in the snowy part of my heart, you exist as a memory

today begins the new day, where I begin something again : return to pick up the pieces of fragments, and all of the shattered glass across the course of my life. today returns to me with wilted hands and coos of remembrance. tomorrow, today, today, tomorrow, yesterday, a circle, a line bent inward, surrounding me.

yesterday: I began (or rather heard) a poem come from the inside that whispered its way into my fingertips that said :

`` in the snowy part of my heart, 

you exist as a memory 

that was all it said. 

and yet it continued, and changed, and imprinted itself into my font, and here it is, changing everything all over again. 

my schedule, with myself, has been circumventing itself around my intentions, or perhaps, it is giving me the gift of Surrender. Sometimes it is hard to tell. I know I am deeply grateful to be away and out of the heavy chains of institutional schooling (for so far, coming into 5 moths, 5 moths for 5 months). This is a long time. And a short time. And sometimes I miss the structured communal feeding. Frequently: honoring many sides. 

I am feeling exalted by art lately, exalted by words, by discovery, by slowing coming out of a cave : the Terror Cave. Following an inner thread, and trusting, as I am led out of the cave and into the bright sun. Actually, it is quite grey and rainy as I step outside. My body feels chill and I forget who I am. The air percolates with disaster. 

I am walking into a world 

I am walking with a world 

that is broken open and bleeding fast 

There is something strange and familiar about expecting a sun beam and receiving a rain storm. There is something E might understand about that. 

So many in me. 

I spent hours with the Beloved this morning, dreaming and speaking threads into the air , arising in the dark together, eyes open, reminding each other of the love we deserve upon waking. 

This dream thread (which the Raven carries with itself as it speaks to the Ancients), carried a big picture urgency : as well as a real, stable anchor of possibility. I love when dreams feel like that. 

Easier to pull down from the clouds of inside, 

if there are many hands, 

and the weight 

is full. 

Vine Deloria speaks of  `community historical consciousness` and this echoes in my mind.

I am very often enraptured by the brilliance and inspiration of other people, and the way they use their words. What they pluck, pick, suck from the Void. Coming and Going. Back and forth. From the void to here. Tracing the lines. Honor the lineage. Remember the time. Context. Measure. Weight. 

Perhaps it is a kind of orientation. 

|| “Orienting” takes place on both an “overt and covert level.” Overt orienting includes “visible physical actions of turning, particularly the eyes and often the head and the body, in the direction of an environmental stimulus.” In contrast, covert orienting “does not require muscular change; instead, an ‘inner’ or ‘mental’ shift in attention from one environmental stimulus to another” takes place (Siegel, 2012, p. 66). People who have experienced trauma may struggle with “synchronizing overt and covert orienting” which means they might “overtly orient to everyday stimuli while covertly orienting toward trauma-related stimuli” || 

(https://sapac.umich.edu/article/trauma-power-based-violence-sexual-health)

This twirk, twinge, change inside. The tension between overt and covert. How often do I walk around overtly orienting to safety and covertly orienting to a feeling of unsafe? 

Shame. Shame is hot, I heard my mind say yesterday. As someone spoke to me. First the body sensation, then the color, then the thought. Red fire. Hot. 

(())

To wrestle with, learn from, and give in to a sickening feeling of being strangled. I am interested in what Z speaks about : with kink for social change, as I am longing to learn how to consciously submit and free myself from this forced submission. 

art is truly, as CA Conrad says, survival. poetry in motion. a gesture offered to the Void. 

^ the beginning of r : o : p : e, studies : of self. w/ edie angela & the space between