For the love of PH8

Reader advisement: As a dutiful child of Chaos I often mix metaphors, blur lines of demarcation and bend rules when it serves the flow. Sky

There was a time when hope was just a word and the thought of joy, a torment. Finding my way back to a centered Self, the Powerful Human within, has rewarded me by returning the rose-colored glasses that I was told to remove in my early teens. Being a bit of a walking paradox from the get-go, the rebellious teen in me obeyed a father who could not deal with the imaginative flights of fancy that filled much of my time. I loved him as I loved life, but it was usually my experience that at some point or another, on any given day, he would vehemently demand that I get my head out of the clouds, plant my feet on the ground and, “for Christ’s sake, take off the damn rose-colored glasses”. He believed this to be in my best interests because the world was neither “fair” nor “ideal” and to be sure, I’m certain his world wasn’t. However, the one I recalled with every fiber of my being told me that life is indeed fair and ideal. My child-like self knew, and still knows, that life is love and love is both fair and ideal.
In my view, balanced and loving intent shape the world, but my father’s generation didn’t believe they had a choice in the matter. They had seen much of the shittiest intent of mankind, as did my generation, the “hippies”. The difference is, I’m certain, a naturally occurring phenomenon, one as steadying the cycle of Nature. It is Nature’s nature to be cyclic and even as a wild, immature and rebellious teen, I knew this to be true.

Yet, my father loved me, although for years I would deny that idea, believing myself an unworthy recipient of such emotion. Like many in his time, my father didn’t have the means of expressing his love in any other manner so, in retrospect, I really do believe that he did think he had my best interests at heart. He was fond of telling me “the road to hell is paved with good intention” however, I don’t buy into the concept of hell, so it held little weight with me. His methods were skewed, but his heart was in the right place, so after a time I was able to find forgiveness…. for both of us. It was hidden behind the brick wall that had been built between us; some bricks had been his, some mine.

As a child, I had pretty much lived up to the name I had chosen for myself… Joyce was joyous most of the time. But taking off those metaphorical rose-colored glasses began a thirty-five year bout with depression, issues of self-worth, self-loathing and eventually an almost complete loss of hope. Journeying through what others deemed “reality” charted the course through a bumpy life journey that has eventually taken me ‘home’. Along the way I learned that I have no one to blame but myself and as a result, I am so done with that behavior.

Musings….
There were days in the beginning of the journey when I would lie on my bed and cry. When asked why I was crying, I could only respond that I wanted to go “home”… home to that elusive place where I instinctively knew that love did not hurt. Those episodes established the parameters that would later define me as a “dust mote circling around the fuzz-balls who hang out on the fringe of life”. Always the odd one in a cluster of misfits, it’s where I feel most comfortable. I can join in, but having accepted the idea that our basic commonality is our uniqueness, I don’t want to become a copy of others. I am complete within myself. In that lesson I found I don’t need to sit and cry for ‘home’ any longer, gone are the days of feeling sorry for myself. I cried a river of tears and journeyed to the darkest part of the ocean where I once again found my voice. How’d I get from there to here? By refusing to give in to the fear, by facing the pain and by embracing my rage. I faced the Dark Goddess, donned Her essence as my own and claimed the pain as a tool for change.

Sekhmet
The world’s sorrow, carried with joy, was lifted
The Earth’s sadness, humbly felt, was eased
The connection to creation, always there, though sometimes lost
Is once more recalled
Sekhmet beckoned
Awaiting the precise moment, knowing I was ready
She emerged
With Her offering, I let go of all I had held
The strength of desires, a fierce calling
The lure of vices, a power welling up
A yielding to Her, timidly undertaken, not wanting to burden
Is a blessing to my soul

And so my dance within the darkness was the illumination I sought, the light to guide me home.

I consider myself an artist and, for me, an artful life is about spiritual alchemy… the transmutation of base emotions to pure gold. The elevation of one’s emotions from the whining of the inner brat to the reclamation of the divine joy is the truth of a unified self and the alchemical reaction to profound spiritual pain. I still cry, weary of the pain… but it is the pain of others that elicits that response now. I weep for the world, for the pain others need a break from carrying. See, when I took the glasses off and removed my head from the clouds I ran to the safety of nature and planted my feet in the soil of this realm. The scent of moss and dark earth became the comforts that eased the shock of my transition and I became one with the flesh of this world. In so doing, I connected myself to the element that is closest to the core of who I am as a human… the element that is the building block of all humans.

Gaia, my sister, the living earth became my anchor to joy. However, the cruelty of “human nature” chipped away at the anchor until all that remained was a shred of hope, the one I clung to fiercely. The “shred of hope” was the solace and all I needed to do was to listen for the voice of spirit and transcribe that voice into this world. That, at least, provided a purpose to my stay here in this dense realm. Now I shed more tears of JOY & GRATITUDE and find myself so lovingly blest.
So my father's admonishment to plant my feet on the ground was a boon to finding my way home again... and although the moments leading here can be heavy, I found that with my feet firmly planted, I could more easily reach for the sky!!!