I feel like my life lost some soul. None of my art gets done. My son and husband are tv addicts. We have a big dumb male dog that pisses me off almost everyday. I don’t need that. I’m living the life I never wanted: suburbia style tv culture.
I read a book called ‘creating a life worth living’ written by someone who’s worked with big name artists. For some reason I feel like it doesn’t apply to me, that I’m doomed to not find a niche, that I’m cursed to failure.
And I’m afraid to speak what I believe. Like when our cat was really sick and my impulse was to put him out of his misery but didn’t want to be the ‘bad guy’ so agreed to phone the vet. The cat’s dead and we owe $800.
So much for my “big inheritance”.
I still feel suicidal. My depression kicks in when we’re all home. That’s why I like being at the martial arts school, it’s not stagnant there. Our house feels stagnant.
It wouldn’t affect charismatic and happy creative people but I’m already depressed and my partner is a tv addict so our son is too.
I feel like I’m being destroyed and all I can do is watch.
I’m learning self-defense at martial arts, but how do I defend myself against my self? A part of me totally seeks to destroy me.
I haven’t quite cultivated self love. I feel like I lost whatever advances I made before we moved here, and we’ve lost what little soul we had living in this town.
I bet no one really knows what I’m about. Maybe I don’t allow myself to speak “spirit” stuff because I don’t feel worthy anymore. Not like I felt worthy before, now I feel like I lost my chance . . .

Here’s another feeling: not being aligned.
What do I mean?
In my dreams I feel like an observer and I do not have my full awareness, I am unconscious in them therefore I only remember them afterwards. I have not aligned my (lower?) Self. In waking life I have my faculties when I’m alone. In interactive situations I don’t feel all there, because everything goes too fast and I have no time to think of what to say next. I feel like my “true” self steps back and is merely an observer, thus the people that should know who/what I am only see a dork who laughs too much. I make light of stuff too much. At martial arts class I laugh a lot but at home I’m severely depressed. What a typical Gemini and that’s only my moon sign.

I am afraid of behaving “impeccably”, “honestly” because I don’t want to stand out.
I grew up in a culture of lies and deceit, where soothsayers and nature spirit-type people are laughed at (mom - she always made fun of ‘eccentric’ people).
I never liked to stand out yet never wanted to assimilate into such a sick and malevolent culture. I hate being the oddball; I like being different and have my own style but only as long as the others around me are different in their personal style as well.
That is one of the root causes of my seemingly endless depression.

You are the embodiment of the Great Goddess, She who knows the Mysteries, the Hag!
The pain inflicted on Gaia is the same as what you suffered.
You are Her reflection and She is stubborn.
She cannot be destroyed.
Her strength resides in you and brings new life to your intentions.
You remember the echoes of the Ancients and your yearning for knowledge urges you on.

You gotta keep going because you have a lot of experience to share, your symbolism for past events has to be shared. Bring it to the light, (light destroys dark-loving germs). When you share experiences through art, you contribute to the “critical mass” consciousness. Like rubbing a dogs nose in its feces, the assholes of the world have to have their shit rubbed on their piggie noses; they must be confronted through public media. That magazine you told me about will get bigger as they get more material, so that’s why you have to get stubborn and insist to yourself on portraying your feelings for publication.
You have to heal, I try to send healing your way, all the way across the provinces. I wish we could have chant sessions and herbal tea fasts together. That’s what your soul needs. The fasting gives your body a chance to concentrate on active healing instead of just having to digest. Leave your festering parts in Ontario, and come back to the cooling waters of the North West, where everything is green. We can work on a chant of the Green Goddess, get reacquainted with the fertile God through Nature.
There’s a second lifetime ahead of you (everybody else too, for that matter) it was talking about grandpas that die at the age of 80 or 90 that made me think of that. You can’t just give up half way, you can birth yourself, I’d like to do that too, have an intense ritual of sweat and fasting and chanting and crying.
You’ve got to come back, we have a car so getting around to parks and stuff is easy. Especially since the busses here are on strike for over a month now and there’s no sign of them going to work any time soon.
I don’t talk on the phone as much as I write or say in person. That’s why you got to come back.
I’m transcribing my journal so all that stuff I wrote will be out in the light for people to read and remember, “oh, yeah I had an acid trip like that”!!!! Har Har Har!
I don’t want to sound morbid but I hope this letter makes it in your hands and your eyes read. You can’t go because I’d miss you, dammit!
I just walked over to the tarot cards to pick one for you with the High Priestess whispering in my head and I reached in the bag without pulling them out and pulled one from the middle and guess which one I picked? Your destiny spoke. It must have been, because my emotions were on cry mode thinking of you and the impulse to pick a card was quite strong. I hadn’t consulted them for months. So there. You’re a High Priestess and so am I and we got stuff to do. A friend here is one too (like us, alone and in secret) she’s an animal person too and you’ll like her. It feels like people that cross my path become linked and a lot of them are imbued with goddess and/or ‘medecine’ energy. Well, I gotta go, Later alligator!

