Knight Of Swords

You and I sit together side by side at some social gathering. I know this is a dream though. It feels fuzzy, warm and surreal. I see oranges, yellows and reds. The tables are adorned with glasses and centerpieces, plates and cutlery.

There's an element of fluidity to this scene. You're new to me and I, to you. Yet, there's familiarity and we can't explain the why or how of it.

I feel so good and it feels so right, sitting next to you at this place of celebration. I'm called to another area in the room and I feel anxious about it because it pulls me away from time with you.

When I return to the table, I see you're no longer there. I imagine you've left me a note, something that would signal your affection for me or that proves you care for me.

In my mind's eye, it's a note written on a small piece of baby pink paper. But, I know men are not like women at all. There is no note. I figure you're not sentimental like that. Yet, a sinking feeling tells me you were never 'there' with me. It was only ever me...feeling...and guessing.

You're gone this time. For good. 

You're the knight of swords not circling back...

Fool

What a fool. He doesn't know me well enough and never will. The way he talks while his body betrays him with all of that machismo bouncing off the walls? He must think it's impressive. It isn't.

He's just a man. Just another man saying and doing what's already been said and done. There's nothing alluring about that. Or him and his money...and house in the suburbs. There's a reason I never married my father.

All that bravado disguised as self-confidence and a high self-esteem, is a mighty turn off. I'm not that woman. I'll never be that woman. I see through the banter. You can't lure me in with your words or gaze. You don't have what I need or what I want.

I already have it all, fool.

Stay in your corner of the world. Don't ask about me. Don't throw your wife under the bus. Or tell me what a great man and father you are. Or how you understand relationships. I won't let you feel good about yourself at my expense. N. E. V. E. R.

I'm the gold at the end of the rainbow. Your silly games don't interest me. There's a price to pay for the things we want. There's also a price to pay when you don't want to buy. You don't want to buy and I was never for sale.

So, come and visit. Hope to see me. Hope to speak with me. Hope to paint yourself in a manly light. I'm already gone like I was never there.

Thanks for giving me a head start.

Nostalgia

I refuse to become obsolete, to lay down the red carpet for the young. This nostalgia, that used to be my life, is killing me. 

We didn't parade our achievements on social media the way they do now...for graduating high school! I find the whole thing bizarre. My first job was as a pharmacy assistant...at 16 years of age. Now, you need a degree. 

I have writing of my poetry and page after page of introspective thought that my university professor used to encourage me to read out loud so that others might know what he was looking for in our entries. It came so naturally to me. Not so much to the other social-work students.

I was a creative soul. Writing wasn't about outlining facts and details. Leave that to the journalists. I knew how to capture the essence of an idea or situation, a thought, a feeling, to show the other we were more alike than different. 

All my writing is reflective of that space we do not and are not capable of expressing or describing using our normal way of speaking. That's why inspirational talks are so moving...but they fail once the inspiration wears off.

Combining words and images...now that's a match made in heaven! By images, I mean paintings and drawings...not the kind marketers and advertizers use to get you to buy their product.

I don't want to become obsolete because of my age. I can't stand how arrogance has rubbed off on some of my nieces and nephews. Gosh, how it wreaks of stupidity...leading back to one or both parents. I notice a sweetness and kindness in those whose parents are humble. In the others, I see a kind of kid I would have never chosen to be my friend.

They remind me of those times in elementary and high school, when youngsters were snotty shits but their parents thought they were grand. You know the kind. I'll let you in on a little secret...they were mean and cruel little devils who had lost their innocence long before that.

You'd better realize, it's much worse now. They've got more bling to hide behind. When I come across those fuckers of the past now on social media, I see that they turned out exactly who I thought they'd become. They didn't outgrow themselves! Ugh.

The nostalgia I feel comes from my university days. I miss all those wonderful people, from every walk of life, who opened my eyes to what life could be. My world didn't include the jealous or arrogant. It was filled with love, joy and compassion. 

Not to put my culture down, but once I went to University, my old friendships dissipated and that suited me just fine. They were just such arrogant fools! So judgmental, such know-it-alls...and shallow as fu*k.

I imagine this cycle will not end in some circles. But, it did end with me and that will have to be enough.

Creative Expression As A Tool For Truth

I used to imagine myself working with the cops to bring justice to murdered victims. I had always been told I had a quality or skill (psychic) that was underdeveloped, that I'm spoken too, often, from the other side...but because of my fear, I fail to fully connect.

Okay. That didn't stop me from dreaming...or developing my reading skills (Tarot, Oracles)...and from drawing intuitively in response to a sitter's question about the future. I was amazed with the end results! After the drawing was finished, it felt like I had come back to myself. I'd look at them and wonder why I drew that or this image. And that was my first and only real clue that the process was real and authentic. I had gotten out of my own way.

Despite the darkness of death and horrible situations, Tarot and intuitive drawings add a little bit of mercy and a kind of magic that makes the process worthwhile. For starters, it feels so good to help people find some kind of peace...or to give a voice to the voiceless.

Yes, that's it. To bring justice to those who can't speak for themselves, who can't share what happened to them...my god, what better way to find meaning in this world? To give back? 

It all needs to be tempered with hope and light. I think that's why I'm so affected by the death of Paul Armstrong - whom I wrote about in this blog back in February of 2010! That he should find his way back here now feels crazy. 

I've watched so much Dateline and 48 Hours, that when I come across other documentaries, I know every one of those stories. The cold cases bother me the most. I despise cold cases so much, they've often kept me up at night. I feel so much rage. I then imagine myself and every bully I've ever known and give them a piece of my mind. And I am not merciful in that place. I'm a vigilante through and through.

There are two sides to me...one that is so kind and so tender. And the other is hard, fierce and warrior-like. You bet. I can't stand the evil-doers of this world, the barbaric and closed minded, and especially the bible thumpers who don't have a drop of compassion left in their bones, if they ever had any. They are judgmental and ooze a stinky tar like substance. They're also betrayed by their own stupidity.

I dislike any snake who tries to tell me about Jesus. It's pretty clear they've never met the man. How could they have? He resides in the heart...a place they fear to enter! 

 

I went off on a tangent. I see darkness in so many places. If we don't shed light, we become voiceless among the living. We can't let that happen. Let's meet the darkness with a fierce and yet, peaceful light. Just remember, sometimes the light comes carrying a flaming sword!

I hate that Paul's a cold case, too. If there was a way of merging my drawing skills with my reading skills to help ease people's suffering in a real way - well, one that is meaningful to me - I pray that I'm lead to that path.

Landscapes

I add alizarin crimson and olive green to my landscape. That way, I can be a witness to my inner world. Now I see how one becomes two, how it separates itself in order to discover what it is.

I hear him speak...him and that Irish accent. I'm pulled back...back into that castle while surrounding hills roll about. I'm home there. 

The lush greens of this place, you can't even imagine. I close my eyes and it's all I see. I finally recognize myself. There, I see how I'm not my mother's daughter, how I'm not my father's daughter, how I'm not my siblings' sister. 

How did this happen?

I close my eyes back into reality. I feel the pull of my ancestry and those courageous and passionate Italians. I feel my maternal grandmother in my bones, my maternal grandfather in my blood. I feel the strength of my paternal grandmother and the sweetness of my paternal grandfather. 

I see them in the dark by candlelight. I see them digging and resurrecting, over and over again. I relate and then I can't relate... me and my irish bones...There I can make music. Here, I can only hear it. Like a distant memory bringing comfort in uncertain times.

I'm sitting on a rock again watching and listening to the waves. I'm not close to being at peace until I see that storm coming. Until it releases and paints this scene payne's grey and navy blue. 

This and that place can be cruel. Being stuck between two stools is merciless and relentless. To be aware of how things end without understanding why things are, is the biggest cruelty of all.

To feel things others seem oblivious to...sigh...is an indescribable loneliness that no one or nothing can eradicate. 

I hear the Italian say, "Lighten up." Okay. I add more colour to my world. But first I add some white to bring down the saturation. I had always feared the colours becoming too muted and too muddy...mundane and lost in the mire of this existence.

I hear the Irish say, "You're the high priestess where secrets dwell." He's right. In that place, cool deep purples and blues dominate.

Whether here or there, it'll take you lifetimes to reach me.

Fake Blood

They say, "Forgive and forget." I don't think I've ever really extended forgiveness to anyone who's hurt me or continues to hurt me. 

What does it mean 'to hurt' someone? I think it manages to find itself in the grey area of expectation when it has no place there. We all fail to meet people's expectations. In many circumstances, we just need to let people be and allow ourselves the same courtesy.

'To hurt' someone can be both intentional or unintentional. Unintentionally involves gossip or talking behind someone's back.

Intentionally is deliberate. It's going out of your way to make it unpleasant for the other. It's being of two faces...in action. I think you care about me but I know better. 

I'm tired of the need to fit in. It was so tiresome growing up always feeling like the odd man out with friends and cousins. Finding out someone didn't want you around...is hurtful...painful. I mean, why? Why didn't they want me around?

Jealousy!! 

It never occurred to me to use that to my advantage. I kept trying to fit in, to be wanted, to be accepted, to be loved. I never had the courage to confront these little fuckers, to tell them to their face how shallow they are.

And then one day, I stopped...reaching out. They stopped, too. Not a peep from any of them. Not even when I was mugged! 

When they started having kids, I wished them well...in my heart. But I knew then what I've always known but couldn't accept...we are different people. I don't like hanging out with them either. 

There's nothing to talk about except the usual superficial bull-shit. I've always wanted depth. I wanted to look in their eyes and see them. They don't 'see' me. 

Blood is thicker than water? Who cares? I don't. I don't want to spend time with people for its own sake. Or because death is coming for us all. I don't want to waste my energy feeling depleted after I've seen them. I don't care to fit in. Truth is they don't fit in with me...or my world. 

We are the company we keep. I forget who said it...but if you end up feeling worse after being in someone's company 8 out of 10 times, you have to stop hanging out with them. And it's especially true as you get older. There is no time.

The company we keep has another side though. I never understood how someone could be friends with me and also be friends with someone they knew was a shitty person and then tell themselves it's 'just' who they are. Nope. Something about that stinks. I don't care whether it's a cousin or a friend or a brother. An asshole is an asshole. I don't tolerate that behaviour from anyone. Why would you?

So, go off and be merry. 

Just leave me alone.

The Gravity Of The Situation

Have you ever known a ship to come back for you? Or a train? A bus? Once it's sailed off, there's no turning back. And if it does return, it's only ever an illusion, a mirage on the horizon, in the desert...of your mind.

"That fucking thing called Time," as Sly put it...gosh, he explains it so well. You can feel it in your bones and what Gurdjieff referred to as the Heiropass. That even God is bound by the effects of time. 

Knowing that kills me every time.

I've heard people say how fortunate they've been to be leading good lives. 'Good' is defined as living in the absence of disease and in the absence of poverty. In other words, life has been good to them by rewarding them with health and prosperity. 

Is that why I'm here? The gravity of this realization hits me. We've mistaken the illusion for reality. We've made the illusion the goal. And on and on it goes. 

Let me put on this face for a little longer while gravity pulls me down. All the botox in the world can't change where this road leads...for me, for you, for everyone. It's the one and only true thing we all have in common. The certainty of death.

You think me morbid?

There is no urgency to leave something behind in the land of distortion and bling. I don't want to be a slave to this machine. I only want to know who I am.

That's the only real goal and aim. I thought it might be to serve the other. No, I'm not that noble.

I'm aware of this monstrous, mechanical falseness that manages to live and breathe through my life and my breath...

May I give birth to something good, of value, that transcends this time and this space.

So Mote It Be.