HOW TO DRAW CLOSER TO YOUR MYSTERY
The above audio is a reading from a transcript. They are not my words, but the story was told to me orally by someone I loved, and for almost twenty years has lived on a microcassette unplayed. It is an unearthed treasure and I wanted to share it with you.
THE AGING PARADOX, PART 1
I think about this scene from Waking Life often. In the Shamanic worldview your journey involves retrieving younger versions of yourself, or lost parts of your soul, and in doing so you add another facet to the mysterious, ageless, prism that you already are at this moment — existing across multiple realities.
Here are some recovered and lost parts of my soul:
RECOVERED. She liked to crawl into bushes and tug on tree branches hoping they would open. She loves to go on hikes with me and cuddle with Pablo. All of my curiosity about the world comes from her. She really wants a pet Parrot someday.
LOST. I think she’s still clinging to her mother in that apartment bedroom. I spend time with her sad poetry, but I’m kind of afraid of getting lost in her world. Everything was so out of her control. This is when her time anxiety developed, because she spent all her energy trying to project herself into new, better futures.
LOST. I don’t know this person at all. She moved cross-country to Cincinnati, because a Ouija board told her to. There was a brief James Dean phase. Now that I am older, I realize that’s not really a thing. I don’t think she ever figured out if she was in love with him or wanted to be him.
RECOVERED. That was me five years ago eating a Vienna sausage in Vienna. Probably peak youth, peak life, peak everything. There’s no way in hell I’m losing this version of myself. She just wants to travel and eat street food and be out in the sun falling in love with all the strangers in the world.
To be continued…
CONSCIOUSNESS BREADCRUMBS
The words consciousness breadcrumbs came to me in a dream. I think of all the pieces of myself I’ve dropped for someone to find — letters, poems, texts. I begin to become more mindful of what parts of myself I gift to people. I imagine myself crumbling apart, leaving behind a trail — I want every piece to be honest and loving and life-saving in some way. This newsletter is a consciousness breadcrumb. May it lead you deeper into the forest, or back home, or straight into a witch’s house.
Thirdhand creation story, the aging paradox, and consciousness breadcrumbs