Greetings! My name is Alicia. I honor and explore living in imperfect right relationship with self, nature, and the cosmos through writing, photography, and videography. Let us grab a cuppa and have a reflective conversation about depression and hope.
Am I in a dream?
I keep asking myself and the Great Spirit if what I am experiencing is real. And, for a brief moment, I swear I hear an elder’s quiet sigh in the stillness - an amused shaking of head, a crooked smile playing across lips.
But then, a voice arises from the depths of water freed from molded leaves and small twigs.
A stream near my new home
You are living a manifestation.
As I write this post, I hold gratitude deep within me for surrendering and finding the fortitude to leap a huge chasm with Brigit and Gracie, my two cats, with, at first, no landing point in sight.
Those who know me well can attest to my stubborn ability to dig my heels in and stay put; hence, the surprise of many people when they find out I have recently moved out of my old apartment, and I am now beginning a journey in a new one.
It was time to go. My inner flame had almost been extinguished. I was merely functioning, not thriving - living the same narrative over and over again: breathe, eat, sleep, go to work, perhaps watch TV or read on occasion, and repeat … repeat … repeat. At the expense of being too comfortable, I was losing myself little by little.
If not embraced and honestly faced, folks, depression is a damn steamroller.
, of Cold Antler Farm, describes it best in “Stars in the Water," her 6/24/24 Substack entry:It’s why you’ll find so much dust and cobwebs in the house of a sad person. It’s not about cleanliness. It’s undetectable to the people living with it. Your life has to be in such a great place that cobwebs even register to clean them. You can’t see that stuff when your lenses are dirty.
I needed to clean my glasses so that I could see my life from a different perspective. To do so, parts of me had to die - a few threads torn here and there from the “Primal Loom” …
Decayed melancholy consumes me piece by piece,
Tendons and ligaments, bones and organs, until
My animal body composts within the womb
Of Mother Earth, her heart resurrecting holy
Imperfect fragments from miasmic illusion.
Nornir create the Primal Loom, my egoic death
Wyrd's quantum muse plucking Life Tapestry's silk threads:
I am Great Blue Heron standing at sea-marsh edge.
I am Mallard Duck floating on reflecting lake.
I am Blue-Flag Iris dancing in swampland muck.
I am Common Yarrow in early-summer fields.
I am Turkey-Tail Mushroom on decaying logs.
I am Whitewater in craggy taiga couloir.
Anoint me with kintsugi wisdom, O Dark Night!
Labor’s transition is upon Sunna’s welkin;
Gold's epoxy writing my breakage history
On the archival scroll of alabaster skin,
Its daedal path, the Universe's legacy.
Brigit and Gracie were my death midwives. They also carried within them a spark of my soul fire when I had little physical strength to do so. Just for that alone, I am at a loss for words.
Brigit
Gracie
Yet I would not trade traversing this road for another one.
Life is a messy paradox. From pain comes healing; from being ripped open, the deepest love; and from chaos, peace. How else does the light get in?
Let us look toward Mother Nature for examples. During sowing, gardeners and farmers alter the hard coat of some seeds to allow water absorption, which then signals the inner embryos to commence germination. Indigenous peoples in fire ecologies conduct low-grade burns to clear and prepare areas for new growth.
My point? Scars and openings, those places often illuminated and cradled by light, are experiences and bring balance. Darkness creates shadows, thereby providing contrast so we are not completely blinded by illusions: that we are merely physical bodies living individual lives. No matter how we define a higher power - or even, if there is one - we are all connected, one with the larger warp and weft of life, death, and rebirth.
So, when it is my time to finally cross the ultimate threshold into the next world, I want to be what Mary Oliver so vulnerably penned in her 1991 poem “When Death Comes”:
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder If I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, Or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
For now, with all ten toes down, I can confidently say, “I PRESSED ON!”
The Faith Over Feelings Deck, created by Ashley Kester, of The Reckoning Co
What parts of you have had to die to encourage growth?
Blessings!
♡ Alicia