I did watch Eric's video late on the 25 after I got back from Bock Beer School (which curiously enough was led by a head brew master also named Eric) but I didn't write any comments on it on his site or reply to the unlisted video on youtube.
I had thought about early morning before the video release leaving him a happy birthday wish on the comments for the video within his portal, that felt appropriate given his continued reiterating this video was a birthday gift to/from himself. It just felt intuitively and heart space right in reaction to what he was sharing and how he was being about it. And I was all set to do it right at midnight but when I went to go do it at midnight I saw that the top most recent comment was from his sister and it pulled me up short reminded me that she doesn't want for two of the central pillars his life is built around (her and the band) to exist to me and for over six years now she is enforcing strict bullying via ostracism blocking to make that clear while refusing to even open lines of communication to me when I tried to discuss it in the past. And it put me into overthinking questioning if it would be appropriate for me to send to him my well wishes for his birthday given the so obvious reminder that I am not welcome and there's no place for me in two of the most central things his life is built around and then the overthinking from my head space instead of acting from my heart space gained control so I decided just not to say anything at all since doing so was blurry territory around the edges of her boundaries and she had greater right to be there wishing her brother well and I'm not in his life so it's not like he could be hurt or sad missing my birthday message that he didn't even expect or know I had been intending to send him.
And I didn't leave any comments or reactions on the video itself for the same reason -- because leaving a comment is an act of me publicly asserting my presence and right to be there and crosses his sister's created/enforced boundaries of not wanting herself or the band to exist to me when she was already writing all over it claiming it as her space to exist within. How could I comment and not cross her boundary when she was already existing there in the comments and chat (which I turned off as soon as I saw her first commenting within it to respect her boundary) and had very right and reason to be there since he's her brother and she and the band are among the most central pillars he's built his life around? And anyway, it's not like he would feel my absence in his comments, after all there were plenty of people there to be telling him what a great job he did and how much they loved it -- what would he need to hear from me, some random girl not even in his 3d quotidian life or even a fan of his band anymore since I'm blocked not welcome there and won't spend money on anything the band has to sell or go to future shows where I'm neither wanted nor welcomed? What could my absence and silence matter given those facts of personal choices to create this reality?
Well. At least. That's the way my head/ego saw/sees the situation. But I spent all of the 26th with it nibbling like hungry koi on the strings of my heart that I ought to put into words my reactions to his gifts of as much honesty about his truths as he wanted to bare to the world. Even if I never post a comment or reply on the video itself and don't send him directly, still honesty earns honesty in return. So I decided I should at least write it out here, though Lord knows who the hell would care enough about me and my thoughts/feelings/reactions to someone else's creative autobiography to want to read through it all here.... But the fishies swimming in the depths of my heart space wouldn't stop nibbling on the lily pads in my inner space, troubling the surface of my inner calm with their hunger until I sat down to write this.
I realize it doesn't make logical sense, especially since I'm not even gifting him my reactions by writing it here. But, here we are and logic or no logic you can thank the very hungry and very stubbornly persistent fish swimming in my emotional seas for me realizing I shouldn't just keep silent to myself my reactions.
That said, if I was going to write about it, I wanted to have some time to sit with it and to watch his video for a second time tonight (which I just did) before writing out my thoughts and reactions.
Overall, my reactions were very much a sense of understanding and empathy and admiration for him wanting to be vulnerable and honest about where the songs came from and how he got to this point in his life. There were definite lacunae within the narrative and it seemed to me that those were the most important (and vulnerable) parts of the story, the parts he wasn't including to make a narrative to tell the world his truths. As far as I could tell, the missing parts of the stories existed for several reasons: sometimes because of time, sometimes because of defensiveness/fear of rejection which he acknowledged as being a part of is motives through his life choices thus far, and I think also because... sometimes they are the pieces that mean the most to him are closest to his heart and which he didn't want to share with everyone publicly and/or would hurt him the most if they were rejected. At least that was how it seemed to me watching it, and I can respect that. It doesn't make me any less curious about them, but I've never been one to pry into what people aren't ready to tell me yet. (Lord knows I'm already all too often guilty of accidentally crossing boundaries knowing too much of what I'm not told between the precog and past life flashes and how loudly people think/feel some things.... I let people tell me as much or as little as they want me to know in their own time and way without me prying for more information out of them. I'll ask a lot of questions when they do want to talk to me, I ask more questions than anyone you've ever met and that includes the five year olds in your life, but I can keep the questions to myself until a person decides to open up want to talk to me about things.)
But I do think some of the lacunae not in the public telling are the most important both within the story and to his own soul/heart. Those are where my curiosity wishes for better understanding of his truths than the bypassing or answers he gave. But I think that for him, for some of the reasons he gave, this for him was a very public declaration of wanting to be seen for him qua him (as well as an exercise in trying to understand what that means for himself) in a process of self growth. I'm not sure who he wants to see him qua him, only that he's decided that what matters IS that he be seen and loved for his own truths as opposed to projections/assumptions/masks and he's going to start with the public declaration of his truths of who he has been and how he got there and why he is ready to be a different version of himself than he has been. There's still always the aspect of storyteller making any story a curated edited version not an objective truth, but we all live within our own subjective views/memories of our lived experiences while we are an embodied incarnating soul, you can never tell any story without curating it and it's up to the individual how honest and how vulnerable you choose to be as well as the blindspots that determine how honest you CAN be. And that's just a universal truth for all of us every one, curation doesn't mean a mask or a glamour or a DELIBERATE intentional manipulative desire to present your best self -- it just means that your message will be curated through the lens of your perspectives and your best intentions and that's true for all of us.
