Four of Swords: Forced Rest

And so I'm reading. I'm re-reading bits of my saga, which I wrote in 1999 and 2000. Yellowed pages that smell good, and have water stains on them. The ink I used to write has been smeared and erased in places, and my writing style, twenty years and thousands of pages later, seems too descriptive and overly emotional. But there are parts of me in them that shine effortlessly even now. It makes me happy and sad in equal parts. When I'm looking for a comforting place to hide in and recuperate I hide in there. In the world I brought here in bits and pieces that have never been connected in one, larger body.

I'm tired. Nothing new. Trying to push on, trying to keep walking. I'm terrified of stopping. In this world we live in, where dog eats dog, humans fight over nothing and find nothing to unite them, I am terrified of stopping. I'm chased by a battalion of anger and sadness, people, circumstances, unfinished jobs, unattainable dreams, frustration and tiredness. I need to find a safe place to rest, to put down my burden and sleep. I'm starting to think I'll sleep when I die. I've been chased by Gods, demons and mortals for almost forty three years now. I get bitten a lot, and before the wounds are healed I get new ones. I'm a goddamn geological formation of scabs. I don't even stop to think about it; anyone who gets too close on the other level gets incinerated. The only problem is you can't kill real, actual people without going to jail. Ha ha ha.

I'm tired. I need to rest. I need to hide and live the rest of my life invisible. It's impossible, of course. No matter where I go, they'll find me. I stink. My being is inhabited by my soul, and my soul stinks to them. That small pulse inside called soul colours my entire existence, skin and bone and blood, and it smells of the Other Side. It smells like understanding and forgiveness, taking care of every life from the smaller to the biggest, protecting the weak ones and the different ones and using resources to promote well-being, health and literacy, justice and medical care. It smells like safety and individuality and different families and fucking utopia. I stink of it. I stand out like a flower in an abattoir. And I can't help it. I am what I am, I can't change. I can't stop caring and wanting to protect the ones who can't protect themselves. I can't stop hating injustice, pettiness, vanity, racism, stupid mind-games, cruelty and hypocrisy. It's who I am. I know right from wrong. Loving, evolving, moving on is right. That's what I want for me and everyone else. And those who don't want it, well, I just wish to stay away from them. I don't want to change them, or educate them, or make them change their minds. I can't change them anyway, it's futile. Just want to keep my distance.

This world hates my guts, and I suffocate in it. It will pass. I'll push on. Time is always on my heels, biting me like a hyena, trotting behind me to tire me until I collapse. It circles above me, a carrion bird. And I give him the finger. And I walk on.

I recently came across this poem that pretty much says it all. Enjoy. And if you'd like to support me, please buy me a coffee.

Pursuit, by Stephen Dobyns

Each thing I do I rush through so I can do

something else. In such a way do the days pass--

a blend of stock cars racing and the never

ending building of a gothic cathedral.

Through the windows of my speeding car, I see

all that I love falling away: books unread,

jokes untold, landscapes unvisited. And why?

What treasure do I expect in my future?

Rather it is the confusion of childhood

loping behind me, the chaos in the mind,

the failure chipping away at each success.

Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape

and so move forward, as someone in the woods

at night might hear the sound of approaching feet

and stop to listen; then, instead of silence

he hears some creature trying to be silent.

What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly

down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks;

the other ever closer, yet not really

hurrying or out of breath, teasing its kill.

From “Cemetery Nights” by Stephen Dobyns (Penguin Books: 100 pp., $14.95) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.

Taken from here.

Atonement

"...And it is the people most capable of forgiveness that are the only ones made to atone."

Emi Mahmoud

Things are definitely looking up!

We're in 2030.

