the spectrum heart cathedral system

"nsfw" warning for open discussion of intimacy.

 

1228. thursday.



We woke up around 8:30, and spent approximately 20 minutes in the frigid beautiful dawn, deciding whether or not we should go for a run.
...Actually, that's the problem. We didn't decide. Our poor sleepy social frontrunner(s) was/were trying to decide on his/her/their own, worried about whether or not it was "bad" to leave the Arrows alone and asleep, to get food for later in the day, to have any sort of opinion or preference or decisive thought. They were asking for "signs from God" to "tell them what to do," something Tilly and Iscah used to do constantly-- looking for "yes" or "no," "stay" or "go" in the words they saw on printed packages all around them, not trusting a single one because "what if it's my brain wanting to see a certain result?" Those poor frightened good-hearted souls. They are so afraid, so afraid to do the "wrong thing" that the simple reality of an undefined reality terrifies them. They want morality laid out in front of them clear-cut and unquestionable, undoubtable... but they look for righteousness with their mind, not their hearts. Their poor hearts are so full of love but it's getting choked under the whirling moral fear of their thoughts.
There is nothing wrong with buying food. There is nothing wrong with going for a run. There is nothing wrong with liking the cold air against your face, and there is nothing wrong with being too tired and chilled to want to throw yourself back into it after 5 hours of sleep. There is nothing wrong with waking, or resting, or sitting, or exercising, or eating, or fasting, or anything. Life is life is life-- it's all the purest white, a blank canvas, a blank musical score, an empty plate, all of it waiting with utmost divine affection for us to decide. 
That's the beautiful terrible beloved reality of life, of free will, of human consciousness, of the infinite possibility of the world, of the unfathomable palette of existence. It's all a work of art waiting to happen. It needs an artist, and That Which Is-- God, or Goddess, or Source, or Light, or whatever you may wish to call that primordial spark of the cosmos, that original Artist, that first Musician-- couldn't help but create a universe full of artists to join in the joyous act. 
We adore that. Creation creating itself, ad infinitum, through us. An endless dance. 
So it's inherently blank. Not white, not black. It's clear, like a prism, and we're all lights passing through it, splitting our lives into swathes of color. Everything and anything we do contributes to it, and none of it is judged, none of it is labeled as "good" or "bad"... none of it, that is, save for what our own mind labels it as.
We have a lot of thoughts on this, from years upon years of feeling and thinking both, and there's no time or space to expand on it here furthermore... but for now, suffice to say that those frontrunners of ours this morning were unable to trust their own hearts, were unable to see themselves as capable of doing anything But the "wrong thing." They were labeling all their paints as "bad" before they even opened them. Poor beloved fellow souls of ours. We adore them. We know their hearts. We feel their aching desire to be harmless and helpful, to be kind and true and good and pure, but they have let fear in, and fear only knows itself. Therefore, whatever decision they made, they would second-guess it. They would be too scared to surrender to the quiet warmth of their hearts, to listen to That echoed within them, to realize that whatever they ultimately chose, the canvas had opened its own heart to them and sang, paint. Create. Choose a color, any color, and continue me. 
God doesn't mind if you run or walk or rest or sleep or eat or not. God just wants you to act according to your heart, to your dearly beloved heart, for it can do no wrong. We firmly believe that. It is the core of our faith.
If God is Love, and our hearts are built for Love, then if we act upon that Love, everything and anything we do is sacred. Every choice we make is holy. 

To wake up with that lesson... we had no idea how relevant it would remain for the rest of the morning.

We went for the run. Someone wanted to get bacon and ginger and cinnamon and lettuce, and so we wrapped ourselves up in Kyo's scarf and Jewel's red boots and we jogged down to the local grocery store to do so.

We don't remember the run up, save for passing a fellow jogger by the bus stop, and we don't remember much of being in the store itself. Our brain was tired and confused and still scared, tangled up in "do I buy for the family or for myself," scared of making a foolish decision, scared of acting on impulse, scared of being spontaneous, scared of being neglectful. Memory recalls them buying two Christmas candles that were on sale, left over from that one day two weeks ago or so when we planned on buying them but had no money for luxuries. So basketed them both (one red spice, one vanilla cookie) and then memory cuts out again.
We don't remember coming home and going to bed or waking up. What few things we do recall are so soaked in guilt that we're being begged not to write them down, but we have to be honest, we can't hide anymore. They bought bananas and a tiny tin of oats with the intention of making banana bread, and one ripe orange to see if they still liked the taste (Iscah did; she likes everything, and the other socials still haven't differentiated between her preferences and their own), as well as a package of oregano for the same purpose, and four mini-pizzas for the family. They did get the bacon, and the candles, and the ginger & cinnamon, and that's all we can remember. It's not shameful, loves, I promise. They're just so guilty about buying oats; they knew they'd get in huge trouble if Oliver found out, so they hid them in the closet. They're crying upstairs, loves it's okay. You just wanted to try once more, remembering that one time Someone liked them, but someone else got horribly sick from them, but you don't want to hate anything, you want to know the truth, you wanted to check now that our brain is in a better place. But loves, oh loves, you bought it with fear, with guilt, with shame. You'll never know if it's healed, or if anyone likes it, if that's the mindset you go into it with. And you don't trust our intuition either, which is wincing at the thought of eating them again, remembering past contexts of pain and fear and compulsion. But, again, Iscah liked it, she treasured it, and you just want to learn to do the same. Not now, loves. Now's not the proper time, not if you're still terrified. Once your heart can release that shameful panic, you can learn properly, that door will be open. But it's okay. We forgive you. You're safe and loved and you did nothing wrong. We promise. Everything you did was done out of love, too, even if it didn't know how to safely apply itself. We love you, and we know you love us and the Arrows and everyone too. It's okay. You're good. We love you.  