It can be terrifying to be truly seen and to have to wait and hope that you won't be rejected for that (especially if you have rejection sensitivity for any variety of reasons) -- it's why so many people spend their whole lives hiding their truest selves until sometimes they can't even see or recognize it anymore. But it's the loneliest path anyone could walk to never be seen for your truest self. It's a very brave thing to step naked into the light say, "this is me as I am" show your truest self to people -- especially if you're afraid of the reaction and the anxiety of the unspoken "do you like who I am?" in that act of vulnerable courage displaying your true self. As someone who tends to see/hear beyond what's shown, I've definitely angered and upset people and put people into defensive fight or flight mode after me seeing them more clearly than they were comfortable being seen. Because even when you do so from a place of compassion and empathy, you can still terrify someone when you see them truly and that isn't something they wanted. I think it's very brave of him to decide he's tired of playing defense and that he's ready WANTS to be seen for himself as he is. Especially because, Pisces are mutable signs which means that they are capable of great changes and sudden shifts and they may not always know their own core self through the transformations until the transformations are complete -- and to ask to be seen and (hopefully) loved for you as you are is to be loved through the transformations and the not knowing your own self until you know it again. I think the ever changing nature of the physics of creation is one of the most beautiful things about it -- the fact it is so mutable and malleable and that nothing you love is ever fixed and nothing is ever completely gone but it's always living and growing and dying to come back in an all new form for you to fall in love with all over again for this isness which is the same but different from the isness that was. I think it's beautiful, I always have. That the changes are as much part of the isness of a defined portion of creation unfolding as the parameters you use to define the isness. I am as much my five year old self catching crickets to release in the store and leaving out food/water for them because my grandpa once told me they brought luck and money as I am me now. I am as much me in my teens being an over achiever learning and doing all the things not knowing what to choose because I'm curious and fascinated by everything as I am me now. I am as much myself in my 20s deciding to date while I was waiting for him to cross my path so I could figure out be certain that what my heart so stubbornly insisted it wanted was ACTUALLY what I wanted. I am as much myself in my 30s trying to put the bond to sleep or quiet it so he couldn't reach me because I got it in my head he chose someone else instead of me to build his life around and that was his choice I had to respect. The future me I haven't yet become is just as much me as this current one. I am as much me across all my past lives I have been and all the changing versions of me in each of those lives. They're mutable and they grow and they change but they're all still me.... My answer I have found across my lifetimes is that you find your core self and what the core you desires most requires you spend time in your stillness when you stop doing/distracting/projecting/masking, when you sit and listen to your inmost self and to what echoes in there (including what echoes in there from those you have bonds and cords to that pull you -- because if you get still enough, you can feel the pull of what is truly meant/fated for you no matter how much your ego has lied to you telling you "this is it" "no this is it" "just chase this and you will find it.") your answers are always there inside you, you just have to listen to them instead of letting your ego distract you with its "answers" that make sense to logic and on paper. And finding your inner stillness doesn't mean you have to sit in silent meditation waiting, it's whatever brings you to that place of listening within instead of listening to the world outside you -- some people find it in exercise (including gardening or other physical labors) and some in talking/writing things out into word form and some in creative work where you sit down with your musical instrument or the blank page/pencils and just decide to noodle see what comes out through your fingers when you DON'T approach your creative medium with an idea ahead of time but just see what pours out of you when you don't let the ego guide you. There are lots of ways to find your inner quiet to listen to your inmost core self, it doesn't require keeping yourself still, it just requires cutting out the distractions for your attention or trying to tell you what you should be/feel/do. And some people aren't capable of this sort of self reflective sitting with themselves to find out their most authentic inner self needs/desires, it scares them to face themselves so they keep themselves too busy in the external have tos that it isn't until they're forced to slow down make the "but what is right for me qua me?' that they start to learn who their truest core self is and if they like that self and if/when/how they've betrayed it and decide whether they will keep betraying it or whether they will choose to align with that core self.
Where do I fall on that scale? Honesty deserves honesty. But I should start by stating my nature is honest but not particularly vulnerable or confessional -- general rule is if you want to know, just ask. I'm an open book but it's a great big tome and I won't give you the index or chapter headings or page numbers to find what you're looking for unless you ask. Any lying from me is lies of omission not lies of direct answers. But you shouldn't EXPECT me to just be vulnerable tell the important things unless you directly ask me or open the discussion on it or it just serendipitously comes up. I don't hide from me and I don't lie about me, anything I say or do requires complete honesty and as much clarity as I'm capable of having at that time and sitting within self-reflective quiet. Even when I don't have time for that self contemplation to understand my truest self desires/needs, I'll be honest that I won't have time for more than a quick checkin and certainly not time to sit with the question/difficulty I'm trying to find an answer to. It's not just because my set of realizations in the 4th grade after my grandfather died and I was doing a lot of self-reflective dark night of the soul while in the hollows of grief processing and i realized that nothing real can be built between any two people reliant on verbal/action based communication if you undermine the foundations with intentional lying to the other person. (Accidental lying or misinformation is different, you don't know what you don't know and when you know better then you do better but nobody is omniscient, not even those of us with clairsentient gifts that let us see/know some things more clearly than most people with weaker intuition and fewer gifts.) That's a part of it when it comes to how I interact with others -- because what's the point of investing in ANY social interactions if it can't be built on mutual trust? And if you're undermining it intentionally then what the hell are you doing wasting time/energy into a relationship that can never have trust because you deliberately destroyed the foundations? It's also quite literal astrological truth I shared about my natal chart that my Mars is exactly conjunct my Neptune in 28 Sagittarius which is less than 1 degree so considered conjunct the galactic center (in astrological terms it's the ACTUAL center of the galaxy that our solar system rotates around, in spiritual communities it's considered the seat of Divine Source, higher angelic communication, access to the Akashic/karmic records, higher intuition and knowing) which is right near my midheaven -- and that's why I say at my most basic natures, I simply cannot act without being in alignment with my truest highest core self and KNOWING the divine timing is this present now within the long eternal now. Like, I will know "I should do this thing" and nothing can kick in the executive function to make me work on it until everything clicks into the right "the divine time is NOW" in a very state of flow relation to time. just because I have known since I was a kid and precogged it exactly that we could/would find each other and who I was looking for and why still I never knew the when other than "once you're an adult, and you don't need to go actively seeking over the world trying to find him, this will cross your path find you when it's time for that story to start unfolding" but I never had any idea WHEN other than "in divine timing when you've both learned your necessary lessons are ready to choose each other as more important than any of the distractions and karmic past life ties that cross your paths to tempt you away from choosing to seek each other." Which isn't a timeframe, it's just as precise as divine transcendent knowing sense of time can explain things into concretized embodied incarnating passage of time. (it can be very frustrating, I know. Trust me I know. I'm sorry when it's frustrating, I promise you that even living inside it knowing I have to accept it, I am quite often more frustrated by it than anyone else ever could be when I know an IS but not the why/how/when.) I'll never tell you or give to you any part of me shared from any place but the authentic centeredness of my own core truest self being honest, but it will still be through my subjective experiences of that knowing AND I can't promise to tell you everything (or even what you most want to know) unless you directly ask and then give me the time to reflect in my own stillness to find my truth in a way I can share with you.