The Greek refugee problem has been solved. Not because the wars ended or Europe opened its borders or anything. The entire Greece sank into the ocean after a colossal earthquake that stopped exactly at the country's borders. Rumor says it was courtesy of the legendary bad luck of the family of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Now the remaining Greeks are someone else's refugee problem, and they don't like it. In response to their constant complaining, they are reminded that they were the ones who voted for him, and besides, they still owe money to the European Union, even though it does not exist anymore. 

The corona virus returns every September, just as swallows migrate to Africa, and goes away in April, when swallows return. The biggest companies in the world are the ones producing toilet paper. They have bought Amazon, Google, Twitter, and launched an app that finds your ideal mate comparing toilet paper preferences. Parties where you go dressed in nothing but toilet paper and a surgical mask are a thing. There are also new revolutionary masks that can double as panty liners, swimming suits, camping tents,  nuclear bunkers and spaceships. 

There is a heated public discussion that has been going on for a decade, whether the numbers of medical personnel are adequate or the governments should hire more people. Unbeknownst to politicians, all the medical personnel died during the first corona outbreak. They turned into mutant zombies that still frantically treat patients because they are so busy they have not realised they are, in fact, themselves dead.

The icecaps melted. Most cities are partly or fully underwater. A lot of babies are born with webbed hands and toes. Trump has been elected yet again, and claims it is all fake news and that the communists are behind it. Communists, on the other hand, are too busy learning to swim and forage underwater.

The British politicians haven't noticed any of these things as they are in an ongoing Brexit phase. The Queen is still alive and makes public announcements about how unhappy she is she outlived everyone of her relatives and generally, everyone she's ever known. In her free time, she commands the armies of the undead, including the medical personnel.

Remember the girl or guy you liked? The one you were bananas for, and hoped that they would eventually see the light and break up with their icky significant other? Well, good news is, they finally saw the light and you are in a relationship with them! Problem being, one of you has erectile dysfunction and the other is in menopause, which means you mostly spend time on the couch watching pre-disaster movies, eating unhealthy shit and farting.

The author of this entry is dead/ does not exist/ was sucked into the black hole of Greek economy and never returned. Do not try to find her. If, however, you'd like to support a dead person, please buy her a coffee.

Dumpster diving and other unpopular choices

So here is an interesting fact about me: I dumpster dive. My specialty is books. I also salvage clothes, toys, anything that still works. I don't understand why people throw away what can be donated to charity, passed on, or simply left on the street to be taken by someone who wants it. You have something you don't want? Take it to the bus stop or to a park and leave it there. It will be claimed sooner than later, and someone else will use it. Why throw it away and not give it a second life?

Other than saving what I can from dumpsters, I collect stamps, books and plastic caps for charity, pass books on via bookmooch, and try to help in many little ways. For example, I no longer buy plastic pens (I use fountain pens for writing) and don't buy lighters. I use matches instead. I reuse every bit of packaging material I can get my hands on, since I regularly post things abroad. I switched from panty liners to a Ruby Cup, etc. There are so many things one can do if they care enough to bother. They can also donate to a charity of their choice, support a small business instead of a large one, not be assholes... The list is endless. 

People think they are weak and have no power in their hands, and that governments are in charge of their lives. Too often they expect someone else to take responsibility and lead them. They don't realise that the goods and services they buy are the greatest tool of pressure, and their waste has a global effect. When you buy a new smartphone every six months while you don't really need it, that is a choice, and it affects the entire world. From the obvious way of choosing how to spend your money, supporting a brand and its policies, to the not so obvious of expecting a material item to make you happy and give you identity, indirectly perpetuating such situations as child labour for the necessary cobalt, creating toxic waste and making landfills even fuller. The way you spend your money is a statement. The garbage you produce is a statement. What you buy creates demand and demand creates offer. No demand, or different demand, means in turn different offers. And there is no greater way to teach than setting an example by the way you live.