So we don't remember going to bed, or waking up later. All we remember is sudden groggy kisses and someone, some poor social, wanting to cry from it because they were wracked with guilt and shame and couldn't feel that pure affection in return although they were begging God to, and then suddenly our beloved System anthem of Familiarity was playing in their head and Lotusheart was called out to that confetti chorus, that soaring heart-wrenching prayer, and it broke our heart wide open and suddenly he could return the love pressing softly against our lips and chest and self, God knows I mean it, God help me feel it, and our memory is just as soft with golden light in response, tearful and joyful and desperate to hold this forever, forever.

And then Infinitii showed up, soft and black and just as sleepy in the body, but with a mouth full of grinning loving teeth and the next thing we knew, Omen was there and she pulled Infi onto their chest and suddenly we woke up, aware and in love, and fangs met skin and we were alive again. Thank God for daemons. Thank God.
They just adore each other. There's always fangs tearing at flesh with the ardent desire to get beneath that, to blood and pulse points, but there's no malice, no harm-- just love, always love. The two of them, all kisses and claws, smoky shadowy laughter and snowy frigid gasps and humming and growling and I love you, where are your wings, why can't you be closer, this isn't fair, I love you--

Then suddenly we're hearing them saying that it isn't just Omen, that it's Kris and Oliver and Hiccup and who is around for us, where are We? 
Immediately Chaos Zero shows up, feeling like the ocean in our chest, saying that there's more of us around than you think," and then Genesis is on his heels, smirking golden bright and biting their cheek in a kiss, and then Laurie was there for a moment, and I was there, and Celebi was there, and then suddenly EVERYONE was there, wanting to feel this love, to give our love, to be part of this, to make this everyone's.
Everyone in Central moved through. Lynne, Spine, Javier, Josephina, Celebi, Nathaniel, Leon, Waldorf, Julie, Sherlock, Wattson, Eros, Kyaneos, Algorith, Jude... Knife, Razor, Mulberry, Jeremiah, Wreckage, Leanne... even the kids, David and Marigold and Simeon & Sylvain and Toby and Ashen, all of them shyly moved through too in the quieter moments, happy and hugging our partner System, deeply simply joyfully happy that they were safe, they were loved, and they could feel it.
Lynne pointedly kissing Omen with this secret sneaky joy at kissing a 'girl' in another System, Nathaniel learning to live openly, not as quiet and docile as he usually stays, hidden in green... Waldorf finally feeling herself, eyes red as rubies and smiling with her own teeth as she returned kisses without hesitation. Julie purposefully anchoring her lipstick and earrings into her overlay, refusing to reject her complete self anymore, tearfully treasuring the fact that even looking like this, a color scheme switch away from looking like she did as the ultimate nightmare of our nascent System, she was truly and completely loved, and she felt the same in return. Sherlock taking off his glasses and trying as hard as he could to truly feel this love too, to saturate his Gray with hidden color and light... Wattson there alongside him, smiling warmly at his friend's quiet scholarly courage, himself unafraid to show affection colored the same sunlit-page glow as he. Eros fronting for the first time in ages, still unsure on his name but being fiercely anchored into his true color, richly Cerise and feeling it in every atom as he channeled it through his every action... Jude fronting for the first time ever since his birth, not knowing himself yet but knowing he had been called here, knowing this was love and that was what he was born from and into, and he let it happen and let himself reciprocate simply but truly. Kyaneos wobbly in fronting as well, only there for a moment but feeling like a breath full of sky...Algorith smirking in amusement as she felt her goggles brushing against their face as they kissed her, felt how strange but lovely it was against her own robotic mouth. 
Josephina ended up being spoken to at some point, and I can feel his nervous surprised happy laughter as he returned a love bite in spite of his hesitance, in spite of feeling he "didn't deserve to be in such a position," realizing that he was in fact included in this global love and he had every right to embrace that. Leon, too, suddenly being wrapped in an embrace, breathing deep to still his shaking nerves, bravely relaxing into that closeness that was still so alien to him, learning. Spine curiously feeling hands on skin that she personally did not own, amazed at it. Javier feeling kisses on our collarbones and momentarily being surprised that their teeth didn't catch on his dermal studs, feeling his own snakebites and tongue stud and bridge piercings every time he ardently kissed them back, or when they peppered his/our own face with tiny kisses of their own. Altairre was hovering behind him, then in place of him, learning how to be in a body, learning about his own body, his huge broad red shoulders the only things clearly anchoring in, the suggestion of massive armor-like hands over our body's own. everything else about him still a mystery.
And I swear Scalpel was there, too. He's been in Javier's peripheral vision lately, seen only by him, his Red prince, this leader of the Darkspacers. We have no clear memory of him fronting, but there's the smallest bit of data that he did, just for a moment, a fiercely glad kiss, defying everything lurking in the depths he ruled over, a simple profound testament to what we were and would forever be in glorious spite of any and all terrors we did and will survive.
Knife was only there for a moment (and later, kissing the knuckles of their soft white hands), but he was entirely his color, claret pink, dark and soft and sweet. Razor followed him, also only there for a moment, letting herself curl up like a purring cat in the latter half of a kiss that felt just as warm as their hands soft in her blood-red shock of childlike-messy hair. Mulberry's twirling hair and facial scruff locking in immediately as she fronted, herself content to be there albeit surprised, wondering why she had been isolating herself from this. Jeremiah suddenly fearlessly soft in his own Cerise tone, kissing and being kissed, knowing there was no danger here. David knowing he wasn't comfortable with kisses on the mouth but still wanting to feel this love, and Joshua moved in affectionately to share that with him while returning that gesture in his stead. Marigold hugging the Arrows and smiling with her face in their shoulder, and Toby quietly moving in with her, suddenly alive and not knowing this but knowing he needed this, to be loved, to be safe and warm. 
Simeon & Sylvain showed up sometime elsewhen, with Infinitii, as they had spoken about this previously. Infi affectionately embraced them with one arm and let them share in hir deep black love, safely for them, but just as deep and pure as they needed to know. Both of them feeling it entirely, like anise gumdrops on their tongue, sweet and spiced and light and heavy all at once. They held each other inside and smiled, knowing four years ago they had been torn in two, separated by sudden death and despair, and now they were together, and alive, and loved and safe and free. Both of them such a soft light creamy yellow tint against that velvet black, both of them like french vanilla and banana cream pie, little sweet fluffy things held in the arms of something fathomlessly rich and dark, perfectly happy.