Anyway. I didn't mean to derail make this about me. I just felt that honesty deserves honesty. And sometimes that's the best way I can relate to things.
The story about being bullied and how it made him seek for external validation definitely tore at my heart quite a lot. I can't fathom having to live through that sort of brutal "do you like this kid?" questioning of everyone...and that nobody had the courage to step forward say, "I don't know him yet so I can't say if I do or don't like him. Let's find out!" in that sort of intentional belittling situation. What a terrible thing to do.... My experience of bullies is very different than that, I was never bullied that way but rather I was the one who got angry at it told the bully, "you can't behave that way" and who was perfectly happy to shrug say "I don't care and I don't need you" mean it quite genuinely to any attempts to bully me. I have always been perfectly happy to be alone because I'm so much held in the spiritual realm that I never feel alone, especially if I can go sit by a tree or chat with a bird or a squirrel or find a bumblebee or cricket or ladybug -- I never felt alone or rejected because all around me is life unfolding and the people were never more interesting to me than the other living beings, just differently interesting, so what would I care if they are doing other things they want to be doing without me joining them? So I was always very independent/confident happy to sit in a corner color by myself or wander the prairie area of the playgrounds eating spruce tips at recess or finding a quiet hidden area to read as I was happy to join in any game I was invited to by the kids already playing it. And somehow growing up in Midwestern nice communities it worked out for me that I didn't care what anyone thought of me but was accidentally popular with lots of friends despite never caring what they thought about me. I did have a strong sense that intentional cruelty was wrong and I remember a lecture from my grandfather in daycare that it's wrong to tell somebody "you can't play with us" because it makes people feel bad to be excluded so that in the group setting if I was involved I insisted that everyone treat each other with kindness and everyone was welcome to join and no acts of intentional cruelty (not even as a joke) or I would decide it wasn't fun for me I was leaving to do my own thing choose not to be around them until they could be kind to everyone. That's just how it was. I couldn't be bullied because I didn't care about the social dynamics it manipulated -- closest I can think of from elementary school bullying was when I was in first or second grade finishing a re-read of a book and a group of fourth graders kept throwing their four square ball directly at me hitting my book and I finally got annoyed enough that the next time they did it I caught the ball and death glared them despite the size/age difference and said, "Stop it! You will damage the book. And then you will have to pay the library fee to replace it. What. Do. You. Want?" And it turned out that they wanted me to play with them because I'd done so earlier in the week and they learned that when I played, nobody could get me out of the king square until I got tired of it stopped trying and so they wanted me to play with them again so they could play that hard and get better. And I just lifted my chin told them proudly, "If you had just asked me, I would have played with you. But you tried to force me instead of asking and I won't be forced. I choose to read my book today. If you want me to play with you another day, ask me nicely and wait for my choice. Keep throwing your ball at me instead of asking and I'll never play with any of you again. Here's your ball. Ask me tomorrow if you still want me to play with you. But not today." And the next day, before I made other plans or took out a book, they came over very politely asked me if I would play Foursquare with them that recess and with a big grin I said, "of course!" and then we played every day they asked me nicely and I allowed everyone who asked to join us so we ended up with long queues just to get in our game until the ice/snow arrived to cover the four square courts. In middle school I ended up on the wrong sided of a popular girl bully in 6th grade because I called her out on her cruel girl bullying behavior hazing a new kid and I told her to stop it because it was wrong. She asked me who was I to tell her not to and I got cold implacable anger and so I told her "if you don't heed my warning about why this is cruel and wrong to treat others and you don't change your ways, this will be your fate. And then I told her all the precogs I saw on her that I knew would break her to hear them, all the way out into her adult life and every bad thing that would happen to her that she couldn't avoid and how she would die.... She didn't change her behavior, was terrified of me, made that girl she was hazing/bullying her second in command for mean girl bullying and after my best friend (the original queen bee) moved away I didn't bother with the girl hierarchy power structure because genuinely didn't care about it and the girl I'd called out for her bullying came out on top. She tried to take it out on me via ostracism and I just shrugged didn't care continued to just be me and none of the popular guys would listen to because they thought it was stupid and I was prettier and funnier and better at sports/academics/art/music/drama than the popular girl and while those girls sat at their table tried the ostracism trick, I just ended up being kind gathering around me all the guys and the weirdo "unpopular" girls who they tried to ostracize teaching that group not to care about people who behave that way but to remember it not behave that way towards others (including the girls who ended up on the outside of their group were alone and I welcomed in as long as they promised not to be cruel intentionally or use ostracism to anyone who wanted to be their friends and all the guys in our grade and left the "popular" girls to just be by themselves. And it all fell apart when the guys all refused to invite or dance with the mean girls at school dances (unless force paired by adults) and when the mean girls tried asking them out they said, "No. I won't take to the dance anyone who is going to be mean to friends of mine." after I had turned down a date with that logic and he said he wouldn't do that anymore if I'd go to the dance with him. And then it all sort of collapsed around her by the 7th grade and there just wasn't popular or unpopular in our small magnet high school of 80 kids in our grade after that. Just people with different interests but nobody clique-y or mean or bullying. It was all very Hallmark/Disney Channel in hindsight how that happened.... In high school, that girl whose future I told came to me begged me in tears to take my curse off her and I was astonished told her, "But it wasn't a curse. It's just your fateline if you don't decide to be a better version of you. I already told you how to break it, choose to stop acting from intentional cruelty and stop bullying people and hazing them and using ostracism as a weapon of rejection. That's all you ever had to do and all you ever will have to do to choose a different fateline. I didn't make it or force you to it, I just saw it and told you the consequences if you don't choose to change." and she just told me, "But that I can't do. I don't want any of what you said to be true, not even what's already come true. But I can't do what you ask." and I just shrugged told her, "Then I don't see any way to change your fateline if you won't choose to be a better version of you." And it all came true, everything I told her that day with only the one other girl she was bullying as witness to what I spoke. Even the bully girl's death happened as I told her it would if she didn't change course stop behaving that way. But that's what I mean when I say I don't MEAN to be wyrd and wise beyond my lived experiences, I just am. it's the only way I know how to be.