 

Next time you're in the supermarket, please remember that each choice you make gives feedback to the companies about your needs and priorities, and that in turn creates demand. Why not try to create a different type of demand? For example, are you really going to eat that? No? Then don't buy it. Does it have to be wrapped in 3 different types of plastic? Does it have to come all the way from Peru? That one is a plastic spoon, which means it will still be around when you are long gone. Maybe you can make another choice? And so on, and so forth. It's a matter of changing habits. Not much else. Since collective habits brought us to where we are now, different habits will take us to a different place. Why not give it a try, see how that feels? And please don't get disappointed by small failures and relapses. Just keep going. The whole world (and this is not an exaggeration) needs that.

(If you'd like to support me, please buy me a coffee.)

Some reading resources:

How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Zero Waste   

Kiva Loans

Ordering the vegetarian meal? There is more animal blood on your hands

Minimalism

Stupid Things 

Fleeting or fleeing

Tonight I miss you again. This song reminded me of you, and how you once grabbed a shotgun to save lives, including your own.

Grief is a strange animal. It resembles an old injury. You think you have healed and then the weather changes, or you make a sudden move, and your body reminds you of the exact places it had been broken. It's the same deal with grief. You think the worst part has passed, and then you see or hear something and sadness pours out with such fierce intensity that startles you.

The funny thing is that lately I am content. I am tired, sure, and vulnerable, and everything is far from perfect. It doesn't stop me from being content. This contentment is not apathy. It embodies a quiet sense of being in the present moment. It has sadness and curiosity and hope and my sense of humour and a generous amount of disbelief for the stupidity of mankind. You can be content and hopeful and sad and dog-tired at the same time. It's not the same as being joyful, or happy. 

I recently noticed that the blog is a breath away from 100.000 pageviews. Well, as blogs go, it's old. It turned 14 years old in October. I don't write here as often as I'd like, and have no idea who reads it. To be honest, I don't know why anyone would read it as it is so personal, and sometimes repetitive. I get no income from it and I don't get contacted by my readers. I never have comments. In a way, it reminds me of a person posting letters to themselves. I write here because I have to, just like I grieve and laugh and eat and sleep because I have to. And it seems to me that is reason enough. 

Take good care of yourself tonight and every night.

Don't be someone's reason for grief if you can help it. 

Good night my dears.

Good night my darling.  
I miss you very much.

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Bookhopping

I have been feeling weird for the past week; dizzy, weak, disoriented. My sleep hasn't been good either. It's nothing new. From time to time I find myself feeling ill for no reason. After forty one years on this earth, I've come to realise that being psychic to some degree is similar to having a chronic illness. I do not mean to make light of the daily struggle of people suffering from a chronic illness. They alone know what they have to deal with and the dehumanising effect of chronic pain. Under no circumstances would I say I face even a portion of the challenges they do. However, there are similarities. For example:

• During the day, I may find myself feeling ill, or drained and exhausted, for no apparent reason.

• My sleep is often awful. Not always, and not always in the same way, but getting a good night's sleep is way more challenging for me than it is for the average person.

• This one is thankfully rare: I wake up to find that the world is spinning round and round, though I am perfectly still. If I try to move, even in the slightest, I am apt to vomit. Everything hurts and I feel wrecked. I don't drink alcohol, ever, so I don't want to hear smart comments about a hangover. This happens to me infrequently, usually every few years. When it does, I am rendered useless for that day. 

• Interacting with the wrong people is a one way ticket to hell.

• I can't touch, hug, or have sex with random people. Hell, I can't even dress up, put on make-up and go out without returning home feeling sick. It's fun, you should definitely try it. Not.

Yesterday was one of those fun days. After a bout of the merry go round effect (it happened on Tuesday), on Saturday I started feeling unwell. It got progressively worse. Headache, muscle pains, disorientation. I went to bed early and also took a painkiller. It didn't help much. I spent the biggest part of the night tossing, unable to find a comfortable position to sleep. Then I started shivering. I had to get an extra blanket. Then I started sweating. I had to keep just one blanket in order to stop sweating. I ached everywhere, and woke up feeling exhausted. I still feel exhausted and my body aches. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be better. I am grateful for the fact I don't have to work on Monday because it is a national holiday. I would have been the equivalent of the queen of zombies working as a secretary.

