The Black Tapestry
I found myself in a dark void, surrounded by a primordial and formless space. At first, I thought I had lost all my senses. Everything was deep black and soundless and there was no gravity. I was a floating consciousness with no home. This is limbo, I thought — or maybe I just knew and didn’t think any thoughts. I seemed to understand things without processing them. This is intuition. This is clairvoyance. This is my third eye. Out of the void, a bolt of fabric came into view. It was also black and began to slowly unroll itself before me. A velvety, onyx-colored cloth expanding to the edges of my perception, until it became what I knew as my sole existence. All at once, an invisible hand started embroidering symbols and archetypes and allegories. I read the fabric from left to right — stitch by stitch — I was witnessing my life from birth to now. An orphrey of multi-dimensional imagery. Each symbolic stitching embodying a multitude of history and emotion and language. And the colors — such vivid hues of violet, orange, crimson and pink. It looked like something my long-lost ancestral aunts in Mexico might have sewn. But even though the colors were bright and festive, I was quickly overtaken by grief and discouragement. By now, the invisible hand had finished its work midway through the fabric, leaving almost exactly half of it blank. What lay before me was an unfinished tapestry so deeply embedded with neglect and loss and scarcity — all of which were at this moment so foreign to me. I wanted out of this vision, and hurtful reminder of where I had come from. My shapeless consciousness grew hot with shame, and pulsated with anxiety that spread outward into nothing. This must be how stars die, I thought. No, This is how stars die. I knew. Then came a gentle cooling. I was reminded — telepathically — that what I was seeing was my past. The other half of the tapestry still remained to be embroidered. They said it would be stitched by my own hand and with only the values and experiences that I wanted for this life. Symbols of love and animals and friendship and nature and art and freedom and magic, and these simple words do no justice to the rich power that lies behind them, because just like the embroidery they are a prism. Multi-faceted and pure light. An energy of such high vibration that it could only belong to the Gods. And as I began to accept this as truth — in the core of my being — my sadness gracefully morphed into rapture and gratitude and passion. This was an invitation to stand at the helm of my life. And I took it. And my own black velvet tapestry is just one of infinite tapestries eternally unfolding across the universe — a divine display of all the soul journeys that embark onto unknown space and create something beautiful.
“For all the supernatural lust in your eyes: BELIEVE”
Dream Journal, August 2, 2011
Disclaimer: I was 27 when I had this dream. I feel like anything written or experienced in your twenties should have a disclaimer.
I was walking the streets of San Francisco, sometimes it was Oakland. Irrelevant though, because it was acting more like an old lover. Acting as if it had forgotten me, never loved me, moved on to better things. Still, I stepped onto every curb and turned every corner trying to remember what drew me to fall in love in the first place. There was a boy, like there always is, and at every crosswalk we met. I tried walking in front of him, tried leaving him behind like so many had done to me before, but somehow we kept crossing paths. My destination/destiny became a broken-down bookstore where Spacewaves was performing. Suddenly, I knew his name was Camus and that he was their new drummer. I said, “Fine. You can have me.” Then, I dragged him into the bathroom and made out with him, like I was drunk, but I wasn’t. Not even on love, I don’t think. I left him there and as I walking out, a stranger with an Indian accent, stopped me and said, “Don't be afraid of Camus. Rule him the perversion in your life. For all the supernatural lust in your eyes: BELIEVE.”
Note: When the Indian stranger said “perversion” he also said “purpose,” like at the same time.
A mantra for clearing shame
Sometimes — seemingly out of nowhere — I’ll find myself stuck in a spiderweb of negativity. What I feel is resentment or fear or anxiety. I avoid giving it a story. I simply say:
This feeling does not belong to me. I return it back to the Universe.
And then I’ll often make a sweeping away gesture with my arms that looks really silly and weird, but is so damn helpful at releasing shame and shooing it away.
Update: The hologram as visual took for grief
Grief Deck is a free visual resource for grief support. All the cards were made by artists or caregivers or someone who has lost someone. Anyone can contribute if you have something to say about processing loss. You scroll seemingly endlessly for an image card that resonates with you, when you click on it, it flips to deliver a prompt or meditation to focus on and let your feelings arise. Grief has never been something I expect to go away, but it is something I learned to coexist with. The best advice I ever received regarding grief was to schedule it — daily if you need to. For a month, I would hold in my tears until I was alone and then I would cry until I was exhausted. After a month, it became less and less, but I never stop making space for it. Here is the card I contributed to Grief Deck, inspired by my father-in-law who we lost last year.