Rio and Markus were there, both of them feeling more joy than they even expected of themselves, finally feeling that they belonged, not just with us but here, with them, exactly as they were, as whoever they'd grow into being as we all continued in this loving growing process. Markus's back tattoos and chest scars and warm dark skin tone searing into our collective memory, Rio's lovely shaggy smoke-blue hair and paler delicate but craft-calloused fingers doing the same. Both of them so belovedly real, our collective heart treasuring this, missing them.
Their Daemons, too, were so clear and real, relishing their time with Omen, learning how to Be more strongly than ever. Lethe moving like dark blue poured out, all spindly legs but heavy and darkly elegant as water. Medallion fronted more than she Ever has before, shockingly lithe and graceful, all points and edges but still as poised as a dancer. She holds the body's hands so uniquely, almost cradling our beloveds with the sides of our hands, the flats of her blades. And yes, she too has learned how to facemouth, but I can still feel her actual main stomachmouth dormant and unusable when she fronts. Lethe, too, as well as the rest of his long insectoid body that does't translate.
On that note, both Rupture and Cake tried to front, but were too strange in form to come through so easily and suddenly, especially since neither of them have experience in a human form before. Rupture's overlay was a terrific burst of nonsense below our plexus, totally nonhuman, a crablike clatter of legs-- and if that wasn't bad enough, she cannot get a facemouth to work at all, and kept trying to talk out of her throat like she normally would. But she was aware that this wasn't the shape she was currently borrowing, even though the huge dissonance made her consciousness terribly hazy, and she was both surprised and intrigued by this. In memory, I can feel her filing this away in her mind, thinking upon it, what it means to Be, now, tangibly and real even away from her nebulous heart-host. And Cake, too, body too lithe and long to understand legs or  bipedal arm structure, let alone such a small face, still trying to figure herself out in the first place... but trying nevertheless, called in by the other Daemons' existences, herself also now feeling glimmers of wanting to Be, briefly wondering Who she was, who she was bound to, what it meant for her to exist at all now... wondering at her own shape, her own color, how many eyes she would have on her face should she choose to open some. Both of those monstrous girls only there for a few seconds, if that, but both of them remembered dearly, both of them real.
Nexus was there too, and Axis and Chocoloco and Iolite and Jess, every Daemon losing themselves in the ardor of things, all of them always madly in love with each other, and every nousfoni flooding with grateful relief at this love that they too were now a part of, seen and treasured for exactly who they were, unafraid.
Nexus didn't front long, unusually, choosing to let his fellows have the spotlight, choosing to stay within with Laurie, who was also mostly missing from this whole affair, hesitantly learning what she could and couldn't do, learning the difference between fear and simple preference and function clashes. But Jess and Iolite were there, not for long but long enough, both of them temporarily but truly releasing their frustration and sorrow to feel a new but complete love and acceptance that they'd previously only felt from their Daemons, both of them tearful with happiness, arms flung around the shoulders that embraced them in turn, their colors clear and healthy and good.
Axis and his skeletal fingers, huge and weirdly fused at the metacarpals, looking like bleached bone or plaster or old ruins, covered in tiny plants and fungi and moss and fluttering insects, his eyes deep spruce-green and surprisingly soft with compassion. Chocoloco, too, feeling more love than anyone previously expected of him, all coffee-harsh anger and fierce red-slash eyes, but here he was melted chocolate and cherry jelly and there was a depth to the kisses he delivered like his throat opened up into an endless warmth, deep down. A totally different vastness than Infinitii, a striking contrast to Axis's flung-open birdcage ribs, to Nexus's galaxian entrails studded with gold-hot lanterns. All of them so strange, so clear, so real. God bless Daemons, I'll say it forever. There's something about them, even just touching this form so temporarily with their lives, that makes us, too, feel like we're more real than ever, like we're something etched into the very essence of things, lead-lined stained glass figures in the church of existence. Indelible and true. It's a blessed wonder.