I didn't begin this entry to air my woes. I wanted to refer to my bookhopping. Bookhopping is like barhopping, only with books, and for different reasons than locating a place with lots of excitement. Let's say you read a book, and the protagonist is about to break up. Being emotionally drained, you decide you can't handle it, so you hop to another book. You read that other book, only to discover that the heroes are facing a difficult challenge. Can you handle it? The answer is no. So you hop to yet another book like a frog that's chased by an army of hungry snakes. Gee, maybe I should start reading books for first graders about butterflies and shit. Maybe I should stop reading in general and start, dunno, knitting. What are the chances of abandoning a scarf because I am emotionally vulnerable?

Other than that, I am alive and well. I read two very interesting articles I would like to share with you. They both touch on how language and repetition/ stereotypes define and program our beliefs.

 

(Update in 2021: unfortunately the first article does not exist anymore.)

http://leftbrainedhippie.com/2017/02/25/8-words/

https://markmanson.net/negative-self-help

I would like to close this entry with this photo. 

She was found shot seventeen times, with one ear cut off, blind, pregnant and with a broken jaw. She survived, got adopted and now she is a therapy dog. Look at her. She is the living example of not letting your pain define who you are, but turn every bit of pain you've been through into solid gold. I mean LOOK at her. And maybe, just maybe, next time you face a challenge, instead of "I can't do this", say, "I'll give it a go." Just give it a go.

As per usual, if you'd like to support me, please buy me a coffee.

More info on the dog here: 

https://www.ladbible.com/news/animals-pregnant-dog-shot-17-times-has-qualified-as-a-therapy-dog-20190713

Storming paradise

"From this flesh my spirit longs to break away. 
Did you ever feel this cosmic circumstance was never enough? 
Wake me slowly if ever at all. 
Wake me slowly or watch me fall."

I do long to break free from my flesh tonight. Only I don't want to die.
Desire makes me weak, it makes me crawl, yet dignity wins every single time.
I still need to find the one who won't force me to choose.
I have to keep on fighting though I can barely stand.
It's OK though. I'm used to watching my world burn.
I am slowly regaining my hope, not because the situation is improving. Because it was mine and you took it away.
The rest will take care of itself, fuck you very much.
Desire will pass. It always passes.
Hey, even life will pass, let alone desire. 
I wish I could take a single drop of my longing and put it in a glass.
Then watch the unlucky person who drank it go mad.
You obviously knew what you did when you gave that much yearning to me.
You knew I could host it. 
Not sure who else can take it even by association, and not go insane.
Long ago, there was someone who could take it, and he used it to create worlds with me.
He is not here now, but watches over me.
And late at night I find myself imploring him.
"Show me the one who can take it.
Show me the one who'll manage not to be consumed and pushed into madness
but will use my love as a key to unlock paradise.
We'll take paradise by force, true Sons and Daughters of Lucifer
and our love will burn so brightly that angels will cover their eyes."
I do long to break free from my flesh tonight. Only I don't want to die.
Desire makes me weak, it makes me crawl, yet dignity wins every single time.
Until the night I won't have to choose.

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The game of life and death

Sometimes I wonder why this world is as fucked up as it is. It is pointless wondering, I'm well aware of it. And yet I wonder. I can't help it. I am by nature made to improve things, systems, myself. I am both good at it and enjoy it; the visionary who's walking with her head in the clouds and her two feet firmly on the ground. The questions usually are, does it work? Is it an improvement? Does it hurt anyone?

I think the basic problem of this world is our inability to communicate our experience. We live isolated in our heads, thinking our reality and experience is the only valid one. The result is pain, loneliness, fear. We can't see others as another version of ourselves. We can only focus on our differences, not our similarities. We see enemies where there is no enemy.

