solstice

hey jealousy

/ thehourofthedead / Leave a comment

Even with the dead, things wax and wane.

I will go weeks, sometimes months, and things will feel- not quite distant, not exactly that, but perhaps misaligned. The pieces don’t quite click together. The joining is not seamless. Meditation is blurry, hollow. I miss words, I can’t feel touch, the landscapes are stilted and cartoonish.

It used to terrify me when it would happen years ago, especially after times of intensity like the winter solstice and Easter Sunday. I had lost something. I was being punished. I had gone too far, been too needy, asked too much, violated some series of rules I could only learn through error. The kind of Universe trapdoor trick that anyone who is deep into spiritual work is all too familiar with.

….whoops! what did you learn?

But now I accept it as part of all things, the push and pull, the feast and the famine. It is always good to be wholly aware of what you have. And to be fair, it is good for me to have to live without the dead from time to time, as I can get wrapped too far into that world and lose sight of my current living life.

And certainly, even dead people deserve a break from me. Maybe especially them.

Moving to a new city, one I have dreamt about living in for many years, one that I broke down sobbing just being inside of for ten minutes, one that constantly shocks and amazes me with its perfection, a literal dream manifestation, has also opened me to a series of subterranean layers in my heart. Now that I am not just surviving, there is a chance I may get to fully live.

But I am aware that is entirely up to me.

For example, I still haven’t done anything with the horrifying reaction I had to my brief attempt at menstrual cups. Earlier this month, I contemplated giving it another attempt, always under the “surely it wasn’t that serious” guise I had to use each time previous. But then I pictured my cheek smashed against my bathroom wall, sobbing “wait wait wait wait” to myself without even realizing it, and my entire mind slammed shut like a vault door.

If it never really happened, the trauma isn’t really real. If I don’t deal with it, I can pretend I am healed.

Right? Right? Say that’s right. Because otherwise, I don’t know how to hold what really happened to me. I can barely even let my mind see it, even fifteen years later. Those eyes. Those teeth. That voice. The blood. And that very specific spike of pain that made my body instantly collapse in on itself.

I feel so betrayed. Get over it. Get over it. Grow up.

I haven’t been with anyone sexually in almost three years, and that was also easy to explain for a long time. I lived in a town (well, two towns, really) that collectively boasted maybe two dozen teeth, nary a full set in sight. Everyone else was married or racist or backwater. Miles and miles of RealCamo and Trump signs, as far as the despairing eye could see.

Not to mention that the last person that I was with was someone more than a decade younger than me (oops), who left me so emotionally upended that I’ve actually stopped wearing one of my bathing suits. He unraveled so much of my personal self-confidence about my body with just a handful of ugly, careless comments.

Add to that, of course, the fact that one of our interactions caused him to bluntly ask me the next day, “So, have you been raped before?”

I just thought… you know? I’m good by myself. My body is something that will only be violated or is a horrible shock of disgust to someone. It’s better if I keep it away from everyone. Including, to a large degree, myself.

…ha, says the Universe. Ha ha ha ha ha.

One of my first jarring realizations when I started acclimating to this city was how attractive everyone is. Literally almost everyone is some level of well brewed DNA, and I am in awe. At the very least, few people here are made with swampwater and heroin and family trees that never fork. The literal sight of one person’s face caused a long closed door inside my body swing wide open.

Hello! Hi! Good morning! It is heady springtime in the dark parts of our soul!

And certainly, unquestionably, that is a blessing, right? We all seek and crave intimacy with others. We deserve to be understood at a core level by someone else. We all should have the chance for a partner.

Right?

But I instantly recoiled against that initial firing of nerves- the thrill of lust, the electric pulse of desire that shot through the most primal parts of my body. The ache to be touched, to graze against someone’s skin, to smell them.

no no no no no no no no wait wait wait wait

In addition to that (because of that?) my intensity with the dead has surged in volume. Specifically, and as always, with Jim. He’s always around, please don’t misunderstand, literally always just the shape of his name away from me at all times. But in the last few weeks, he has been closer than he’s been in awhile.