And, I don't know how to tell people not to feel rejected or judge themselves by external validation when they're bullied because it's not how I've ever reacted to a bully -- I either don't care about that sort of thing or I'm standing up for defending those who are being treated cruelly and my only reaction to people trying to use that sort of claiming power by weaponized rejections bullying by ostracism is to ask, "what makes you think you're worth caring about what you think? What makes you think I'd ever WANT to sit with you or trust you or do anything with you while you are engaging in these behavior patterns?" Quite literally the only way to be rejected by me is to play those power dynamic games, to take part in acts of intentional cruelty and to use weaponized rejection in bully as ostracism or hazing "you can' sit with us unless you'll do what I tell you to do" dynamics. It's a behavioral dynamic I think is petty and stupid and cruel and I won't engage in, I'll just transcend it ignore you or call you out tell you your fate if you don't change course and I will happily go chat with a flower or a tree or a bug or a bird or the loner who never wanted to be alone is hurt by your behaviors before I'll ever even start giving a damn what you're doing if you're going to engage in exclusionary power dynamics. I'm much more interested in those who seek me out choose me or those I discover who need healing than I care the opinions or actions of those who engage in acts of intentional cruelty and exclusion.
if you want my admiration or love, just choose me and don't engage in trying to impress me or acts of intentional cruelty or "you can't sit at our table" behavior patterns. You won't impress me by taking part in the petty bullying, I'm more likely to take the side of the person being bullied and if you try it on me it's like trying to make a cat feel bad they can't eat/drink what you have when they don't want or like it. I don't want what you have to offer at your table when you're going to behave that way. Trying to use ANY type of force or coercion on me, including weaponized rejection in bullying via ostracism patterns, just makes me stubborn to not want to do anything with you at all and to go find someone/something more interesting and fascinating to fill my time. You'll always get further with me by open invitation and honesty and acts of free will choice than trying to force or coerce or bully me into getting the reaction you want. But trying any sort of coercive exclusion or bullying to make me want what I don't have is pretty much a one way ticket to me rejecting you and not giving you any respect or affection or interest. That's just my nature. Just like it's my nature to not care what anyone thinks of me because that's a them problem -- I'm just going to focus on being and shining the truest version of me that I can be in this life. I'm more interested in ISNESS and seeing the quality of isness than in anything stuck in the master-slave dialectic power games -- ain't nobody got time for that when you're trying to marvel in the beauty of how the creation unfolds and the wonder that it IS despite everything trying to destroy it from being. It's not just the wonder of isness for me, it's the wonder and beauty of isness DESPITE everything that would destroy the isness. The beauty and wonder at isness as an act of defiance. Defiance of physics, defiance of cruelty, defiance of wanton destruction, defiance of laws of inertia, defiance of all the parts of eternity it isn't. The isness as beauty and wonder that it IS and the act of defiance to exist as long as it can despite everything that would make it no longer be.
Anyway. Less about me, back to my reactions to his Too Late special.