Art is the only way I have discovered to bridge the distance between one human experience and another, one human being and another. Art and love creating connections that surpass everything, distance, even time. Art is a child of love anyway, inflaming our hearts and minds with the closest there is to experiencing divinity. And love both flourishes on kindness and creates more kindness.

I wish I could take every human being by the hand and strip them of fears, and silly pride, and anger, and regret, and naked and vulnerable take them to the place inside where no armour is needed. To that one place where they are safe, and accepted for everything they are, and the only entrance rule is to let go of control, stop struggling. I can't do that any more than I can give eyes and ears to a stone. Each person has to find that place for themselves. It's not found in a church, or a holy place, or another dimension. You don't have to cross the sea or climb a mountain. You have to reach inside, to touch the unblemished part of you that everyone has. The part that knows it's all good, and there is nothing to forgive, and you are safe. You have always been safe because you are pure energy, you are stardust dreaming of falling in love, and to do that you need a body. That is all. You have always been perfectly safe and every transgression, imaginable and real, every slight and trespass is forgiven because it was a dream. You are stardust dreaming, and for a single moment in time, believing it. Believing it so much that it was real. There was no true separation, no real otherness, no alienation; just a part of the whole relishing its uniqueness before merging again, before becoming energy and love. 

I wish I could make you see that. But in order to let go of control, to stop struggling, you have to love yourself first. And only you can do that. 

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Indigo jester

Take a person made by their very nature to hope and merge, and teach them
by tribulation after tribulation,
by one death after the other,
by killing their hope,
by crushing their dreams.
Teach them by branding them day by day
with the red hot iron of disappointment
that understanding is an illusion,
that there is no peace, except for the one they grant themselves,
and that there's no escape, nor any destination.
Keep doing that for four decades.
Do you know what you get?
The worst kind of holy warrior someone could have unleashed upon your sorry ass,
the kind of witch priestess who will spit her soul out before she yields, 
a jack of all trades killing with tales, her eyes dripping poison and tears in equal parts.
Me and my army of cats, dead and alive,
are still debating the wisdom of your tactics.

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Winter nights

Some winter nights are tranquil. Masses of clouds travel fast in the sky and the cold is not unbearable. I stare at the moon and distant stars and try to decipher the meaning of their shapes, the hidden stories in the shadows.

Some nights I am happy. Other nights, the pain spills out and covers my skin with goosebumps. I listen to music and remember dead friends and dead pets. I try to wrap myself in the comfort of music and imagine the notes as an ethereal embrace, the ghost arms of those who once loved me.

I'm tired. Two nights ago I re-watched a short film I had made with a friend. He needed to make a short film as a dissertation, and I found myself starring in it. I thought the DVD was lost. Recently I found it again.

Watching my much younger self in the film I experienced an overwhelming wave of sadness. She had no idea what life had in store for her and I wished I could hide her in my embrace and tell her to be strong, because she is someone I love, appreciate and admire more with each passing year. But we can only travel forward one second at a time, and so I watched her and shook my head. If she knew what her life would be like for the next fifteen years, maybe I wouldn't be here now, writing this blog entry. Maybe she would have thrown in the towel and stepped off that building eleven or twelve years ago like she planned. I don't know what kept her going. Hope? Stubbornness? Anger? Whatever it was, I am glad it served to keep her here. I've seen what suicide does to those on its ground zero. It's not pretty.

I'm trying to develop a strong inner core so that the outside doesn't rule my inside. It's very hard.

I wonder what you saw in me all those years ago, my dear Virve, and decided to make me part of your family. We never did meet, but the fact you considered me trustworthy enough to confide in me is the greatest praise I can think of.