Hey girlfriend! long time no hear. how ya doin'? thought I'd say hi. I enjoyed a herb crafting workshop last weekend. led by Root Woman. She taught it really well, with a sense of humor and letting the participants come up with their own theories and knowledge. I'm transcribing my journal finally. it's interesting to read the stuff I wrote during the White Buffalo time. met any interesting Goddesses lately?
we're still doing our martial arts. we're testing this weekend so we'll be green belts next week. yay! well, see ya!

June 12, 1999

Hello again Rootwoman!
this is me from the herb workshop last month on the Sunshine coast. I'm glad I followed my feelings and signed up for it; the shop lady helped by buying a bunch of little dreamcatchers I was selling outside her giftshop where she organized an open air art-show, so I gave her cheque back and traded for the workshop instead. The significance of the things traded feels important, the symbolism of the web and the very real and physical world of plants.
there's a bunch of plant folk I know on Gospel Rock where we walk our dog and I love them! (I sat and thought and thought of what to write after 'dog' and decided to just simplify things!) This early spring I ate, not a lot, the young very tender shoots of blackberry because it was so fragrant and sweet then my period came on sooner than usual . . . then I remembered the labor inducer raspberry leaf tea. duh. so I quit eating those! the leaves and especially the flower buds of the thimble berry bush smells really perfumy and they must be good for something; so far they're just something pretty smelling as I walk along the trail. then there's the one I call the warrior porcupine plant: it's covered in big severe spines that makes it look really angry. I guess it looks like a dandelion that's prepared for war. Whatever medecine it's got probably has to do with heavy defense measures. Maybe they're packed with iron! We just got a comfrey plant from a friend's yard. yay! Next year I can make a salve, we have an SPCA foster cat that has a intense flea allergy and just got de-scabbed and treated with hydrocortisone and they gave us four month's worth of Advantage. Anyway, I want to try comfrey stuff on him to heal up any recurring flea bites. I've always wanted to learn medecine scientific kind of things but shied away from standard schools. You know what taught me a lot? Jean Auel's series of books Clan of Cave Bear etc; the way she wrote them in such detail, I learned how to skin an animal from it because, years later when we just moved to Gibsons we found a racoon that was still soft laying in the road and a discarded garbage bag in the ditch not far away, I thanked the spirits for that, and while I skinned it I remembered what I read. Now I have a beautiful raccoon skin to display my art at fairs and I've used it as part of a Halloween ensemble. Well, I think I should end this letter with a thank you for being who you are, reflecting the Light clearly. check this out:
Growth
Order
Diversity. . . the proliferation of different life forms is a clear example of G.O.D. hee hee hee OK now I gotta go. bye.

June 15, 1999

hello Rootwoman,
it's really neat that you dreamed about me before getting my e-mail!
I got your e-mail on Tuesday so I hope it's not too late for the "porcupine plant" thing. . . I have to remember to look it up in my martial arts instructor's book on north american plants; the spiny buddy I spoke of looks like it has angry dandelion leaves and now it is waist high with no flower yet. each spike points up and down alternatively. I'd send a drawing if I could but I haven't figured out how to 'import' a drawing from the Paint program into the windows messaging. Anyhow, about the book, I would be thrilled to do a drawing of plant spirit (most nights I read aloud a book we borrowed about ethnobotanists that explored the Amazon in the past century called "one river". . . )
A friend from Ontario just called to say thank you for the letter I sent her last week: she's dying of cancer and the way she said bye was rather final. I wish I could help her. . . the timing of the phone call was significant because her situation is a microcosm of the world: her body initially abused then being at strife with itself. The healing is so simple yet so complex if thought about and analyzed too long.
I haven't picked up any of your books yet; maybe we could trade reading/practice material for artwork. I love trading because it cuts out the whole corrupted system of banks. Maybe I'm just a rebel! well thanks for the e-mail and I'll start working on drawing plant stuff. I might have something already drawn. see ya later.

Received from Root Woman - June 19, 1999

I have submitted the article, I think you will get a kick out of the reference to your porcupine friend.