It made me pause (quite literally paused and had to sit with it for a bit) that he talked about his stages of being alone and of seeking and insisted that certain songs weren't about any LITERAL women he knew but songs about what he thought the love he was looking for should be like and they sounded like he'd sat down with a portrait of me and my physical nature and my character and how I play into the world to manifest myself this life. You could literally play for any person who has ever known me or met me the description of remembering in Enjoy My Song and literally every line of the song that opened "she's got curls, she got curves, she's got everything I don't deserve" and even every descriptor in Never Been to Memphis except the forced Christianity of the southern style woven through the description (which is decidedly NOT me at all. I am one of the least Christian people you will ever meet. Setting aside my family upbringing religious/spiritual mix, I quite literally see no reason for the death of Jesus as anything more than a torturing tragedy of the system bullying a person who defied it's norms and I reject the very concept of ANY transference of sin from the one who did wrong to an innocent other as one of the greatest spiritual bypassing evils in modern religions. The very concept of transference of sin via scapegoats (willing or otherwise) and original sin instead of honest hard work of contrition/atonement/balancing the karma of your past selves is the most soul sick bypassing in religious belief that I've heard of since the times of literal human sacrifices were performed.) But I had to sit with for a long time that he was being so honest and clear that those specific songs were written from the place of feeling alone and writing about his seeking but not about anyone he actually met in his quotidian life. That was intentional of him and for me it was unexpected. I'm glad he was so clear about that because... I'm pretty quick to conclude "this isn't about me or for me" unless I know for certain it was about me no matter how many other people are like, "Um. Dani. Have you listened to the lyrics of this song?! Can't you recognize yourself when you're so clearly painted into a song's lyrics?" about a lot of songs written by male songwriter-musician friends I've known over the years -- some who I've dated some who I've never dated. And I'm just always like, "Hmm? What. No. He couldn't mean me, he's never shown any interest in me that way. I'm sure it's about, well, maybe not this girlfriend of his because she's a bitch and that's not her truths, but certainly about some other girl he's interested in who's not me." And I just sort of sit in that headspace of not believing it unless/until the songwriter bluntly tells me, "You know ______ is about you, right?" But those songs of his gave me pause because he was so insistent that they came to him in his quiet were written from his place of seeking not from anyone he encountered in his daily life lived experiences when he wrote them. And that would definitively have been before we crossed paths in the 3d, quite literally, quite literally crossed paths because the first time would have been when Delta Rae was filming Hey Hey Hey on the side of a path along the lake during Summerfest as I was hurrying past to go to another stage, another show meet up with my friends and it stopped me in my tracks to listen to the song even though I had no idea who they were. I hurried on when they stopped singing, because it was the music held me still to listen and after it ended I remembered the friends and ex waiting for me at the stage I was supposed to be at. I didn't even wait to find out the band name or who they were or know until a year or more later when I randomly saw the video for Morning Comes online and then found out they were playing High Noon Saloon and bought the ticket to intentionally go see them right before If I Loved You blew up on 105.5 radio right after I'd bought the tickets decided I wanted to go.
But that gave me a long pause the way he wanted to make sure that it was very clear those songs were written from his turning inward seeking to call in the partner/love he sought and not any actual person he had met or fallen in love with in his 3d quotidian life. Especially the "She's got curls, she's got curves" because with any amount of humidity my hair is incapable of being straight and my hair in any size braid will not only make ringlets at the temples where it never grows long enough to stay in the braids, itwill literally curl the entire braid around itself not just the ringlet at the end of a braid AND, well, let's just start and finish with the fact that my bra size is a 28H/30G (and yes that's a real band and cup size combination, it's just hard to find outside a handful of brands) and even when I'm being lazy eating too much of the wrong things not exercising enough I've never been anything but a classic Grecian hourglass shape and when I'm actually trying taking care of my physical body it's very much a Jessica Rabbit shaped body... I got away with a lot of admittance to concerts I was underage to attend and free food/drinks and marriage proposals from guys who thought I was their manic pixie dream girl throughout my teens and twenties before I came to the conscious choice to stop dating when I could see the end before the beginning because I didn't like hurting people who were good humans just not what I was looking for right for all the aspects of core me. But like, I've never heard a song so clearly describing me even from singer-songwriters who have met me, let alone someone who hadn't ever yet met me in the real world at the time he wrote it...
I don't know what to do with that recognition or how it changes anything (or doesn't change anything) but it was impossible for me to miss. (And I'm REALLY good at missing the "I'm interested in you" cues. Like, you really have to be direct for me to realize you mean me and you're serious about me not just being generally nice.) And he was very intentional in stating clearly, "this is what I was trying to call in manifest when I listened to my own self instead of looking to external validation of what the 3d world offered to me that I tried to force to fit my ideas." Maybe there's nothing for me to do with it right now, I just need to accept it IS his truth. I said more than a year ago now that it was important I stop assuming, assuming either what I wanted to be truth or what I feared might be his truth, and instead sit and listen for him to say what his truth IS in whatever way he chooses to tell it. I did say, quite clearly, that was what I wanted and needed to do to stop acting out swinging from one assumption to another in a reactionary way. (Including reacting to what I THINK might be true as opposed to any external stimuli.) I mean, I did decide quite clearly that was what I wanted and needed and asked for it -- to hear his truth from him however he best wanted to tell it, long before he had the idea and execution of the autobiographical tour. And I am smart enough to recognize and pay attention to when I say "this is what needs to be" and then it happens.
(Actually, on a side note about how I manifest into the world. it's easy to think of me as very cardinal driven given that my sun/Mercury are Libra and my moon/Jupiter are Capricorn, but despite my multiplicity of late zodiac stelliums, I actually have one of the most balanced across the elements and across the modalities -- but even if you include north node and chiron to completely balance it out, the moment you add in my ascendant I'm ever so slightly mostly mutable and water, and if you include my midheaven (your purpose in the wider world) I'm even more slightly mutable but then mostly balanced water/fire than the air/earth that are my cardinal placements and my north node (soul purpose path of growth to become in this life. My birth chart is fascinating, and not just because I was conceived and born in the holiest and bloodiest most fought over crossroads of the ancient/modern world which is a whole nother thing about me, but because of what was going on in the skies when I was born. But my point is that my cardinal aspects manifest in me getting the inspiration, the idea, the "this is what needs to be" and stating it clearly once I know and then waiting for it to be not because I create it but because it is what needs to be and so it will be. I'm not cardinal decisive driving force MAKING it happen, all my fixed energy is in my Scorpio stellium and my Taurus north node (which means my south node is in Scorpio) and that's not a fixed energy that digs in gets the work done it's a fixed energy that is stubborn in bringing hidden things to light knowing its own deep phoenix reborn spiritual truths and not willing to settle when it comes to what is my truest self/needs. But my cardinal manifests itself in I find the idea/need and I voice it and then it is -- not because I make it happen through direct actions but because I speak the idea/truth into "this is what needs to be.")
I did ask for his truth as he chose to tell it. And that's what I got. And it IS my truth that I prefer an honest truth over all things, even more than the pretty lie I want to hear. The very honesty of his sharing his story this way drew me in closer and tighter giving him my full focused attention than anything else he could have done or created.
