by Leilah
https://leilahnancywallaceward.substack.com/
Reluctantly sharing the feelings that have been inside of me for several days now. They come and go but for now they’ve settled like an uninvited houseguest, a grey visitor, sitting in the corner, icicles for fingers, long scraggly hair squirming over a dirty grey sack of a robe. “I’ve been here all along, you know,” its cold voice rasps from its hollow chest. “Lurking, always at the edge of your awareness.” Thriving on cold, grey days that blend one into the other, sunless skies, a liminal space between winter and spring. Sucking out any hope, inspiration, creativity. Any spark of an idea falls with a thud, the resonance dulled by heavy, aching nothingness.
I can’t do anything. There’s my easel, there’s my keyboard, there’s my ukulele, a world of color in my pastel boxes, and I got nothin’, no inspiration to delight and spiral me out of my chair into a world of play. Just scrolling on the social media thing that’s taken over, distracting me with bits of history from places I’ve lived, comments and posts from friends, some of whom I’ve never met in person, funny memes that soften the doom of our political world. I think I was better off before that platform took over, but I like seeing friends from long ago and friends from now, a love-hate push and pull dance. How about I take this one day and don’t go there at all? Just one day. See what that’s like.
And still that grey being sitting in the corner, never taking its black glittering eyes off me.
“I see you. Are you this cold I’ve had for over a week now?”
It is day 9 of a cold I probably picked up on an airplane returning from visiting family in the States. I feel like it’s raining inside of me. I feel so isolated. No one has reached out to see how I’m doing. Everyone is immersed in their own lives, of course. I’m feeling sorry for myself. This cold keeps almost going away and then morphing into something else. A cold used to last about four days, maybe a week. What is this? Is it part of the changing climate, the melting of the permafrost, freeing all kinds of viruses, to coil and curl their grey way on eddies of air looking for hosts to thrive their newfound freedom in?
“No, I am not the cold you feel. I am the specter of despair. I linger, sometimes very far away, sometimes coming in close, I shiver you in your dreams, when you’re vulnerable, when the world goes dark.”
You are the energy that is roaming the earth, influencing your minions to do your bidding in the name of something righteous, a religion or a family value, to put controls on creative expression of all kinds, and now that we are casting you out, you are trying to double down your efforts but you’re weak, you’re transparent and whiny and you are not wanted here nor anywhere.
Oh despair, how lonely you are, how unloved and cold.
I am a warrioress, a change weaver, a maker of magic, a planter of seeds of light. I may be down at the moment, but this feels more like a purge than a permanent condition.
…Now, it’s two weeks later – to the day, actually. Outside, wind is whistling, whipping rain against the windows. That specter of despair is lurking still, but further away now as light of creative inspiration has risen within me once again. I feel much better physically and I’ve started a new painting – a snow scene that has subtle light nuances. It’s the light which makes me want to do this painting. Drawn to the light, knowing that the light is part of the final touch, the last strokes of color embodying that moment when the light rises out of the painting. It feels so expansive when I get to that part of a painting. Sometimes I find myself holding my breath as I touch the soft pastel delicately to the paper. In that moment, I pull myself back ever so slightly so as not to over work the atmosphere.
I’m back, I’m alive and I am witnessing the discord, I see the specter as part of a collective consciousness of fear and loathing. Someone posted a meme somewhere about optimism and how important it is for us to be in that mind-set, knowing that everything is going to be OK. We – all of Humanity – are in a delicate moment of our evolution and we are challenged to trust that whatever happens, it is part of our evolutionary process moving towards love and kindness.
We can keep bringing the light into our beings and shifting our focus from the intrusion of the ever-present news cycle. It is always there, but it’s so important for each of us to find our light – what we enjoy, the little things, the small moments, and moments where creativity flows within us. Breathe it in and amplify it through our beings and out into the field of energy around us. We are transmitters and receivers of energy and if we keep receiving too much of the cacophony, it allows the specter to come in close. As champions of mirth, playfulness, lightness of being, we know the light within us is stronger than the specter of despair. It may come to visit but when we remember to find love within ourselves, the specter recedes because it cannot exist where love is shining
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