Sure, lets trade books for art. . . tis good!

Wade Davis I believe wrote the One River right? I enjoyed that and I enjoy him. . . there are others of the same genre that are interesting too.

As I grow older I find that I am easier about helping others to pass over with dignity. . . we are all born terminal. . and yet we forget, get attached to worldly things eh?

I think you and I could have good talks and walks. For now we have e-mail. . thank god I am not a luddite!!!!

Be well my friend RW

reply - June 19

Dear Rootwoman
I am battling with myself about technology. . . this morning me and my son had a battle over video games. A lot of our arguments have a root cause of video or tv show. So this morning I've had enough of the unwanted video game stuff - in a fit of rage I unattached all the wires and dumped the whole kit and kaboodle in a box, hating the curse of technology. He had his friends over so they went outside to play (like normal kids). I sat down to write my stuff after I check e-mail. I put in a cd of whale music that our son really likes, which made me feel remorseful, so I thought of going out to make amends or whatever but hesitated when I heard them play and realized that they'd forgotten already. Lucky them. So I went back to write in my hidden computer room, where I sat thinking of the technological paradox, the dilemma of wasted genius because of over use of pre-fabricated video games or the use of computers to compose or communicate. . . then I went in the message program, it connected, and I got two letters, one from you and one from my landlord. I read yours first and had an intense moment which always bring tears to my eyes. It was the luddite thing, I'm a luddite in a lot of ways, but I really like computers. Luddites weren't really against the machines themselves, it was the fact that they saw the deteriorating quality of life and unemployment that resulted from the mis-use of machines.
The porcupine buddy has grown tall and no longer looks bushy. Now it looks like a thistle but the leaves are not shiny, they are soft with nasty spikes at each leaf vein and on top it has an unfurled thistle-like flower. And we found a bunch of them on our morning walk growing near regular thistle, with the shiny curly leaves. When I break the leaf slowly, it does that mucilaginous fiber stuff, (in grade school we used to put Elmer's glue between our fingers and rapidly tap them together to form a fine 'spider web' which we would wind around our pencils.) I think it's probably a thistle.
Yes, it's wade davis. It's a good book, one night we got to a part where it describes the horrors that happened before schultes got there, the rubber trade and mercenaries etc, the descriptions went on and on. I read a whole paragraph full of nothing but descriptions of people getting mutilated, especially the children, I had to edit the rest of it because our son was listening too. Not only that but it was even starting to upset hardened ol' us! What a harsh karma that is, those poor people who didn't deserve that treatment. That makes me think of a thought yesterday, because of a fence built by a church to 'keep out trespassers' but it blocked a vital trail that links upper and lower Gibsons, I thought of christianity as hypocritical but then realized it's simply the monotheistic religions that are hypocrite. . . which brings to mind the monocultures of now. . . which brings to mind not only canola fields but mass people playing the same video game, watching the same tv shows, wearing the same nike shirts.
The lack of diversity is the 'devil' and it keeps being fed by monoculturalism, which seeks to destroy creativity.
whew!
My friend from Ontario has phoned a couple times since and maybe she'll try to live. She has to give up smoking though, which makes her feel worse with withdrawal (a heavy smoker). She read to me a poem I wrote to her that I forgot about, and I really like it when the spirit takes possession and the words flow in the right order. It only happens when it wants to though. That's probably why I'm not good at steady jobs (besides the fact that they're always minimum wage) so I hope my encouragement will give her the push she needs to not just give up. She's so much like me, just ten years older, ten times more abused. Delicate flower bird that got silenced and crushed by heavy male boots. Just like in that book.
Can empathy be learned or taught? why do some people have so much while others don't notice anything and don't care? (I ask a lot of rhetorical questions that used to drive my partner nuts because he'd thought I really wanted him to answer them!) The empathy of the world is unevenly distributed, the same way money is. (I usually answer my rhetorical questions too!) Trade empathy for money. Huh? Yuppies buying enlightenment. What? Corporations sponsoring educational facilities. Somehow those things aren't it.
I really enjoy writing, and writing to someone is always inspiring and I end up writing a whole bunch of stuff! You understand about what kind of changes our culture needs, I'm glad I met you. Our martial arts instructor is into the understanding of culture change, being a teacher he contributes to the Light mission. Growth Order Diversity I really like that anagram because it would appeal to the Christian nation who controls most of the money. My God-dess has infinite faces. Ok. Now I'll go and direct this energy on my journal transcription.

Blessed Be.
next page