How does a butterfly feel?
[was Pagan]
Home sick today. Still alternating between queasy, dizzy, and headachy.
I wish I could clearly document what is going on with me right now. For the first time in my life I don't just feel like if I explained you might think me crazy, but I care.I think I've said before that I'm WYSIWYG "because what you don't see, you don't get". Well, there are a handfull of insights about my own nature that I am not unwilling to relate to people, but which I relate somewhat sparingly, as I think they make me sound alternately delusional or self-important.
On the surface my life has been delightfully mundane the last couple days - yesterday I hung out with PurpleVenus and CoyoteGrrrl. We had lunch and talked about boys (and, of course, we talked a lot about ChienDarrenDor), and walked around Memorial Park and talked about ducks, and random stuff, and tried to go to the movies, but found nothing we wanted to see, and so we went back home and my Mom came over and we all watched Strictly Ballroom, and painted our nails.
My nails are now a lovely reflective shade of pale blue-silver.
My only note of the extraordinary all day with them was when I went to put on my sword-necklace. I felt queasy whenever I went near it or thought about it. That's my Me-Necklace. I don't per se NEED it to carry my sense of identity for me, or anything, but it's very well trained to that affect. Not trusting my own perception on the subject, I asked PurpleVenus to look it over for me. Well, it's confused now, and needs cleaning. My symbol of self is carrying a broken sense of identy - rather implies that I've changed on some fundamental level, doesn't it? I want to ask Morgan if she can see anything different...
Knowing I'd be more comfortable if I was wearing a necklace, I dug through my jewelry box for the topaz that Honor gave me when we were in highschool. Again, I asked PurpleVenus for her assessment, and she indicated that while the necklace would not keep me grounded, it would sooth me. That's about what I expected - Soothing is a lot of what I am relative to Honor. So I put it on, and off we went.
Anyway, when the movie ended I took PurpleVenus home, and went to LWood's house for a bit to talk with her and LionessMoon and Nithogg, and say "Hi" to CountGeiger. After a bit of a natter with them, I drove Nithogg and LionessMoon home, and talked some more.
We talked about our understanding of our own souls, what they are, where they have been, what they are doing now. I finally cried about this crap. Nithogg was about to head off to bed, and I was hugging LionessMoon goodbye when I just blurted out "When do I get to stop being me??" and burst into tears, and immediately felt significantly better. We talked a great deal more, and I finally realized the nature of what's wrong with me since visiting Hel.
Up until now I've been thinking "I know I didn't leave anything behind, and yet I feel broken, so what gives?" The answer is so obvious to me now that I actually feel kind of stupid for not catching on sooner, but you'll have to forgive me, I've been largely trying to hold myself together by pretending nothing much had changed, and go on with everything as planned.
Most of my life I've had this sense that the majority (at least two-thirds) of my Soul hangs out outside my body, above and behind me. Like I'm being my own guardian angel of sorts, I seem to keep me out of trouble this way.
Until very recently, whenever I did serious work I would ground, center, shield, and pull in. This works fine for a bit, but I couldn't just hold it all like that constantly, because it makes my nerves jangle unless I'm actively working with it.
The Pearl Hela handed me wasn't something sepparate from myself, and it wasn't Hers in particular to give me - it was already mine. I'm now carrying significantly more of myself inside on a permanent basis than I had before. This rather explains why my nerves have been on a permanent jangle whenever I'm not actively occupied with something that has me using this extra resource. On the up side even my most casual efforts seem to be far more effective than my planned, deliberate solo-work in the past has been. At least in some areas. Healing in particular got a major boost.
I had interpreted all this jangle as as "too much woo, must wind down" and have now concluded that winding down won't do much of anything. What I need to do is acclimate.
I haven't the foggiest idea how to do that deliberately, I suppose it will just come with time. This isn't the first time I've "leveled" rapidly, but I think it gets to be a more serious prospect as you go, and I think I went through several "levels" at one go this time, which is why it's so hard to acclimate - you can't just take a helicopter most of the way up Mt. Everest and then expect to keep climbing with impunity.
On a strangely related note, I also came to understand part of my problem with Authority, and my resulting lack of ambition. My concept of authority is unreasonably absolute. I don't like being the authority because I hate it when my authority is questioned. To me, if you're going to question my authority, or punish me for my choices, then those choices should have been made by somebody else, and I will defer to that person, or more likely stay completely out of it. (This is one of the reasons I tend not to explicitly counter other people's judgement calls when we are equals or I am above them unless they were specifically straying from their own territory into mine - that's undermining their authority. I don't mean I think we should never undermine authority, but I think we should not do so casually, and it's essential that we not do it to our teammates and partners.)
With TRUE authority, blame is moot. It's not that true authority isn't questioned, it's that it can't be. Just try demoting the tectonic plates for causing an earthquake, I dare you. I associate authority with fate, on some level - what is chosen, from that point forward, IS.
In other words, I don't want to be in charge if I can't be God.
Gee, that's functional.
I pondered how I was planning on raising children (my only real ambition) with this sense of Authority, but then I realized that I don't think children should, per se, be raised in an authoritarian environment. Yes, sometimes I will put my foot down and tell them no, and they can bloody well try to question me on it - they won't like the results. Most of the time, though, it's about negotiation as a way of teaching them how to make their own choices. Teaching them about consequences and cause and effect. In other words, it's about teaching them that they're not God either, and their choices have consequences too.
I keep saying "It's loud in here", but that's not really what I mean. Most of the time it's actually pretty quiet - I just have all the physical and emotional responses as though it were loud, and it's not stopping. I don't believe I've slept 8 hours at a go in the last several days, and I haven't been eating nearly as much food as I usually do.