The Archivist trio showed up at one point, too-- Garrison first, almost as hesitant as Leon but driven by the love and pursuit of understanding, of System knowledge, and ended up getting his lip bitten, aha. He took it like a champ, learning that this was something others in both our Systems did in love, and I can feel his mind and heart opening a bit more in that memory, becoming less tense, less paranoid. Bless our Archivists, they all have Protector hearts in their own way.
Isadora and Kalisha were there too, of course, but they ended up in embraces, and Isadora had a split second of actual disappointment at not being kissed before smiling and laughing genuinely and just melting into that hug. Love is love and she was glad to have it, to be there. She actually drew Kalisha in with her, the two fronting side by side, and then unexpectedly, Kalisha in turn reached out to find Karissa! She hasn't been around in many many months, but those name sisters have forged a sort of passive fondness, and so even if our Chartreuse Protector wasn't all there, this experience still touched her heart too, and if anything can wake up a dormant nousfoni to themselves and the world, it's being loved On the outside. So we'll see how this affects her in the future.

One after another, flowing like blood and water and sunlight, a quiet multitude moved through this newly-beloved body to experience that same affection and compassion and devotion anew, whether or not we'd ever touched it before. Every time is the first time. That's the miraculous thing about it. It never gets old, never ceases to amaze us, never ceases to hit us as clear and true as an arrow to the heart.

And then Infinitii was back and someone was asking us, had been meaning to ask us for a long time now, can we do something, do you trust us, and the quiet careful deliberate emotion in their voice was like a singing glass in our heart and we said yes, Infi said yes, (please, whatever you want, I want), I trust you, we trust you, we love you too.

 

...I cannot even put into words how suddenly, starkly alive and adored we felt.

 

So many of us were there. So many of us. It was a total shock, but thank God it happened. 
Infinitii was there at the start, but suddenly and totally, Julie was there. Thinking about it, I'm not surprised. This is the sort of thing that her original days as a Tar-corrupted hacker were inundated with. In the past, the very thought of this would have had us kicking and screaming and looking for knives or pills or worse. We had suffered this enough, never again.
...Except that's not what this is. It's NEVER what this is. What we were experiencing now was love, total and pure, and Julie knew it, and if anyone in the System was going to make damn sure that was crystal clear, it was her.

But... Lord. So many of us were there. Lynne and Spine, Waldorf and Josephina, Eros, Markus... and then when the Arrows moved to kiss us, suddenly Celebi was there, her heart strangely aching and determined, and she said no, don't stop. Go back. I need to know what this is like. I need to know.
And it hit me, that even if she didn't live through the beginning of 2012, her heart did. Her bloodline did, inevitably. Tar-mangled or not, her soul was affected by both the love and pain of that time, and she had just as much a right and reason and responsibility as Julie to be there right now. 


...There's so little literal memory, at least, nothing that translates into structured language. Everything is color, light, emotion. 



----------------------------------------------------------

(rough notes, from the Arrow's writing on this, as their memory is inevitably different than ours)

(currently unfinished; it's 6am so we will refine this later.)


(eucharist feelings again, on both sides apparently. "being/essence/spirit." SEAWATER.)


omen, oliver, kristanova, hiccup, kyo. the fact that all of them were there... what that does to our heart is inexpressible, but we have to try. 
just... all of them. they love us that much. ALL of them. and god we adore them all too, we hope they know, we need to make sure they know, they deserve that so dearly.



javier after, embracing them like his heart would break, "thank you so much for this being the next morning." choked with tears.
swearing we'd never leave them, ever. "you have all of our heartbeats" and "we just want ours to beat next to yours."
"four years ago there wasn't much left behind that." his FEELING that time, that emptiness, barely 10 left.


(feeling their heartbeat, after, pounding and sincere. genuinely shocked that THEY were feeling for US in this. that hadn't even crossed our mind. that's sadly telling as to our past, to expect that this sort of thing was devoid of emotion from the other, but what bliss in that assumption being proven false.)

infi laughing like every easter carillon in the universe. the joy endless, all love and light like stars brilliant against the limitless cosmos. ze could not keep it in, could not help it, could not stop. it was beautiful.
"good things come in threes"
hir eyes were open. just like at the eclipse. feeling so completely, totally hirself, that hir overlay was flat-out eyes and teeth both and ze couldn't be otherwise. couldn't be half, as ze was feeling too whole.

oliver asking if "this was one of the things ze hoped for" 
later when he told me this, i immediately remembered this, the first time that was openly referenced in any form. lord we were terrified even that recently.



"this is like the first time i was with jay" 
"this is what i am-- pure transmutation"
the FEELING in those statements. god.


JULIE'S DAEMON. 
I FELT HER TEETH.
we were worried about her; since her "birth" last week or so she's been almost impossible to see. but now, good lord, today she came through clear as anything, hard as infi almost. she's still half (hot pink) viperfish and that mouth is Unmistakable in her overlay. all those huge needle teeth. and her other half appearance-wise is a feathered serpent, and that too is obvious-- she feels so sinuous when fronting, so elegant but lethal, so much bigger than the body.
the arrows say her voice is similar: hissing, seductive, beautiful. i don't doubt it. i have no idea what she said, or how it felt, but i can feel the echo of it, tinged with the lipstick terror of the old julie days, that sort of warzone femininity, and i wouldn't expect anything less of her. 
julie and her daemon were cofronting so hard, so totally. practically sharing the same breaths. their very beings meshing perfectly together, blurring into one, without losing any of their individuality.


DENDRITE!!!!
came out when the arrows were asking who was there? julie and her daemon responded first i think, then suddenly,
"and me, me, me, me"
FRONTING more solidly than ever, her spindly arms and claws and tentacles and feelers SO clear in her overlay, her color clearer than even that, a beautiful rich pastel red, glossy like flowers and candy apples and heart lockets
she was struggling to talk, couldn't get her voice to translate on such short sudden notice
"i don't have a voice of my own yet but i found her, i found her, i found her!!" "i found mine, she's mine!" not ownership, but recognition of the most blissfully aching sort. pure joy, overwhelming joy, weeping from it.
and THAT JEWEL. the pinkish one, different hair-- no klonoa ears!-- from 2004 or so. heartspace anchor. the one who was in love. i can feel her exact vibe now, in music. i know her soundtrack. but she resonated EXACTLY with dendrite's own heart, embracing her as her own, both of them so happy, so in love with each other's souls, like every daemon and their host should be, and ultimately always always are.


eros, "how could anyone call this selfish," feeling that so powerfully and unquestionably, that needs to be global.
that sad old religious-mangled teaching that to want to be loved was wrong. that to receive love was manipulative or demanding or otherwise sinful. that's a lie. this proved it.
remembering what chaos zero said on the porch. "there's nothing wrong with wanting love returned for love," effectively. it being a divinely mutual force. love naturally reciprocates itself, it aches for it, and that's pure as anything. 
us lying there, holding them, and eros recognizing immediately that we were feeling such deep love towards them, for them, about them, it wasn't selfish at all, but it ironically wasn't self"less" either. it recognized our selves and their selves, and it adored them both/all, and it wanted to share in that forever, and that is love.


one of their tears falling directly into our right eye. the exact sting of seawater. it was utterly transcendent, holy.


me, touching their chest, dying from love and holy fear, "who am i to dare"
then realizing we, too, have a heart just like that




------------------------------------------------------------------

we didn't get out of bed until like... 4:30. no regrets, ever. no better use of a day than this sincerity, this total living.

kristanova made the dearly-loved after-breakfast tradition of grits, eggs, & bacon (lord who would have expected This future for it that first morning he cooked for us, months ago). it was amazing.

we watched an episode of sense8, "i have no room in my heart for hate," as we haven't watched that show in months either, and we were feeling it so hard this morning, with how headspacey it is, with how much more clearly we are living as systems now and how much more clearly we can understand both the people and the topics of the show as well.

...

(we typed ALL NIGHT)

 

 

 

morning:

slipping. waking up with oliver, feeling totally off kilter. wanting to weep and not understanding what to do with it; being all tangled up and ashamed and confused at my need for intimacy in ways that i felt were totally wrong.

being with both laurie and the daemons as a result. desperate to find out what i actually needed at heart.

laurie and the knife, just like that bloody gif we have. she knew what it meant. broke her heart, i could tell, but she also knew WHY i needed that.
terrifying in a way. wondering if that affects nexus

went shopping with ollie and mason. really nice to have that tangible support and care. usually we dissociate devastatingly when in noisy busy public places, ESPECIALLY stores. too much sensory overload. too much sheer data crashing into our brain like a truck.

i know we didn't eat until like 3pm, but we did our best and didnt get sick, thank god for ollie. he helps so much. we can tell him when we're scared or angry or confused and he RESPECTS that and works with it as well as he can. he wants us to heal so badly, just like we want to.

--------------------------

evening:

laurie talking to oliver for a WHILE.

infi and oliver.

 

 

some things for today.

bit of a messy entry as things have been very messy/ tangled/ etc. lately and i apologize.
but the mess is showing us what needs to be healed, so, therapy is tomorrow and we will confront this.


laurie talking to leon while at work.
shaken and heartbroken by "tiger lily" being around, biggest fear was "does this mean I fucked up my job and the system is effectively saying 'you need to be replaced?'"
leon said he was terribly sorry, couldn't think of any better way to express that empathy. tried to reassure her that since she was still around she was still needed, even if for something different now. but laurie was distraught, "that was my ONE JOB and apparently I failed," existential crisis really.

laurie temporarily "switched back" to original anchor style, joined tiger lily in screaming at whoever was doing the job this morning. brutal, fierce intimidation and corrective guilt, etc. but all that old harsh language. "stop being so careless, you faggot, you'll fuck everything up as usual," etc. "don't be such a goddamned pansy," "straighten the fuck up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, you ingrate," etc. so it's good advice, very very good instruction, but it's all so rough.
whoever was getting yelled at was just kind of smiling with the "sacrifice myself for the greater good!" mindset. no emotion, trying so hard to annihilate their self, annihilate their free will, "become a slave of god," et cetera. this person was perfectly willing to starve to death with joy because "the voices told me to" and "when I die I'll go back to god" like they didn’t question it because "questioning means disobeying and disobeying means I am listening to my selfish corrupted ego," their ideal is "total unflinching servitude."

whole day was full of screaming floating voices
there was a child one, a little girl with messy blonde hair? short, not like marigold, and younger. (felt weirdly familiar? a visual introject of someone we know maybe?) kept whining and crying in an emotionally manipulative way. very bratty. knee-jerk reaction was to BEAT the child, "she'd better learn to shut the hell up," etc. appalled by this but at the same time, it was viewed with a neutral "that's the proper response" reaction too. upset that this had been internalized.
you're supposed to love and comfort and care for children, right? well what if they're being demanding little impudent brats? that's our problem with ourself. one of our inner child parts is an insolent little shit, who does nothing but cry for what SHE wants for no good fucking reason, and she KNOWS she's pulling our strings to do so. so the first reaction we get is, "hit the child, teach them to sit down and shut up, make them learn their place, teach them obedience and subservience, let them know that what they're doing is WRONG and it has consequences and it will not be tolerated."
which is what laurie was originally born from, and left, and which tiger lily now picked up.
but we still largely believe that. it's how we treat ourself at large. "beat the selfishness out of them." "bleed out your sinfulness." otherwise we're too selfish, just like everyone else said we were fated to be, right? when someone repeatedly tells you "you HAVE to be THIS way," or even worse, "you ARE this way, so stop fighting it," then no matter how much that goes against your instinct or proper right judgment, enough righteous repeated "facts" like that and you WILL become whatever they say you are, because you feel there is no other choice.
so we were convinced we were the scourge of humanity, and therefore we deserve to be flayed alive to atone for that shit, effectively.
I don't want to think like that anymore, but no other options ARE working currently.

we keep considering forced integration or systemwide annihilation again, this is bullshit

had a bit of an emotional meltdown at home, stress overload. ended up literally hitting ourself and breaking part of our exercise machine in our room. no idea why, just needed the pressure crash but were hit with sickening shock when something broke, knee-jerk terror and regret and fear, scared kid feeling. "why did we do that." very very afraid. anger gone entirely. emotions are confusing

only good thing is that ALL problem foods have been pinpointed and expressly forbidden, in a book, so that's tangible with words and pictures. we need that because otherwise we don't remember WHY something is forbidden and then some jackass says "well then it's okay to eat! we have to try! we can't let anything be bad!" it's an inability to understand that not every edible thing is going to be god's gift to mankind, some foods WILL hurt you, this kid literally cannot comprehend that. "it only hurt you because you're afraid/ angry/ low vibration/ etc. if I eat it it will be okay!!" and then they eat it, and then they switch out and don't feel the headaches and stomachaches and vomiting and all that shit. so they THINK it's perfectly fine. it's not.

jay overcome with rage for most of the morning. not sure why. a lot of it was because of the addictive/ eating voices, especially the child. but he was just icy rage.
that's out-of-character for him but his overlay was exact. he says it was "righteous anger" but we are still struggling with anger. it feels so evil. but he was pissed off at the addict voices, and the floating voices, and he kept telling them what they were doing was intolerable and he would not play into their schemes. furious but it was very very flat? like ice, again
he shouldn't be like this, he's supposed to be light and compassion and hope, offering that instead of ire, what's happening?

laurie was ghosting trying to help him out instead of genesis.
after all this over the course of the day, she looked back at tiger lily and said "did I really use to be that brutal?" and then expressed a surprised but hurt relief that she DIDN'T have to hold that old job anymore, because she couldn't bear to act so hateful like that anymore.
not sure what jay's reaction to that was.

nexus hanging around though. with tiger lily I think? bizarre how so many daemons are insect-esque.
laurie is avoiding dealing with hir just like rio is avoiding dealing with lethe for the most part.
in her defense nexus is creepy as shit but really, you NEED to work with daemons, that's the reason for their existence, to basically personify the shadow work you've been avoiding and which is now unavoidable.


we've never, ever had problems with forgiveness before, why now?
this is very very frightening.
is it tied to the paradox of, "if they don’t think they did anything wrong, there's nothing TO forgive"?
because that is a SELF-BLAMING thing because we believe WE ARE THE ONLY ONES TO BLAME, EVER, and I'm wondering if that's making us bitter and unforgiving because it makes us view ourself as inherently "bad?" like we're a bad influence on everyone. so "how dare we forgive ourself when justice has not been done," hence the constant need for punishment and atonement. we feel that we must PAY for our sins, but we also feel our sinfulness is limitless, therefore we are constantly paying this debt, therefore we CANNOT really "be forgiven" because we're basically shit and you "can't forgive evil itself" or some bullshit.
WHY DO WE THINK OF OURSELF THIS WAY???
HOW DID THAT GET INTO OUR HEAD???



reading a lot of articles tonight.
reading is so exhausting lately. like frustratingly, edge-of-tears exhausting.
it's very informative and VERY helpful, don't get me wrong, but it burns me right out.
I'm not sure if it's because we have to visualize everything or it wont register, or the huge amount of visual data to process, or what. but it's exhausting. must be done though.


some quotes…

★Grief clears pain, and we deny things so we don’t have to feel their pain
THE PROBLEM= I am legitimately convinced, I legitimately believe, that there IS NO PAIN

however. "you must say yes to suffering in order to transcend it."
this everything-is-sunshine-and-roses-all-the-time mindset is effectively saying NO to ALL pain.

interesting important paragraph:
"It’s crucial to have a transformation-ready heart when embarking upon activism. Otherwise, we can be setting ourselves up for pain that sticks to our bones as unreckoned grief until we can transform it.
Indeed, many who resist getting involved in causes greater than themselves, that cause one to empathize with the pain of others, may instinctively know they do not possess the inner alchemical capacity to grieve in order to transform pain and thus resist getting involved. Worse, they may deny that the problems exist in the first place so as not have to deal with what they might not be able to handle.
Ignoring our personal grief closes our eyes to love. Dealing with it opens our own hearts the world."
"Many might feel too overwhelmed by these difficult feelings in their immediate personal life to deal with more difficult news. But maybe this overwhelm is precisely because one has chosen not to deal with their heap of personal pain in the first place?"

this disturbed us when we read it because the phrase "they do not possess the inner alchemical capacity to grieve" felt like absolute damnation, i.e. "you're inherently flawed and you will fail." I hope that's not what they meant.
but it's scary because currently, it feels true. we HAVE become so cold, so resistant, so isolated lately, and it coincides with us being TOTALLY NUMB. we cannot figure out how to safely turn that off.

This is why Q allegedly pissed us off in 2012-- he was doing the SAME THING with this. Ignoring and denying pain and discomfort, due to "not being able to handle it." which we can understand now, even if it still makes us furious, because it's a mirror.
Ironically, at the time we knew him, we constantly insisted we were ALL too ready to face the pain. were we? I don’t know. that was a totally different timeline. Problem is, now we've buried our grief and pain and fear from the past because:
1) we are convinced that "only a fool trips on what is behind him" and "the past does not exist" therefore "don't be shackled to what is over and done with," and
2) the grief/ pain/ guilt/ fear is unbearable because it all screams "you are satan incarnate"

this needs to be dealt with.
we have NO IDEA how to express grief, let alone how to FEEL it in the first place.
we don’t know how to grieve, and that may be because we have two problematic mindsets of "you never lose anything, therefore grief is silly and foolish" and "the things you think you lost, or that deserve grief, are things you need to learn to smile and be okay with. no use resisting reality!"
so grief is utterly confusing and it feels utterly wrong and we cannot cry without feeling like the most selfish, manipulative, proud, abusive man on the planet.
crying, for us, feels like that stupid kid hiccup-sobbing because she wants something sweet. well fuck you. it's poison, you aren't getting any. man the fck up and stop being so hedonistic.
for us, crying is an egotistical control scheme, we've said this before
it's still a huge problem, apparently.
how do you express sadness if crying is viewed as NOT sadness?
how do you express sadness if you don't view sadness as a legitimate emotion?
I really should go see that movie again




a good paragraph:
"One way to discover the vital qualities we have denied is to notice what qualities we find uncomfortable or intolerable in others. Do I have difficulty receiving another’s anger towards me, even when responsibly expressed by them and in proportion to the injury I caused? Is it difficult for me to be present to another’s grief? Am I unable to bear witness and feel compassion for another’s feelings of helplessness, despair, and fear? If so, this might mean that I am denying my own experience of these emotions. Do I cringe and find judgment in others’ freedom, responsibly expressed? Am I jealous of my girlfriend’s good relations with her family? If so, I might use these uncomfortable feelings as guideposts for how to grow a better life for myself."