I am tired, love. Tired of this life that it seems to run in two modes. One is the crippling routine mode, the second is the kick in the teeth mode. I keep pushing my hand inside, and like a blind person, I fumble about inside my inner darkness until I pull out wonders. I sink my hand inside the river of Lethe to pull out the salmon of Wisdom. I push my fingers into my wounds to study the nature of my despair, the taste of my blood, the root of fear inside me. Then I share my discoveries here. I know most won't understand, and that's okay. The soul's journey cannot be shared. But even if one person understands, that's enough. And you did understand.

I miss you tonight. You, and all my dead pets, and the father I never had, and the innocence I cannot regain.

I miss you. But maybe the music I listen to is the embrace you never gave me in flesh and blood. Now your ashes travel the world, and I'm here, writing and remembering.

Thank you for believing in me when I didn't. I still draw strength from it. I appreciate everything you ever did. I wish you were here so I could say it to you, but maybe you know. 

When I kiss the stars good-night, I kiss you too.

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The reason this blog exists

2019

Remembering my dead pets tonight. I wonder what kind of masochism urges us to adopt, when it only means we're going to have our heart broken repeatedly. I miss my little darlings and feel indebted for the way they enriched my life, even if it wasn't for long.

I am writing again. There are more than a few hiccups along the way, and I am not always certain if anything can be achieved, but my stories are important to me. I am not sure what can be achieved by writing here either and yet I am. I don't even know who's reading this or if anyone is reading this and what they think about it. It doesn't really matter.

I am walking with one foot here, one foot there. One foot in the world of reason and results, one foot in the world of the unconscious and inner understanding. Every now and then I stop and measure my progress. The progress I make becomes evident only through the increased feeling of well-being inside; it does not change my conditions much. Even that is good. I am in a better place than I used to be, and hopefully it will improve further.

I am learning to ask for things I want.

I am also learning to voice my displeasure.

There is someone I like. I am rather terrified by the fact. I am also pretty certain it will not take me to a better place; just disappoint and hurt me. It already looks that way. In the past I would have run away at maximum speed; right now I am trying to not kill it before it even starts. You see, I am exceptional at it killing them before they draw their first breath, before they hurt me. In the end, I don't know what's worse; a life of comfortable numbness or being consumed by your own feelings. So I am trying to break my patterns before they turn into my life, and will take it one step at a time.

2018 wasn't good. Here's to 2019.

Happy new year.

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They cannot stop you unless you stop

That's what I keep telling myself. Again, and again.

They cannot stop me unless I stop.

They can't stop me unless I give up. If I give up, they have succeeded.

They are idiots, because I can't really stop. It's not a choice. Asking me to stop breathing would have been easier.

I can't stop seeing. I can't stop writing. I can't stop understanding. It's the way I am wired. The same brain that discerns patterns and responds to specific kinds of music is the mind that has hosted freaks and monsters and wonders for as long as it exists. Yes, conditioning plays a part, but there is genetic predisposition and there is also something called soul. 

I follow in the footsteps of Hecate, gathering freaks and lost souls from the crossroads of life, gathering the weird ones around me. Strength in numbers, because everyone and everything is against us. Against decency, humanity, understanding, common sense, dignity, hope. This is war, and it has been going on for as long as humanity exists, and it has never been better or worse. There are periods of remission and periods where the struggle is violent and visible. The struggle never stops, and it is inside as much as outside because this is the way of life. As above, so below, within and without.

Right now in Ohio men in power want to completely abolish abortion and jail women on the mere suspicion.

In countless countries being gay still gets you the death penalty.

Trafficking is worse than ever. Wars have provided the jaws of the Machine with an endless supply of fresh meat.

The entire world stumbles towards blind, mindless, bloody chaos, and I put one foot in front of the other even if I have to clench my teeth to do it.

They cannot stop you unless you stop. 

Ο μόνος τρόπος να σε σταματήσουν είναι να σταματήσεις.

Keep moving. 
Don't let them silence you.
There are truths that aren't negotiable.
Keep going. 

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