The Poet Priestess

I am currently working with the very luscious Lady Lisa Lister of Sassyology, and she is inspiring my personal truth-be-told style of writing. This post is a little bit of a departure from my usual Pagan and Poetry based blogs, but I felt called to share it. Today we were exploring the idea of letting go of the safety of repeating old patterns and taking the safe path, and instead becoming the heroine of our own story. It hit home with me in a big way, ripped me up a little inside, and forced me to face my own reflection. This is what inspiration feels like – a mix of pleasure and pain, excitement and fear, and the inescapable desire to express it. I challenge you to also  explore the idea of your own hero story, your own journey, of becoming the leading role in the tale of you. If the lovely Lisa inspires you as much as I, then check her out here.

In the meantime, this is me – Writing my freakin’ heart out and bleeding all over the page.

“In my dreams I am the everyday superhero. The one without magical powers, but is fit and fabulous enough to leap fences, kick ass, know every form of street fighting and martial arts, who can pull terrified people together, who can save those in distress, who can fight the monsters, who can win the war, who can save the day. I totally rock in my dreams. I face Armageddon with barely a blink, I take on the zombie apocalypse with style and determination, I face the end of the world with a Fuck Yeah attitude. I run, I jump, I race, I fight, I fuck, I fly helicopters and I feel completely alive in the face of death. I am the hero on the journey. And I will survive.

Then I wake in my less than athletic body, desperately trying to remember those martial arts moves that seemed so easy a few moments ago. I face a day that I know will be filled with the necessary but not pleasurable, less exciting, less exhilarating. I tell myself that it is better, that I do not want the adrenalin pumping, heart racing, often terrifying world of my dreams. I tell myself that normal is nice. But I still wonder if the world I wake into is actually my dream – that the normality of life is my brains way of relaxing and repairing itself because the world I truly live in is the one of endless hero journey. And I wonder if I escape into the world of hero because the challenges there make more sense, follow a more understandable pattern, and have a higher success rate for saving the world than the challenges I face in my day to day life as Mama and Me. I wonder which one is the real me. I wonder which one I want to be.

The Psychiatrist leans forward. “Tell me about your Mother.” As Mother I am the root cause of my children’s desires, denials, dysfunctions. I am the background to their tale, to their own journey, to their own hero story. They are the focus, I am the constant flashback. As Wife, I am the sidekick in the story of the leading man. I am the love interest, the background presence. In this case, I am the turbulent presence that changes everything. If I step up and take the leading role in the drama of my own life, I become the focus. Suddenly, everything revolves around me. Life happens, and the choices I make when I respond to life is what writes the story. Suddenly, everything I do, everything I say, every action I take, has more weight and more substance. I feel like the world is watching and waiting. I get stage fright.

I used to act. I once loved being on the stage. I lived a vicarious life through the roles that I played, constantly becoming someone other than me. I sang, I danced, I cried real tears, I lived as my character. I don’t remember when it changed. There came a slow dawning of realisation that I was spending my time as other people because I could not face being myself. And worse, I realised that the characters I played were always fractions of my own soul and by standing on stage feeling that character, living that character, I was revealing snippets of my own soul to complete strangers for their approval or condemnation. I stopped acting. I couldn’t face the masks anymore. I still wear those masks though – I wear the mask of Mama, Wife, Friend, Lover, Confident, Sister, Daughter, Aunt, Fairy Godmother, Artist, Author, Priestess and Witch. Each mask is but one role in the story of my life, a snippet of the whole. I play the parts as necessary, and I rarely drop one unless I am wearing another. I went from public performance to private performance. I became the chameleon in my own twisted tale.

Somewhere under all the stage makeup, props and pretty masks is my true face. I catch glimpses of it on occasion, with eyes wide and dark with desire, lips wet with want, and a body bursting with a need to express. I walk past a mirror and I am caught by surprise when I no longer see tired eyes, but someone beautiful smiling back at me. In brief and stunning ways I see myself as complete. I think it is happening more often now. The crisis has come, my world has altered, the land shifted beneath my feet, and I have had no choice but to find my balance. I have been thrust full force into a new story, one where there is only I to take the wheel and steer my life in a new direction. My drama is no longer quiet and normal, no longer a background piece, but a fully-fledged, on the edge of the sofa, what-the-hell-is-going-to-happen-next, personal hero journey. It is filled with pain and heartache, love and laughter, fighting and fucking, dreams and desires, motivation and manifestation. It is filled with tears of sadness, grief, joy and relief. It is filled with challenges that I sink my teeth into and gnaw upon, biting and ripping and tearing with anger and rage and a will to survive. It is filled with potential, with promise, with opportunities that I don’t see coming. It is a story of surprising interest, a sudden shift, something that woke me out of a sleepy state and sent me scurrying for the nearest weapon so that I could stand as a warrior and face the day. In the rush to find my feet, I dropped all my masks and stood naked and raw, vulnerable and strong. I surprised myself.

I am no longer being led by life, but am stepping into the leading lady role. I find myself staring at my past, present and future reflection, swearing and shouting at her to move. I look at her grinning, tear stained face, at her battle scars, at her awakening body, at her flexing form and I grin with her. My reflection cocks her head at me and I tense my fists. It is no longer a matter of which one I am or who I want to be, my dream me or my daytime me. I am all things. I am.

My reflection shows me the truth behind the laughter and the tears. I look at her and finally see myself. I watch her lips move. Bring it on, we got this.“