I. Journal Jam was amazeballs yesterday. Quick and dirty, as I like to call it. Even though the prompts led to some pretty murky colour combinations, the process itself was incredibly healing. I invoked the spirit of the 5 of Cups from the tarot while I worked and really focused on the hopeful reality of the cups that are left standing even when all the others have fallen over and spilled out.

I am finding myself in a liminal space where I am both grieving a loss but there is a spark of optimism for what comes next. Where there’s life, there’s hope. I believe. 

By the way, the replays go up in The Wilderhood, so if you want to jam with me, head on over. 

II. After the Jam, I went outside to get some air and let the dogs work off some of their pent up energy. I had mail! This beautiful little silver and moonstone ring arrived in a pretty gold tone box with a ribbon but NO NOTE.

I sat down on my stoop and cried the ugly cry, y’all. I was so moved that someone would do this – would, upon reading about my lost moonstone – think to find me one and send it to me.

People are deeply kind.

The mystery of who sent it was solved within mere moments after my asking on my socials. It was the lovely Cary, who has always been so sweet to me in all our years of connection. She is a fabulous human, and I am so grateful.

The arrival of the ring was perfectly timed. I’m turning a corner after months of what can only be described as a protracted Tower moment, and I’ve been cutting cords and pulling in tendrils. Refocusing. Bringing myself back to center, back to a life where the decisions I make are in alignment with my own best interests.

In a class I’m taking, we talk about our holy helpers and who they might be and how to work with them. It was suggested during one of our calls that one of my holy helpers is the moon herself. That resonated, and in the last few weeks, I’ve been leaning hard on all the guidance I get from working her cycles.

This ring felt like an affirmation of that.

III. I woke up feeling like maybe I actually slept last night. I didn’t drink anything but water and tea all evening, but I had a little puff of Indica at 10 p.m. and by 11, I was out. The dreams were intense, but the sleep was deep enough to have them, so I’ll take it.

IV. Lenormand this morning: “Trouble letting go.” Tarot this morning: “Lack of closure.” Yup, but I’m working on it.

Sometimes the only closure we get is the closure we make for ourselves.

I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. 

V. I’m thinking today about mantras and affirmations and the things we say to ourselves over and over again and how that wends its way into my writing.

I am my own North Star. I choose me. I believe. Where there’s life there’s hope.

These are tiny little self-soothing spells that I pull out and throw down in the face of my own self-doubt or fear or when I am in need of comfort.

There’s this meme going around on Facebook about how ultra independence can be a trauma response. When we have been hit with the ‘too much’ label or we haven’t been able to get our needs for witnessing, love, kind eyes on our lives, a hand to hold, commitment, kept promises, words aligning with actions, or when we’ve been abandoned or rejected by someone we love, we can grow very guarded about asking for anything. I wrote about this before – that anything that smacks of rejection right now is too hard for my nervous system to bear, so I have stopped asking for emotional support when I’m in the trenches. I have a draft folder in my e-mail program entitled ’42’ and everything I want to say gets typed out and moved into it. According to my therapist, the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between hitting ‘send’ and hitting ‘save as draft’.

It’s working to keep me from reaching out where rejection and abandonment is a goddamned guarantee.

VI. In the meanwhile, I am practicing a lot of self-soothing, both in my journal and through my writing, and while I know I won’t want to stay guarded forever, these little mantras are life.

I know I repeat myself a lot in these writings. I just wanted to explain that these phrases I repeat are medicinal. I am working through attachment terror in therapy, and I know I’ll come out on the other side of this work with a renewed willingness to attach once I heal, but in the meantime, I’ve got me. 

Trauma response or not, thank the gods for my resilience.

VII. One of my witches (who has stepped off Facebook entirely, so she emails me personally when she has things to share) sent me this today:

“The reason I’m emailing is to show you photos of the succulent I bought as a representation of you on my altar. It is doing a quite beautiful thing. It is rising up out of the ashes of its former self, and it is beautiful and radiant. The bottom part is all the dead leaves, but you can see how the beautiful new life is bursting forth from within them. I am positive this is a pure representation of where you are in your life right now, and I just had to share it with you. Every day I look at it, and it makes me smile and gives me so much hope. Please feel free to share with the coven or anyone else you’d like to.

Much love!

Sarah”

Everything that’s happening right now, every secret message, every sign and omen is pointing in the direction of my getting through *waves at all of this*. I believe. 

IX. I don’t mind being lonely right now. It feels like I am travelling inward, into my own cave of bone. A heroine on a quest in search of treasure. Walking the labyrinth of my own innards in silence. Descent with the promise of ascent. The promise of emergence after the long dark.

But baby I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor
You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya

X. I knew for a long, long time. I just didn’t want to admit it.