends.  Here they are.
5. It doesn’t matter if they are in your major or not.  They feel different because you don’t know them well yet.  So go get to know them.
6. Trust me, it’ll only get harder to find the time for others.  Go get coffee together anyway.  It’ll be worth it.
7. You may pretend you are a lone wolf, but we both know that you need others caring about you to thrive.  The best way to find this is to make time for others.
8. When you find someone really important to you; find someone else just as significant.  Spend as much effort getting close to as many people as you can, because you’ll be lucky if any of them last past graduation. 
9. And when some of those loves do leave, you don’t want them to take all of the nostalgia from these four years with them.
10.  You’ll never agin know this many people in one city.
11. You’ll never again have the feeling of being a senior on campus.  Or a freshman, sophomore, or junior, for that matter…feeling this comfortable with your age, like it grants you the right to be here.  Like this campus and education are your birthright.  
12. Relish in this sense of belonging.  It’s a rare thing.
13. Focus of surviving, not the struggle.  Others will understand it in their own time, and it’ll feel validating when they come to you for help.  Find a way to make these circumstances bring you closer to them, rather than using them as a reason to isolate yourself.
14. Learning to make coworkers your friends is a skill that you learned; one that not everyone has.  Cherish when work feels like an odd activity with friends.
15. Also those work friends (and bosses) are incredible.  Learn as much as you can from them and love them fully.
16. Oh, and you’re introverted.  So you don’t have to go out and you can stop looking for excuses not to.  
17. Know, however, that you’ll never again have the option to go out to a safe location that you’ve been before, where you’re surrounded entirely by a group that knows and respects you.  So if you are gonna to go out, this is a pretty great place to do it.
18. Oh, and go for the friends, not the boys.  People make parties sound like they’re only about finding someone to hook up with….but if we see them everyday at class and don’t like ‘em, seeing them drunk isn’t going to help.  It’s perfectly fine just go for friendship.  
19. Academic courses can be taken pass/fail.  (Damn you class freshman year on human genetics)
20. Be articulate.  If you need space from someone, tell them you need space.  Don’t just disappear.  You may later wish you still had them in your life.
21. Take every opportunity there is.  And if it’s not given to you, make it and do such a good damn job at it that those who were chose wish they had instead what you did.
22. Go to others’ graduations.  It’ll help you remember that your time there is limited and to make the most of it.
23. Make new memories with your old friends.  That’s what will make room for both of your growths.
24. Travel during breaks; go home with friends.  You’ll never have this many places to crash, nor will all aspects of your life be as easily be set to pause.
25. It’s okay that not everyone knows all aspects of you.  If you find someone that only understands one piece of it, then relish in that one piece and make time with them.  It’s better to have many people that you go to for one thing, than having one person who knows it all but leaves.

Me as a freshman (top left), sophomore (top right), junior (bottom left), and senior (bottom right).

and a bonus: What I’ve Learned From Writing This List:

1. I miss being surrounded by people who know me.
2. And having something in common with almost everyone I see.
3. I miss others’ willingness to connect with someone new.
4. And I really miss having a best friend.
5. I miss being able to get everywhere I need to be BY FOOT. 
6. And common goals; like tests and evaluations.
7. I’m nostalgic, tempted to go back to school just to have a community again.
8. And though I spent so much of college stressing about casting and plays….not once on this list did I mention anything about art.
9. Art is a given, I really am much more concerned with surrounding myself with people I love,
10. And living life on a path with the fewest regrets.