my favorite paragraph so far:
"When I treat a patient I can’t just boost their wellness if they have a serious disease. I also have to fight the disease. Similarly, we can’t just resort to loving feelings in the face of greedy, sociopathic disease run amok. We can’t just “love” these folks into order, or think they will disappear because we have a cozy life. This is like relying on sugar to fight an infection; it feeds the festering. We need bitter herbs; we need to embody some nastiness, some fierce love."
and hey laurie that's your real job okay?

and another.
“There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion." (Carl Jung)
"An integrative path can’t just give lip service to our difficult emotions, to our suffering, or assume the detached witness position, a posture which many New-Age types seem to try on in order to not have to dip into difficult depths (since difficulty and darkness are antithetical to their belief of “love”). In my experience, true integration as an embodied spiritual path must especially embrace being in the mud, like the lotus – the mud corresponds with the depths of our own bodies. For only by finding light in and from that darkness, through both experience and insight, can we rise up integrated. Our newfound wisdom, joy, compassion and passion emanate from the very conditions which embodied their opposite – in our pain and suffering. This union of opposites, and an openness and path through both, is an integrated spiritual path."
all that is deeply relevant to our system obviously.

oh and one more big one from a REALLY good article.
" Magical thinking is a normal faculty in children between the ages of 2-7. It is also the same brand of childish fantasy prevalent in many spiritual circles. Beliefs that all is light, all is good, everything happens for a reason (so we don’t need to deal with disappointment), only good comes from misfortune, or that pain and misfortune are simply illusions, are all examples of childish magical thinking. They deny the dark, the real pains of life. They also happen to be the theme of many spiritual “playshops.” Applying common sense and critical thinking to these new-age aphorisms, we discover that indeed they are not true, just as a childhood fantasies are untrue…
Reasonable adults understand magical thinking as a natural stage of development, which children grow out of. Yet, when adults ignore their psychological pain and revert to fantasy and other imaginary feel-good beliefs as an unconscious attempt to experience the inherent joy of a healed “heart" and mind, and in place of reason and logic, we have big problems. We get presidents that think hurricanes are the wrath of God. This, among other urgent realities needing recognition, denies the reality of global warming, for example, thereby impeding our progress towards collective wellness…
Disembodied, fantasy-based “spiritual” pursuits that do not respect reality, as well as investments in fun without cultivating our comprehensive adult gifts to the world, are fool’s gold. In fact, you can almost be guaranteed that the degree to which a person pursues magical thinking and unproven, fantasy-based, feel-good spirituality is directly proportional to their unreckoned-with psychological pain."
"…In most 'New Age' doctrines, it is considered “unspiritual” or “unevolved” to even consider the use of defensive force. A good little new-ager is apparently supposed to let people and parasitic beings walk all over them, steal from them, drain their energy, manipulate / implant them, and harm them in any manner they choose. Not only that, but they should also suppress any “negative emotions” so that they will be basically “happy victims” of such abuses. This manipulative, deceptive “teaching” comes from the false-light, and nothing could be further from the real truth."


to be honest this is all SO RELIEVING TO READ
because it's highlighting JUST HOW TOXIC all this new-age stuff ive been internalizing is
and no offense to those people, but I've honestly been choking that stuff down for years
and I KNEW it felt funny but could never figure out why, let alone why it was making me miserable
so I miust not judge, I must not condemn, I must just say, "this is not right for me," and continue down my own path

but
problem is, right now I am scared that "my own path" is FLAWED and that I've been "spiritually misled" all these years
I don’t know the doubt is huge
like I said, forced annihilation is still a contemplated option
because of that internalized belief stated in the last quoted paragraph
"all is good and pain is an illusion SO your shadow work DOESN'T EXIST uwu"
bullshit like that
sorry for the profanity but this anger keeps welling up because I'm SICK OF THIS.
and I want it to get out of my head and anger is telling it to do so. anger has guts.
anger just needs to be tempered down for heavens sake or its going to burn down the house and take us all with it
that won't help anyone.


and holy shit I just found an article that PERFECTLY DESCRIBED that uneasiness I've been feeling about this stuff
dude this is exactly what I was worried about
like I said, don’t judge, please, you fell into that trap too, those people didn’t know
but damn it I was so unsure and doubtful and scared to say no, this explains WHY
it also explains why I always felt so freaked out by the ""guides"" that would talk to me
the things claiming they were angels
et cetera.
they always had really really subtly awful vibes and I could sense that but it was glossed over so much
I don’t know I am just hoping SO MUCH that this article will show that I CAN let go of this control scheme
because it IS one and I have a right to be free of it
so I need to read this and get back to you later.


there is absolutely so much more to read but there is NO time tonight.
I didn’t even get to exercise today I hope I don’t pay for that
work again tomorrow still in the bad "I have a job so I cannot have a life" mode, very toxic
trying to overcome that, not sure how yet. but its an effort

good night