We’re taught at a young age in school that form is in flux. Water can change its physical state from solid to liquid to gas a million times and never lose any part of itself. We forget this fact in grief. The ones we love die and we forget to sense their new state. We only miss the form which we lost. We cry and grieve, but somewhere in this realm there is a hologram, and it is made of love, and it has no physical form — only feeling — but that feeling is one that heals and integrates and transcends all sadness. Try to spend some time feeling this new form.
Ideas for bringing more pleasure into your daily life
I took a Clearer Thinking program test that helps you bring more joy into your life by enlightening you to what your greatest sources of pleasure are. (I recommended it in Recomendo.)
I discovered my greatest pleasures are mostly Sensorial. With the highest being humor, nature, animals and sound/music. Which is not surprising because this is what I try to fill my days with. But my favorite part of the program is at the end when you’re given ideas as to how to consciously bring even more pleasure into your life. Here they are below.
Spaceship Earth & Synchronicities
A collection of Earth from Space media that has been floating through the internet and my subconscious. Use them as tools to shift your perspective and expand your consciousness.
The Overview Effect
“The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from outer space. It is the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, "hanging in the void", shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this "pale blue dot" becomes both obvious and imperative.”
Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth is a worldview encouraging everyone on Earth to act as a harmonious crew working toward the greater good.
"As we begin to comprehend that the earth itself is a kind of manned spaceship hurtling through the infinity of space—it will seem increasingly absurd that we have not better organized the life of the human family."
— Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President of the United States
We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.
— Adlai Stevenson to the UN, 1965
Astronaut Bruce McCandless free floating above earth
The Earth Rising Over the Moon
Earth Restored — Toby Ord
If somebody’d said before the flight, “Are you going to get carried away looking at the earth from the moon?” I would have say, “No, no way.” But yet when I first looked back at the earth, standing on the moon, I cried.
— Alan Shepard, Apollo 14
Channeled Message, Goddess Light
Look at the earth. This time, truly look at the higher frequency and vibration. As you do so if you have had any concerns about what is happening you see how much light and energy is present. So too look around the all that is look around at the many ships at the many, many benevolent ones that come both from other planets and the universe all are here working with you. And the planet of earth is becoming brighter and brighter illuminating all that is within and around.
When you look through expanded consciousness it helps you to clear the lower frequency.
You can see it or sense it or feel it. If there is something that comes across your awareness in your daily life and it begins to pull you down again remember this; there is so much light frequency available to the planet, available to all.
You may also have that perception of how easily the energy flows between the earth and these higher frequencies. The all that is has multiple dimensions within it and you have the ability to flow, moving through those many, many dimensions. It is your way of experiencing the ascension process.
Resources:
Be a weird adult
“That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult — if you don’t lose it.” — Kevin Kelly
Tiger heart — a visual poem
Sometimes I dream of a tiger clawing at my chest. In the most recent dream, I discovered him locked in a cage in an abandoned apartment. He was so malnourished he was almost dead. I was also destitute and squatting in what shape-shifted into my old apartment in Oakland. I wanted to feed him, but I was afraid he would get bigger and bigger. I debated setting him free, but I knew he would die. Before I could decide, he broke out of the cage and came after me.
I realize now the tiger is my heart and I have to feed it every day. So every morning I ask my tiger heart what he wants and he says he wants my whole damn life to chomp and chew.
What has carried me (an ever-expanding list)
What has carried me from birth until now has been this: love, the openness of the world, wild overgrown yards, imagining I am a princess warrior, digging for dinosaur bones, calling out for god in the dark, what prayer is, wishes, the sky at night, that one star brighter than the rest, my grandfather communicating from the dead, love, the dimensions of dreams, coincidences — no — synchronicities, magic spells that work, love, being alone but not feeling alone, love that grows claws, my mother in my throat chakra, art as a choice, stretching past my shame, a wide open sky, walking in nature, aliens, the believers, love, a murmuration of birds, love, falling down on my knees, getting back up, a warm bed, nostalgia, oh my god, so much nostalgia, animals as familiars, freedom, every beautiful thing, this incessant flowering of time and life — each day, I open my heart up for the looting.