And that brings me to the part of the reaction to his special that is NOT born from my highest self, but from a personal ego flinch of a reaction. I'm human. As long as I choose to incarnate in the human realm I'm bound by what it is to be embodied in a human form -- the good and the bad of that. The joys and more complicated emotions of that. Just because I have some damn powerful spiritual gifts and certain things about me transcend the human into spiritual divine doesn't mean I'm not here incarnating in the messy human world feeling all the messy human feelings in messy human lives. (And I've had some very messy human lives -- I'm not known for following rules I think are stupid or wrong, even if everyone else just blindly accepts them. This life I'm pretty chill "you go do that if you want to, but I have more interesting things to invest my time in -- anyone interested in this cool thing instead or just me? Cool no matter what you choose, you do what's right by you -- when you want me, I'll be over here trying to understand this isness and why it's so amazing." but I've had plenty of lives where I said, "ain't nobody fixing this if I don't, so I don't care if a woman doesn't pick up a sword, I'm here to tell you what the Divine will is and we're not accepting this just because some bully says we need to." ) I don't experience jealousy as a feeling so that isn't what motivated my reaction, I only know it as a mental construct and can recognize how it motivates others. But I do have a stoic self martyring streak, I'm damn good at making me let go if I can convince myself that is what is best for anyone or anything I care about. Never forget that about me -- the ways I tend to cause the most hurt to people I love is in underestimating my own importance and in acting from a belief that letting go, removing myself from the equation, will create the greatest good for those I care about. Never forget that about me -- the stupidest things I ever will do will come from the urge to sacrifice myself so you can be free to do what you choose to do. It's happened many times before and if you let it, I'll try it again if you make me believe you'd rather choose anything/anyone other than me and whatever path I'm wandering. If that's not what you want but you see me starting to act that way, call me on it. Best thing to do with it is honesty and calling me on my own patterns that can grow toxic if I let them.
Anyway. I'm delaying. Hoping if I wander through enough words then you'll forget what I was starting to talk about and be distracted from the point. And I'm honest enough to admit it.
My reaction to the part after he said "then I found the girl" was...anger... If you're so stuck on her even if you were just one of many possibilities to be her baby daddy so she could be stay at home mom to the kids she wanted, why didn't you choose her? If you were so certain you were so in love with her that leaving her might be the biggest mistake of your life, why did you let her go? (Nota bene: it was only on the second watch I realized that he said he was at the point of choosing to keep her or let her go and that he wanted to make sure he didn't make the biggest mistake of his life -- not that the letting her go was the mistake.) If you've been stuck on this wanting back the girls you thought to be your soul mate perfect match love of your life while in the relationship with them, why the hell didn't you choose them? I very specifically and intentionally let you go took the pull of the bond to me out of the mix EVERY time in reaction to you getting seriously in love with another girl to set you free to have who/what you were choosing to build your life around. I let you go, I accepted the choices you made for your everyday life and I removed from your inner spiritual space the ability to open up to the bond that reaches to me -- I needed help from incarnating divine beings to learn ways to do it, but damnit I did that so you could be free to take the path you chose for your life without any pull to another path. I was willing to let you go down any damn path you wanted and I would wander another find someone else to be with and make sure I didn't have the bond open pulling between us because that's what you wanted, that's what your everyday choices wanted. I did every damn thing I could to let you have that with no strings and no temptation from me, just removing myself and the bond being open and awake between our souls. And not forever, just for this life while your life path choices and lessons lay elsewhere. I did that EVERY damn time you got yourself so entangled in love, particularly with first the scorpion chick and then the lamprey. I did that so you could be happy in the fateline and life path you chose and swore was the soul mate life partner you wanted. So how DARE you say you made the greatest mistake of your life are still pining over the could have beens of staying with them when you were made completely free to make that choice on your own?! What the hell future are you hoping to build with any woman if you're still so fixated on the one that got away you're telling the story of your love for her and her perfection to the entire world so that nobody can ever live up to the pedestal you've been putting her and that relationship on? Why the hell didn't you choose her if you were going to build a shrine for your love of her and how perfect your life could have been if you had chosen differently? If you're still so in love with any woman from your past, you're still in rebound not ready to build something new in a different pattern with anyone else...
That was my reaction to that whole portion. I was angry at him. Angry at him wallowing in could have been "one that got away" shrine building infatuation after the fact because I had intentionally and in full knowledge of what I was doing closed off the bond and the pull between his soul and mine to set him free to make the choice to continue building with the woman/women he was choosing to build his 3d life around. It was a question of ethics and I would do the right thing by him and the ethics of his free will choices no matter what I might selfishly want -- I would remove myself from the equation where I wasn't wanted or valued anyway. It was so obvious to me as an ethics exercise that the right thing for me to do was close down the bond and to clear the way for him to make real the happiness and life path he had chosen for himself. If he wasn't going to choose me, I was removing the open bond from his choices so that he would be ethically free to build the life of his choosing with the person he loved and wanted to build it with. I wasn't angry at him when I was closing down the bond between us, I was deeply sad for myself and disappointed those fatelines were never to be but I was genuinely happy for him hoped him the best in a "have a great life" blessing on your free will choices sort of way. I was angry when it felt like an accusation that the choice he made not to keep going with either of the women he thought to be the love of his life imagined his future with was the mistake of his life and he'd never find anyone to love as much as the one he let get away. It felt like an accusation despite me having done every damn thing I could to silence the bond and do the ethically right thing to do by him and his life choices of the fateline and happiness he chose for himself and who he wanted to build it with. I was angry because.... I refuse to be haunted by and spend any amount of my time/life in being compared to the pedestal shrine you've made of the path you didn't take when I gave you every damn opportunity and encouragement and blessing to take it and close the bond so you could find the peace and joy in living out your free will choices.
I told you it was a messy human reaction. (All the beers, and bocks/doppelbocks/eisenbocks so high abv beers, I had drunk earlier that night didn't help me any to be in my higher self not my messy human reactionary self about that.) I wasn't sad he let her go I was angry at him for making a shrine to the could have beens which I did everything I could to step back allow him to choose for himself and I would go find someone else to build my own life with because I've never lacked for options even when I've been voluntarily single waiting for what I want instead of filling my time with good enoughs.
I was angry because by moving back to where he lived with her and then centering his entire narrative around "not marrying her was the tragic mistake of my life" he negated anything else from being what he would choose for himself by wallowing in what was lost -- everyone and everything else becomes making do with what's left. It turns every other woman into the last pick to be on your team in gym class, the person you take not because you want them but because they're all that's left to pick between. And fuck that. Ain't nobody wants to be an "I guess I'll take you because I can't pick the person I actually wanted on my team...." if that was what he had wanted and still wants so desperately, than damnit it was the biggest mistake of his life not to marry her and instead build a shrine to worship at the could have beens. Because it robbed all his future choices of any possibility of meaning -- he wasn't choosing the lamprey he followed the pattern with and he wouldn't be choosing any damn other woman no matter hor much he loved them as his free will choices because he'd just be making do with the best of the options remaining. He rendered my sacrifice meaningless closing down the bond to set him free to follow the fateline he chose to build his life around AND made it impossible for him to ever free will choose me or any other woman to build his life around by building his. Like what the fucking hell? I don't want to be anyone's making do or second best, I'd rather be nothing to you than someone you settled for because you fucked it up can't have the person you actually still want. Fuck that bullshit. Count me out if that's the way you want to build your life, I won't be any part of that bullshit. Pick me or don't is your choice to make, but if you pick me it damn well better be because me qua me is exactly what you want and choose for yourself and ain't no damn settling for "best I can do because I can't have what I actually want set my heart on" about the choice. Understand me? If that's the best you have to offer me, take your ass off and remove me from the options because I ain't going to be nobody's "best I can do" pick instead of their "you are exactly what I want and have been seeking" pick.... If that's how you feel about it, I might as well close the bond down right now and plan how to make the most of me seeing Diarmaid in a little over two weeks from today on the March blood Moon eclipse and building on the mutual attraction that's there and seeing where it goes because at least he is damn well interested in choosing me qua me as what he wants not just the best he can have of the available options.
I told you. Messy angry very human reaction to that part of his story. If you want tears and pity for you breaking up with her, I ain't got that for you -- I won't build anything into your shrine to could have beens if you had chosen to build a life with the Scorpio chick (or the lamprey you fell in love with spent all of 22-23 insisting in your songwriting and your emails about your songs was finally the one you'd been looking for and how deliriously happy that made you.) if you're still in love with and wanting the could have beens, then you ain't choosing anyone else because you genuinely choose them, you're just making do with the best of the good enoughs you can pick between.
I didn't listen very well to his conclusion on my first watch. I'm just going to admit that. I paid attention to every word, but I took them all in through that subjective lens of my own fury. Because messy very human reaction -- and when you rile up the seas of my emotional space, ain't nothing calming those tempests and tsunamis any time soon until the emotions wear themselves out.... That's just how it is with me when my inner seas are made a mess by storms of anger or sorrow... (It's also why I've trained myself that when my emotions are in control of me, my instinct needs to be to shut up and as soon as I can remove myself until I calm down before I say or do anything damaging that I can't unsay. A precog prophetess clairvoyant speaking truths when angry is not a force you want to have to contend with...being cut into with all the truths about yourself you can't face aren't capable to heal or handle yet is not fun and it's not kind. That's not an info dump you want. If the situation needs to be addressed because it's wrong, everyone will come out of it in more healthy ways if the discussion happens without the cutting truths to break people thrown in just because I'm too angry to control my tongue from speaking what my gifts know to be deep truths.)
But. The main thing I walked away with in the second watch that I didn't understand in the first watch while I was so angry was.... That he felt relief after the choice rather than being upset until the overthinking hit him and that he recognizes that he loved her more after breaking up with her than he did while in the relationship with her and he recognized his pattern and that by worshipping the shrine of the crystallized full story for the good that was and could have been if he hadn't cut things off short, he was dooming himself to always repeating that pattern never letting anyone in close enough to hurt him by recognizing him qua him and rejecting that hurt little vulnerable kid inside him that just wanted to make a friend and instead got dragged into defining his worth by external opinions of accepting him. And that is growth and it is good and choosing not to repeat the cycle creates the potential for him to actually find and create what he wants for his future self
I'm curious about what he's choosing for himself and where he wants to go next. I'm curious about what sort of version of himself he's wanting to be and what he wants to build his life around moving forward. I'm curious about the symbolism of the cabin that he cut shots to when talking about the home he's always been struggling to find. I'm intensely curious about the carved polar bear standing outside the representation of home which he never talked about in the special and every time it was in frame and I saw it made me remember/relive the polar bear dream and the bear giving up trying to claw his way through the ice just putting his paw up in saw recognizing he couldn't fight his way through the thick ice between us after he'd finally disentangled from the lamprey, the ice that shattered when I put my palm up on my side and the energy spiralled between our palms to shatter that wall of ice across the cave entrance. Every time the carved bear was in frame it reminded me of that shamanic shared dream space dream. Every. Time.