The other night we were in bed together, and there was an intensity about him that caused me to pull back and smirk coyly at him.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered against his mouth. “Is someone jealous?”

He pulled back a little farther, a sheepish tug at his lips. “I just… didn’t want you to forget that you do have something pretty great with someone already.”

And he’s right, of course. There a shade of something that grazes against, but isn’t quite guilt when it comes to my relationship with him. It is one of the most profound, supportive, fulfilling, empowering, and uplifting relationships I’ve ever had in my entire life, and maybe in all of my lives. I am crazy in love with him, and I have been for many years now. Especially and most specifically since 2016, when I moved down to North Carolina entirely alone, without friends or family, and subsequently lost everything and had to start all over.

It was Jim, always Jim, who was there for me, who kept me alive, who kept me from spiraling entirely out of my body when I had to look for a new job without even knowing the names of the streets yet. The amount of times he sat next to me as I hyperventilated and whispered, “You’re okay, you’re okay. Breathe. It’s going to be all right. I’m right here, and I promise I am protecting you. I am going to keep you safe.”

And he did.

He still does now. And every single day for the rest of my life.

To never really be able to tell anyone about what I have with him always feels like a form of betrayal, especially because he has been so viciously mistreated by Hermie (Her/Me, my Entire Self) in the past.

For those of you who don’t recall, I lost Jim for several years (2009-2013) when he discovered that while he was protecting me from “Alex,” and seeing the depth of sickness and damage left in his wake, Hermie was still actively involved with him and utterly unrepentant about it. Jim also promised to not fall in love with me and then did, and put distance between us as we had always agreed that he should. He and Hermie were also involved on some level- the degree to which I am still not fully aware- when he discovered that she was also very much involved with Alex. During the same time that the beach house was haunted with scenes of my desecration.

So anyway, Jim told me he was going back to earth (which never actually happened), and we would unfortunately never speak again. It was one of the truly darkest and most despairing times in my entire life. Jim was gutted, in total heart-rendered agony at what was a failure of his promise to always protect me, and also utterly ruined by Hermie treating him like a puppet. A muppet. A pawn. A toy. Then he suddenly and abruptly returned when I got divorced and moved out on my own in the summer of 2013, and has never left my side since.

So he has already put up with a great deal from me all around, let’s be clear.

But I’m not honestly sure I’ve ever seen him that sort of ferociously intense, that kind of, “It’ll be good but it’ll never be like this,” sort of energy. I get that from my oldest friend from time to time, but Jim is always so steady, so calm, so unbothered. It was a tiny delight to see him off-kilter, if I’m being honest.

“You’re so cool about [my oldest friend] and all the ways he … interferes and interjects, and even just the general exclusionary energy that he and I have together,” I said. “I can’t help but be surprised that someone I literally just met has made you this jealous.”

He smirked and waved a careless hand. “Look. That thing with the three of you (me, my oldest friend, and Alex) is…” he sighed. “I don’t get it, but I get it. I… accept it now. It’s just part of the deal when it comes to loving you.”

He shrugged a little, and then he cut his eyes at me from the corner of his gaze. “But… I don’t know. Just… seeing how you looked at this other guy, seeing that part of you light up, I just…” His eyes darted away. “I mean, yeah. I can’t help but feel a little…”

I scooted in closer, trying to get his eyes to come back to me, a creeping grin spreading across my cheeks. “A little how, Jimmy? A little how?”

His summer thunderstorm eyes floated back to mine, and he would have been blushing if he had any blood. “Jealous. You’ve said it before, and you’re right. I am grateful for this, I am, and I am truly honored to have this bond with you and to protect you in what is a truly violent time, one where you are in constant danger. But we don’t have anything… visible. Not even here. We were also thrust into something really intense really quickly, almost overnight, and I just kind of wish we had had the chance to get to know each other differently.”

Now he turned completely towards me, cupping my cheek in his palm with soft, gentle eyes. “Please don’t misunderstand. I want you to be happy. You deserve to have intimacy with someone. You are an incredible person, and you deserve to be loved completely by someone. You deserve to have a partner after so many years of theft and violation and betrayal. So much has been taken from you, and to be able to get it back would be a real victory.” His eyelids lowered a bit, hooding his expression. “But part of me cannot help but wish that it was me that you were looking at with such new, raw hunger.”

I know that moving to this place where my dreams have literally come true is a whole new world for me. I know that I will now be expected to process and deal with many layers of trauma and loss and violation and abandonment and isolation that I had to pack away in the name of survival.

There is no time for an existential crisis when you are barely hanging on by a thread, after all.

But I continue to think about myself in third person as I see myself sobbing, cheek pancaked into the bathroom wall. Shivering violently with unearthed terror at the bottom of the bathtub as the shower still hammers my back with hot water. There is something pitch black inside of me that I am terrified of, and just admitting that it exists means that the reason I am so afraid is very real… and is still very much out there, waiting for me to let my guard down for a second.

Did I ever tell anyone that while packing I found one of my demon sketches and tore it in half? I didn’t throw it away, because I can’t do that (yet), but just that small act of destruction felt profound. I felt like I tore something in the air as well.

No one has to believe me for it to be real. No one has to see it for it to have ruined something that doesn’t even have a word to describe it. I know what happened… and oh my god, do I wish I didn’t.

scream for help, I wish you would

Do I have the bravery to finally open this door and walk inside? Do I have the strength to make this room a home again? How? Where do I even start? Can you fall into the abyss of primal terror and heal?

No one would blame me if I chose to stay closed for the rest of my life. I have been through so much. I have tentatively peeked out into the world time and again and had machetes slashed through my organs through the sliver in the door. I have pleaded with people, please be careful, it is so much for me to trust you, and had them instantly crumple my spirit in their palm.

No one would blame me, but I would blame myself.

If I am here against my will already, if I am certain I don’t intend to come back for a long time, if I feel like I am being punished by the Universe for Hermie’s many vile misdeeds, if I know I will have so much I will have to answer for once I am Home, then I must be committed to constantly working for wholeness.

For forgiveness.

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. After this, the darkness gobbles up the day minute by minute, until it is midnight before dinner. Can I find a way to light this room before darkness is all I can hold? What does it look like to open a door that has rusted hinges that shriek and squeal at just the thought of use? Is there hope that someone could see inside this room wallpapered with scar tissue and not be horrified at what remains?

Is there anything that remains?

Could it be possible that I could be loved?

Could it be possible that I will allow myself to be seen?

Could I really be fully alive one day?

Lord, hear our prayer.

solstice celebrations

/ thehourofthedead / Leave a comment

I saw my oldest friend a few nights ago for the first time in awhile, which was a relief. He has seemed to be avoiding me for the last few weeks, so it was good to finally be able to clarify some things face-to-face. Even if, to be honest- he still really avoided giving me a real answer to anything.

This time, he and I sat on opposite diagonal corners of the fully made bed at my beach house, which was both new and awkward. Our palms were resting flat on the on the smooth white comforter, both of us subtly trying to reach for the other without making it seem obvious. The flickering candle next to me in real life matched the setting sun at the beach house, lighting up his silhouette with fire behind my eyelids as I turned to look at him.

“So,” I said, my voice slightly bruised. “Where have you been?”

His mouth pulled to one side, and his golden brown eyes briefly flashed with defiance. “Well- and I know this is hard to believe- but I have other responsibilities, people who need my support and guidance and compassion, and also extremely difficult work I have to do for myself.” His voice is somehow both soft and strong, the sound of a summer breeze that carries the threat of a potential thunderstorm. It makes my blood light up with summer sparklers, even when he’s scolding me. Maybe especially then.

He gave me a look that had a tiny slice of that very energy. “You’re not the only person going into the solstice, you know.”

I gave him a hard side-eye. “Okay, but your distance with me kind of seemed to coincide with when Hermie told me that she treats you like a fuckboy. I was just kind of wondering if they were related at all.”

His mouth pulled again, harder. This time, his nostrils flared out as well. “No. They’re not.” His voice was flat and blunt, but then he sighed deeply, conceding a little of the granite in his body language.

“Listen. This is why it is going to be so hard for you to come Home,” he said, his eyes burning into mine. “There is very much a duality at play right now. Do you choose this life, what you have learned, this new perspective?” His eyes shifted away briefly, almost imperceptibly, before flicking back with more intensity than before. “Me? Jim?”

Then he shrugged a little, his entire body once again conceding to the possibility. “Or do you choose… him, and your crusade to save him? Which, to be fair, if you can accomplish it, would be a massive achievement for the entire Universe. But.”

He shook his head a little, laughing to himself. “What he has done to you already? What you have- what she has- allowed him to do to you just to prove that he is a vile and wretched being?” He shrugged again, a kind of angry admiration. “I can’t understand that. You are so much bolder than I could ever be.”

I held my palms to the sky. “But I don’t understand either. How could it even be a choice? It makes no sense.”

He exhaled through his nose, turning to look out at the surf. “I mean, she’s not wrong about me, you know? I have made a lot of mistakes, especially with you.” He turned back to look at me, his eyes swimming with electric fire. “Especially because of him, how you have always protected and defended him.”

“So what happens if I do choose him?” I whispered. “What happens then?”

He smiled wistfully, and his eyes went back to the sea. “It wouldn’t be the first time, my love. We’ll all find a way to move on.” He shrugged, returning his defeated gaze to me. “We all love you enough that we are willing to accept whatever amount of reciprocal love you are willing to…” His mouth twisted a little, his hand gesturing with a sarcastic benevolence. “…bestow upon us.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, okay. Please.”

He finally reached across the bed to slide his fingers between mine. It felt like plugging a cord into an outlet, an energy that is always somehow both brand new and ancient. Our eyes locked, and we just stared at each other for a long time, saying nothing and saying everything.

When he looks at me like that, I know better than to try to argue.

“But like… why did you leave me?” I asked quietly, searching his unbearably familiar face. “You were around so much last month, honestly to the degree that I felt like we were going to get into trouble, and then…?” I held my palms out to him in despair. “You just totally abandoned me.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. There is just so much happening right now, and I’m stretched very thin. It’s the solstice for all of us. It is the Grand Conjunction for all of us. It is 2020 for all of us. Do you think only the living are struggling with this disaster of a year?” He laughed a little, his eyes going smoky amber. “We are all being pushed to our limits.”

Then he tipped his face to me again, and we gazed deeply at each other, searching the other’s face. For what, I’m not sure. Just looking at him for too long makes me feel impossibly nervous, excited, almost as if just sitting next to him is something forbidden. As we looked at each other, the air shooting lightning, he slid slowly across the bed until our hips kissed. My mouth is all he could seem to see.

“I am so in love with you,” he said softly, then immediately scowled with disgust and embarrassment. It was as if his words were aromatically repellent, and he began trying to scoot away to try to escape it. Escape himself.

I grabbed him around the waist, pulling him back to me. “Wait, wait. Say it again.” I coquettishly tipped my cheek towards my shoulder as I batted my eyes, reaching out to grab both his hands.

He laughed the all-teeth, head tipped back laugh that makes all my nerve endings sing with light. Then he reached over and his knuckles grazed across my jaw, his fingers curling around my ear. As his fingertips slid into my hair, sending tiny explosions through my brain, he said, “I am so in love with you. It makes me worry that I shouldn’t be here.” He pulled his hand back and peered into my face. Eyes like a lion, a falcon. “I don’t want to distract you from the life you’re living.”

“What life?” I scowled. “Please.”

“Stop it.” He grabbed my chin gently to pull my eyes back to his. Then he proceeded to pour out truth to me, things I agreed not to write publicly, things that I honestly wouldn’t even dream of sharing, because it all feels exceptionally foolish. To the point of delusion.

When I expressed this to him, he said, “You’ll listen to every other thing I say, but when I tell you about who you really are, suddenly you must not have any real ability to hear?” He smiled. “Okay. Let it just be your imagination, then. Let it be who you wish that you were, the person you would like to be. Let it be the dream that propels you into a new reality.”

It feels impossible to carry both of my lives at the same time anymore. It feels harder and harder to pretend. It also feels deeply terrifying to lean more fully into who I actually am. This blog is the most honest thing I’ve ever done, and the most visibility I’ve ever given to my actual reality. I don’t have to be ashamed here. I don’t have to lie. No one is watching. I’m free to just flourish in this strange, beautiful, divine Light.

Happy (almost)solstice, ya’ll.

May we all see ourselves with clarity, and may we also be able to speak upon it with bravery. xx

assassinated messenger

/ thehourofthedead / 1 Comment

Last night, my oldest friend came to me after he saw the panicked, feral state I was in, pulling me into his arms. Then he pressed his palms against my cheeks, tipping my face up so his golden eyes burned viscerally into mine.

“Can you wait for the solstice? Please?” He kissed my forehead like pouring cement into a cracked foundation, and disappeared before I could say a word.

12/21 is always the day my chrysalis opens, but I feel it especially vividly this year. I’m have no idea what it’s about to bring, and I’ve never felt this way before. That throbbing intensity, edged with increasing anxiety, is grating me into a feral state.

Final exams, to be sure.

I also didn’t realize until recently that I had an entire timeline that corresponded with the solstice. I’m not sure why it took me this long to connect the dots, to be honest. Maybe I have once before, and it’s just another thing I’ve lost over the years and found again this year.

/// The first time “Alex” came to visit through my fiancé was at the solstice (2004).

/// Then I had to try to process a surprise pregnancy at the solstice, feeling like I’d been trapped (2005).

/// We lost our house at the solstice (2009).

/// I started to finally leave my ex at the solstice (2012).

/// I put a spell on a former/forever lover at the solstice I’m not sure either one of us will ever heal from. I will never forget that night for the rest of my life… and actually think about it almost every day, even now (2013).

/// He finally closed a door on his own failure and weakness that destroyed my heart so badly it left a permanent, fatal scar. I think about that almost every day, too. I hope one day I can heal from it (2014).

/// All of that led into me realizing I had to leave him at the very next solstice. Both my calves were packed with wounds, I was drinking myself into real danger, and I could barely hold my heart any longer (2015).

/// After finally coming out of the ash from being abruptly fired, my brand new job completely restructured, sending me into the worst years of my professional life (2016).

The last two solstices have been masterwork explosions of energy, learning, growth, sensuality, past life ripples, integration into my Entire Self.

We are all locked onto this rollercoaster now.

Ready?

Click, click, click.

Here comes the crest.

I feel a little villainized all over my life? I’m trying to have grace about it and let other people’s reactions to me be entirely their own vibe, but it’s been harder than I expected lately. I really feel how alone I am these last few weeks. Not lonely, per se? But just really seeing how little real life intimacy I have, how people don’t trust me because I confide nothing in them.

“People hate you because you tell the truth,” someone said to me once. “Most people can’t handle being told exactly who they are. It’s not your fault, but people make you feel like it is.”

This is the life of a mirror, of the assassinated messenger.

It’s your own reflection you see, friend- take a hard look. I just show you the truth. It’s not my fault it aches so much to see it.

And don’t forget- Yeshua energy comes for you in the solstice as well.

Not Jesus, please understand. Jesus energy is kind and soft, holding your hand in the darkness, the Brightest Light, the Living Example, Footprints in the Sand, it was then I carried you, let the children come to me vibes.

Yeshua energy will tell you about yourself in a way that makes you feel exposed to the point of violation. Furious to be read so hard, to be seen to your deepest shadows.

How DARE you understand me better than I understand myself? And to come with very specific receipts, too? And honestly, if 2020 itself wasn’t just a constant mirror of every flaw we’ve ever had, I’m not sure what else it really was.

I pray for your clarity in the solstice. May you be shown exactly who you are. It is what I want most for everyone, including myself.

Let the Light shine upon you fully, so that you may gaze upon your entire shadow and be humbled.

pre-solstice reflections

/ thehourofthedead / Leave a comment

From 2003 to 2005, I was happy. In bliss. I thought I was at my peak spiritual power, that I was an elite creature. We used the Ouija board every night, and it hummed with enormous electric power. I was in a love affair with someone that I idolized, someone who was so much more my partner than my own living partner.

The Queen of the Dead.

From 2006 to 2009, I was a battery. I was trapped alone with a brand new baby and a demon who controlled my entire life, and every single day was some sort of self-flagellation or self-sacrifice. My husband barely existed, as he was an almost constant channel for the dead. Even he admits he doesn’t recall much of those years at all.

I’m not sure I do either.

When I think about that home, I think of hell. A few years ago when I was in Pennsylvania for the holidays, I drove by it on a whim and felt intense waves of horror and grief. There has been no darker period in my life, if I’m honest. Extreme poverty, extreme isolation, extreme violation.

I was a prisoner there. Solitary confinement.

Empty. Husked. Drained. Destroyed.

From 2010 to 2013, I was broken, sick. I realized all my spiritual arrogance didn’t mean dick in the “real” world, and perhaps was entirely unfounded. No one cared what (or who) I knew because no one really believed it. All of the psychological damage that had been done to me over the previous years came roaring back into my brain and soul, and my mental illness was on full display.

I didn’t know how to be a human anymore. All of the things we’d ignored- bills, student loans, housekeeping, social manners- were now things that mattered a great deal, things that rerouted everything I thought mattered.

You don’t have to believe in your credit score, but babe- it believes in you.

From 2013 to 2016, I was infatuated with a man I couldn’t have, an absolute twin flame soulmate, who resurrected me from the ghostly life I’d been living into a fully realized being. He gave me the strength to leave a man who had been emotionally abusing me for my entire adult life, and also built me into the powerhouse boss bitch that I have become.

But then that situation also became toxic, heartbreaking, a different kind of drain on my soul. I realized that in spite of what I was telling myself, I was waiting for something stable from a man who treated me as a convenience, and it was destroying me.

In 2016, I moved 500 miles away from everyone I knew and started all over by the sea. My entire life burned to ash, and I got a real, true fresh start. An entirely new identity, an entirely new life.

From 2016 to 2019, my life has been about rebuilding my identity. I often reference “Pennsylvania Kristyn” and “North Carolina Kristyn,” because they are such disparate entities. People that knew me before 2016 do not know me any longer. That girl died violently in May 2016 and was reborn into someone else entirely.

Each year, I have drawn closer to my own spirituality again. There is a part of me that so deeply wants to come back to what I feel is my truest self, and the Universe has been calling me home all year. Not in a quitting sense, but in a living my clearest Truth sort of way. I have been dancing around my spirituality for years, and I feel there is a power and a strength in being able to share what I know to be true with others, even if it ostracizes me.

This is also the fork in the road. Am I an extroverted leader, someone who helps others become their best professional selves? Or am I a witch preacher, someone who helps others see their deepest spiritual selves?

I think this year has been about showing me how I cannot be both, no matter how much I may want that to be possible and true. It’s just not. It’s not.

This is the year that I finally was able to achieve a measure of comfortable success at work. Confidence. Power. I am not always liked, but I am respected.

Recently I had a green (but high potential) associate say, “Wow- when you say something, people really listen. I want to have that kind of power someday. I love how you phrase things, too. Like, it’s not mean, but people know exactly what you’re saying and they do it without questioning you. That’s really cool.”

But I have also seen some of my spiritual honesty and guidance and- for lack of a better word, proselytizing- show up in others’ lives as well. I have seen my lessons on gratitude and self-awareness and brutal soul honesty resonate with people I love and help them grow into better people.

That’s what I want more than anything- to show you how to truly love your life and yourself and to be the catalyst for your own growth. To be grateful for your ass beatings from the Universe.

I have deep soul contentment. Do you?

If not, I can help you. I promise. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be fun.

But it will work.

Both of these paths would be ultimately gratifying to me… but I also know what I am really here on this planet for. It would be a disservice to avoid something because there is a layer of vulnerability and terror to it. In fact, that is an even stronger argument that that is the thing I should be doing.

Less than two weeks to the solstice. Still doing that work.

I hope it is enough.