The resurrection of Phantom Kangaroo
More than 10 years ago, I created an online poetry magazine called Phantom Kangaroo. Its birth could be described like this:
Strange occurrences of kangaroos appearing in areas where they should not be are sometimes reported. Often they appear ghost-like, disappearing or hopping through walls.
Some speculate they are aliens, or spirits haunting us from another dimension. Someone suggested animal teleportation, maybe they bounce in and out of existence. Whatever they are, these phantom kangaroos are an omen. A cryptic warning that you will soon be falling into the unknown. They seem to say: I am real and I am a hoax, and so are you.
Sometimes poems seem to say the same thing. Sightings of these poems can be found here.
I was in my mid-twenties, poor and living in a studio in West Oakland. Phantom Kangaroo was a passion project that, at times, couldn’t sustain itself. Like the cryptid, it hopped in and out of existence. At one point the domain was held hostage by algorithms wanting thousands of dollars to give it back. So I waited it out.
This past year of sheltering and cocooning forced me to rummage through my inner cauldron for all the things that bring me life. Creating a space for poetry is one of them. For the past few months, I worked late nights and weekends to put together something that was long overdue — Phantom Kangaroo: The Anthology. It is a 296-page hardcover book of 300 magical and paranormal poems published during the past decade.
Now that it’s complete and no longer haunting me, I have resurrected the magazine. Issue 24 will be published on June 13, 2021, along with the first ever print magazine. Phantom Kangaroo remains an eerie place for poems. The door to the unknown is now wide open.
Found notes
This note is not dated. Possibly an attempt to time travel. Not sure where the quote came from, but good advice nonetheless.
Dear Claudia of early ‘03 — you will get your heart broken a bunch of times more.
____________
“You should be cooking on all 4 burners.”
Sensory Bathing and Sensory Deprivation
I tried to meditate but it turned into worship. I say “but” when I should say “and.” I am shifting all of my buts and no’s into yes, and(s), because this is where the magic happens.
“I tried to meditate and it turned into worship.”
I realize now that meditation will become whatever it needs to be: breathing, listening, dancing, prayer, channeling — what ever it needs to be.
Right now, I am balancing practices of going inward for guidance and then immersing myself in the environment around me. Here is a practice of sensory immersion I pulled from Angel Tech: A Modern Shamans Guide to Reality Selection:
Close your eyes. Listen, moment-to-moment, to the sounds of your immediate environment. Listen to how your mind may make sense of the sounds: naming, categorizing and figuring them out. Now, give yourself permission to simply listen to the sounds as different energies. You can do this by not associating meaning to any of these sounds and just let the sounds come sweeping through you as currents of sonic energy. Let these sonic forces have their way and go where they may within, around, under and over you. If they like, let them merge forces with other sounds to produce new levels and overtones of sonic resonance. Your sensory task is this: How much can you give yourself over to this experience and let it envelop and encompass you…until you are at one with the sounds?
Grounding yourself with Sensory Bathing
I sit outside in a sunny spot and close my eyes. I listen to each sound and name it. I hear the wind rustling through trees. I hear various birds chirping — different tones. I hear wind chimes, some high, some low. A car’s motor. Loud, nondescript words. A plane flying overhead. Machinery turned on. My dog panting, then lapping water. A horn honking.
Life expanding and contracting.
My perceptive world is all at once multi-dimensional, and I am a part of it. Small and important at the same time.
I am that child crying out. I am the car speeding toward something. I am the rooster crowing. The urgent horn honking. The wind blowing — just passing through.
Going inward with Sensory Deprivation
I don’t deprive myself of all sounds. I use noise-cancelling earbuds to listen to Solfeggio frequencies and soundscapes that connect me with source energy. I put on my eye mask and I go inward. With every breath in I take in energy from the universe and then I breathe out longer than I take in. Every exhale feels like a gift from within. This is how I connect with the consciousness beyond my identity, my physical body and this reality.
Not here. Not the sounds on Earth. No light from this planet leaks through my eye mask.