I'm curious about a lot of things in light of his conclusion. And I realize I'll need to wait on the unfolding and his choices and what/how he decides is intégral to build his life from these foundations into the life and happiness and home he chooses for himself. I'm curious about him getting exactly what he asked for as his big lesson -- does that include finding the path he must take to get to the home he's been seeking and love he's been trying to call in? Because the song focuses on his career choices and relationship choices he asked for, but the part of his story he shared doesn't say that he ever got that love he was calling in trying to manifest as part of his exactly what he asked for -- just that he's figured out some of his defensive past patterns and what he needs to let guide him for him to come back alive and get what he's wanting asking for. It didn't make me cry, it made me happy and excited for him and proud of his personal growth and focused decision to create the life he wants for himself and become the version of himself that can get him there -- and really fucking curious what that looks like and where it takes him and how he gets there and what all it includes is built upon. Other than his lifelong loves of music and storytelling and magic and wonder/awe -- he stated clearly those were all parts of what he needed to remember for the future he hoped and intended to build his life around.
That's not all of my reactions, but it's already a lot of words (albeit far too many of them deviated from reactions to his story as he chose to tell it in this form and into the trying to relate through explaining parts of my story because that's how ADHD brains try to relate.) there's a lot to process there in all those words. And some of this I wrote last night and some of it after coming home (I promised the cat I'd be home late but not stay at work til after sunrise again) which meant finishing some parts of this on my phone which is a nuisance and a pain.... Maybe another time I can write more about other facets of my reactions and discussing things from it in a lot more interesting details. But that's what I have for now in the unpolished rough but not completely raw reactionary it would have been when I watched it after Bock Beer School.
The most important take aways outside my personal storyline interpolations is.... I'm hella curious where he wants to go from here and I love the place of honesty and courage and wanting to break free from the patterns of the past and from the version of self always on defense never showing the vulnerable truest self for fear of the rejection. And, honesty is always the path to choose with me, I'm a complete sucker for truth speaking and you'll always get further with me telling me what's honest true to you than trying to impress me or telling me what you think I want to hear. I might need time to get my emotions in control depending on what your honest truth was, but you'll always get further toward healing and more of my respect/love for the courage to be honest with yourself and/or others. Always always.
*yawns* I haven't slept yet and it's past sunrise (a very pretty one once it burned through the fog -- all swirling blues and whites and bright gold edges.) I'm really loving the start of this novel (I started it while my phone was charging up from 9% before I let me keep writing this to finish as much as I could put into words right now) even though I can't relate to this character I like her find her sympathetic want to hear the unfolding of the story and the poetry in the language of it. So I need to decide if I want to be responsible and try to get some sleep (or at least something productive done with myself) or if I want to make another cuppa tea or a pot of coffee and keep reading The Secret Life of Bees (I never read the book or saw the film, I waited to pickup the book until I found a free copy used in a little library and then forgot about it on my unread books shelves until it felt right to read it for this black history month and the astro of this moment right now) until I finish the book or find myself rereading sentences/paragraphs/pages too sleepy to keep my eyes open any longer. How much money you want to put on the bet of me being responsible and practical instead of giving in to the temptation of my curiosity and joy in getting lost in a well told story?
P. S. O I almost forgot. Somewhere in the predawn before the sunrise, there was just this flood and rush of love down the bond and mixed into it was something new. The best I can describe it is that it was this very strong confident certainty in the love of "please don't push me away give up on me or try to leave me any longer. Just listen and give me a chance. I can fix this, we can make this right. This bond is mine because it's ours and I'm not going to risk losing it or you ever again. I love you and I love having the strength and open flow of this bond and that it IS." That mixed in with strong heady love was this new confidence and certainty of choosing the bond and holding onto it with eyes wide open to exactly what it is and what it means and how much it's worth to his inmost truest self. I gotta say, unless he lets himself be distracted again choosing to build his life around someone else, I don't think there's anything I could do to shut him out from reaching me with that much certainty and clarity of purpose and force of will so woven in and through his love. Not that I have any desire in me to even try, I only have the motive to even try when I assume it what he wants in his best interest to close the bond remove myself from his options. Just that even if I genuinely believed that right now (I don't) I don't know that I could do anything to even reduce the flow of it with that level of certainty and clarity suffusing though him and his love. And I'm not sure what caused it and brought that to such a force within him.... But I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it and it didn't make me happy with the headiness of it all pouring in like that so strongly. And I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge it makes me all soft and overflowing with love and just wanting to curl up snuggle into that bond and trust in it and stay in the brightness and strength of the isness of the love flowing through the bond forever. I don't know if we can do that, I just know with complete certainty it's what I want. And I know it with absolute clarity every damn time I can feel his love light and aliveness and isness and need pouring through the bond opening it wide as can be between us....
P. P. S. O. I wonder if... I wonder if all that love and certainty and clarity is him reasserting his truths and flooding open the bond wide as he could after the intensity of my anger so much of yesterday..because he couldn't have understood WHY I would have been feeling such a force of fury with him, he would only have been feeling that I was so upset and hurt and angry and defiant toward him not knowing why but just waiting for the storm to blow over hoping to find out why it happened.... And. Do you know what helped the angry dissipate the most and calmed me down the fastest? When the logical part of my brain wryly started laying into me, "bitch please! Boy just finishes being honest and vulnerable about how sensitive he is and how deeply rejection hurts him and your reaction is to reject him out of anger because he's honest about karmic relationship dating last life's wife and that after ending it with her he still missed the joy/love/comfort in a relationship he ended and broke up because something in him told him if he stayed with her it might be the biggest mistake of his life all while trying to cope with a level of deep rejection at a soul level he couldn't understand couldn't explain and he'd never felt before as part of his inmost self was cut off from the strength and love that had always been there steady in his life even when he felt out of place rejected by everyone else far from those he loved most. Because even if he didn't recognize it, he was going through that until the bond reopened to him. Bitch what the fuck cruelty and hypocrisy is this temper tantrum pulling away from him in anger now?!?! You can be a better version of yourself than this, just think how cruel and how much hurt he must be feeling right now as this echoes down the bond to him and he doesn't have any goddamn clue WHY but only knows IS...." When I said that I wield truth in a brutally cruel way when angry, I also weaponize truth against myself in acts of tough love with myself over one side or the other of what has me upset....