--Ember--
Home sick today. Still alternating between queasy, dizzy, and headachy.
I wish I could clearly document what is going on with me right now. For the first time in my life I don't just feel like if I explained you might think me crazy, but I care.I think I've said before that I'm WYSIWYG "because what you don't see, you don't get". Well, there are a handfull of insights about my own nature that I am not unwilling to relate to people, but which I relate somewhat sparingly, as I think they make me sound alternately delusional or self-important.
On the surface my life has been delightfully mundane the last couple days - yesterday I hung out with PurpleVenus and CoyoteGrrrl. We had lunch and talked about boys (and, of course, we talked a lot about ChienDarrenDor), and walked around Memorial Park and talked about ducks, and random stuff, and tried to go to the movies, but found nothing we wanted to see, and so we went back home and my Mom came over and we all watched Strictly Ballroom, and painted our nails.
My nails are now a lovely reflective shade of pale blue-silver.
My only note of the extraordinary all day with them was when I went to put on my sword-necklace. I felt queasy whenever I went near it or thought about it. That's my Me-Necklace. I don't per se NEED it to carry my sense of identity for me, or anything, but it's very well trained to that affect. Not trusting my own perception on the subject, I asked PurpleVenus to look it over for me. Well, it's confused now, and needs cleaning. My symbol of self is carrying a broken sense of identy - rather implies that I've changed on some fundamental level, doesn't it? I want to ask Morgan if she can see anything different...
Knowing I'd be more comfortable if I was wearing a necklace, I dug through my jewelry box for the topaz that Honor gave me when we were in highschool. Again, I asked PurpleVenus for her assessment, and she indicated that while the necklace would not keep me grounded, it would sooth me. That's about what I expected - Soothing is a lot of what I am relative to Honor. So I put it on, and off we went.
Anyway, when the movie ended I took PurpleVenus home, and went to LWood's house for a bit to talk with her and LionessMoon and Nithogg, and say "Hi" to CountGeiger. After a bit of a natter with them, I drove Nithogg and LionessMoon home, and talked some more.
We talked about our understanding of our own souls, what they are, where they have been, what they are doing now. I finally cried about this crap. Nithogg was about to head off to bed, and I was hugging LionessMoon goodbye when I just blurted out "When do I get to stop being me??" and burst into tears, and immediately felt significantly better. We talked a great deal more, and I finally realized the nature of what's wrong with me since visiting Hel.
Up until now I've been thinking "I know I didn't leave anything behind, and yet I feel broken, so what gives?" The answer is so obvious to me now that I actually feel kind of stupid for not catching on sooner, but you'll have to forgive me, I've been largely trying to hold myself together by pretending nothing much had changed, and go on with everything as planned.
Most of my life I've had this sense that the majority (at least two-thirds) of my Soul hangs out outside my body, above and behind me. Like I'm being my own guardian angel of sorts, I seem to keep me out of trouble this way.
Until very recently, whenever I did serious work I would ground, center, shield, and pull in. This works fine for a bit, but I couldn't just hold it all like that constantly, because it makes my nerves jangle unless I'm actively working with it.
The Pearl Hela handed me wasn't something sepparate from myself, and it wasn't Hers in particular to give me - it was already mine. I'm now carrying significantly more of myself inside on a permanent basis than I had before. This rather explains why my nerves have been on a permanent jangle whenever I'm not actively occupied with something that has me using this extra resource. On the up side even my most casual efforts seem to be far more effective than my planned, deliberate solo-work in the past has been. At least in some areas. Healing in particular got a major boost.
I had interpreted all this jangle as as "too much woo, must wind down" and have now concluded that winding down won't do much of anything. What I need to do is acclimate.
I haven't the foggiest idea how to do that deliberately, I suppose it will just come with time. This isn't the first time I've "leveled" rapidly, but I think it gets to be a more serious prospect as you go, and I think I went through several "levels" at one go this time, which is why it's so hard to acclimate - you can't just take a helicopter most of the way up Mt. Everest and then expect to keep climbing with impunity.
On a strangely related note, I also came to understand part of my problem with Authority, and my resulting lack of ambition. My concept of authority is unreasonably absolute. I don't like being the authority because I hate it when my authority is questioned. To me, if you're going to question my authority, or punish me for my choices, then those choices should have been made by somebody else, and I will defer to that person, or more likely stay completely out of it. (This is one of the reasons I tend not to explicitly counter other people's judgement calls when we are equals or I am above them unless they were specifically straying from their own territory into mine - that's undermining their authority. I don't mean I think we should never undermine authority, but I think we should not do so casually, and it's essential that we not do it to our teammates and partners.)
With TRUE authority, blame is moot. It's not that true authority isn't questioned, it's that it can't be. Just try demoting the tectonic plates for causing an earthquake, I dare you. I associate authority with fate, on some level - what is chosen, from that point forward, IS.
In other words, I don't want to be in charge if I can't be God.
Gee, that's functional.
I pondered how I was planning on raising children (my only real ambition) with this sense of Authority, but then I realized that I don't think children should, per se, be raised in an authoritarian environment. Yes, sometimes I will put my foot down and tell them no, and they can bloody well try to question me on it - they won't like the results. Most of the time, though, it's about negotiation as a way of teaching them how to make their own choices. Teaching them about consequences and cause and effect. In other words, it's about teaching them that they're not God either, and their choices have consequences too.
I keep saying "It's loud in here", but that's not really what I mean. Most of the time it's actually pretty quiet - I just have all the physical and emotional responses as though it were loud, and it's not stopping. I don't believe I've slept 8 hours at a go in the last several days, and I haven't been eating nearly as much food as I usually do.
--Ember--