I go inward — but outside of space and time. It’s dark, and sometimes there are visions, or hallucinations, or imagination — whatever you want to call it.
The things that I see are for me to interpret. And words are spoken — sometimes they make no sound, sometimes I repeat them aloud — messages about me or loved ones or whoever pops into my circle from time to time. In these short moments, I become privy to some arcane knowledge about how the universe works.
I understand how going inward can become addictive. The chasing of enlightenment.
Which is why sensory bathing is needed for grounding yourself. Use whatever methods you need for balance.
A perfect question to wake up to:
So—what do you want? Not just today, or at this moment, but within the arc of your existence?
— Mitch Horowitz, The Miracle Habits
How to ascend (a growing list of ways to elevate your energy)
Unanchor yourself
Make conscious choices
Exist in the waiting period
Sunbathe
Space out the silences
Ask for guidance
Pray & listen (meditate)
Stretch past your shame
See people as energies
Forgive. Accept. Love.
Breathe as deeply as you can into your mind, heart and body
Sound bathe in nature / Soul bathe in nature
Journal entries: March 19
March 19, 2020 — one year ago today
It’s been only a couple of days since a Shelter in Place order has been given to the Bay Area. The situation is this: my husband is still working, nothing has changed for me really, except I am going out into the world even less than I was before.
I am trying to find solace in my own shelter. We have spent a few nights outside watching the sky go grey, then dark. Last Sunday, my husband grilled burgers for us, while we listened to Ryan Adams, and I sat under the patio cover looking at the rain pour down.
It is humbling, it is sobering, it is beautiful, it is expected, it is necessary, it is happening.
I hope we come out of this for the better, I hope we come out of this stronger.
I hope we’re all realizing what really matters, and what really matters are the people we love and wish safe, and our own mental health which is now being tested.
I’ve realized in this self-quarantined time that I need time alone, away from work, yes, but mostly away from my identity as a wife, to write. I regret everyday that I am not writing, and every day that passes that I don’t reflect or look inward at what is happening inside.
When I die, I will die alone. I need to make peace with myself before then.
One thing that has been coming to light since this all began is how grateful I am, every single day, to not be a mother. Right now, it’s just the two of us and our quiet, sweet pets and I couldn’t ask for more.
Let’s imagine the worst case scenario. Everyone must be quarantined at home for the remainder of their lives.
How will we be aching to connect?
Right now I just want to let the world go. Instead, I want to swan dive into the stars, echoing out:
Is anyone here?
March 19, 2021 — today
It’s been more than a year now since the world shut down, and I’m finally seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. My husband is fully vaccinated. I just got my first shot. I’m letting myself be excited about the Summer.
The things that happened, or unfolded, in the last year — death, retreat, loss — none of it really changed me. I still recognize that voice in last year’s journal entry. She was a woman who sat in acceptance and gratitude.
We all went inward this past year, and what it did for me was center me more firmly.
Five years ago today, my husband proposed to me on a hike in the Marin Headlands. I am dubbing March 19 the day of acceptance.
I never wanted to be a wife. I was resolved to spend my days alone in a trailer surrounded by books and mystical objects found in thrift stores. I was very lucky to find someone that makes me feel free and in love.
This past year sequestered in our home together was, for the most part, fun — like an adventure. I’m always hesitant to share that, because I know how hard it was for others, but I will never apologize for that.
I made a conscious choice to marry my husband. Before I made the final decision to not have children I read books like Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity and Regretting Motherhood: A Study, and more importantly, I talked about it a lot with my therapist. It is by far the most self-aware, conscious choice I have ever made for myself, and I can honestly say, the best choice I’ve ever made for myself.
Everything that brings me happiness and is a benefit to my life was born out of conscious choices.
Conscious choices don’t have to be hard to make. I quiet the voice. I consume information. I listen to the way my body reacts. I feel for my soul in the dark. I discover a reality that’s already unfolded. I always already know the answer.
Be the ideal place
“I’ve been searching for years for the ideal place. And I’ve come to the realization that the only way to find it is to be it.” — Alan Watts
Visual: Mind Voyages I
Here’s a gif I made of what I see when I meditate, attempting to traverse space consciousness.
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
— Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe