To start, always, with a list of contradictions. Counter dictations that have lured my mental minnows. These statements are truth and falsity.

I am not my body; I am my body.

I have arrived; I am always arriving.

To unlearn is to learn.

I love myself; I am nothing.

I am.

The ego is our downfall; there is no ego.

We medicate to feel healthy.

My labels are my brand; I am beyond the labels of me.

Only when you love yourself, will you be able to love someone else.

Big, small moments. Small, big moments.

You can never walk a life in someone else’s shoes.

The indigenous here harvested corn, beans, and squash; corn subsidies and subsequent corn syrup mono crops have destroyed small farms and small intestines, vast lands and vast humans.

Words don’t matter; words win wars.

Hurt bodies hurt bodies.

We are living souls trapped inside human bodies.

A biological woman’s menstrual cycle is her intuitive power. “You’re too emotional.”

Menstruation is the womb of life; shame the woman, for she has bled.

I was more me when I arrived than I am now.

I have a cunt; “Don’t call it that!”

Empathy is impossible; to empathize is the path.

History: His story or Hi, story?

You are responsible for your own learning; teachers are the ones who teach you.

The sisterhood of sorority, lifelong and temporal.

One plus one equals one.

Bunny rabbits have the frailest hearts; they dance at dawn for no reason except joy.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, but is the goal the trying, or the succeeding?

You are gifted. You are separate. Can you change?

You can only grow when the space is empty.

You are the one you’ve been waiting for.

I’m feeling the twitterpation of my mental situation want to play with the invitation of contradiction. Of messages I have received, of lessons I’ve picked up or wanted to leave, of moments where I remember being told how, or who, to be. And yet, there is no one who keeps me from being me, I speak to my inner child, my inner elder, my current one. I am the one I’ve been waiting for.

This floor under me, earth suffocating while human holding, is ground that doesn’t actually connect us to the Mother. It rests atop foundations of Other, waiting to see if we, humans, can still feel, feel, feel the heartbeat of the Earth. I do. Cheek pressed to the mountain; cheek pressed to you. I feel, no I think, and that is when I begin to sink.

When that whirling, twirling chatter of my mind opens up wide, like a VHS tape begins to rewind, to a place and a time of darkness. Of now what? Where? Who? Asking questions with no answers; telling me answers are always onwards. Where? Somewhere. I go. Out to the sun rising, setting, holding up the sky. Breathe and sigh. From my nose that moves when I speak to the very tip of my feet. You, dear one, are always arriving, walking the footsteps back to the cave where I thought I had saved myself from, that place of protection where I knew no direction other than forward: the wall, and the dancing shadows. Is it real? Never. But it was. Not. How many of us perform reality?

This casualty, killing off the truth for the promise of something more, I feel it in my shoulders, as if my soul is sore. Exhausted at day’s end, without time for love, or dance, or play. Humans who save joy for “Happy Hour” on Friday. With jobs that promise happiness yet keep us feeling alone. What is it we measure our lives against? Where is this final home? The metric of success inaccessible, a fence slicing through brown earth. Land with stories smothered, the erasure of human birth. Governmental shears and pencils, writing humans into war. Breaking down what matters into fragments of no more.

So where do I go to learn more of the truth? Media promises answers, but the doves sing sweeter tunes. The TV doesn’t suit me, nor the sports, nor the news. I find myself in whirlpools, ask what is real and true? Positivity doesn’t sell, and so the stories do not share, how humans help one another, how much we really care. And if we never see how amazing we can be, we might then believe how crazy we can be. Is there a good and evil, a proverbial right and wrong? I wrestle with the labels, each one its own siren song. A beckoning of lost sailors: this is the path, please, come here. And so I begged the siren as she killed me in my fear.

There are no answers, just questions, the philosophers tell me wisely. But Rilke, much as I love you, there must be answers hiding. We live in a world of facts, with broken dreams and a need to react. It’s not our fault, we plea in court. We were spoon fed a diet of lies. But the judges drink the Cool-Aid, and honesty knows how to die.

So how do I live a life on purpose, rather than a purpose-seeking life? To learn how to sit with myself, to be real, side by side. This flow of words, a river, like droplets on parched earth. I feel myself full and empty, my own dying and rebirth. The Man wants us to stay with the familiar, never to see my bubble as my cage. Because to do so pops the illusion, ignites a spark, invites the rage. That many things are broken, and we all all want to be seen. How to view my separation as an invite into meaning?

Come back home to yourself, start to clear out space. Dust the mantles of misinformation, sweep the corners of disgrace. Home is not a place outside, it is a connection within. And if we all are fully here, our true healing can begin. This life is so precious, and I know, the time is now. There will not be tomorrow for each of us, anyhow. And so, if we have the chance to speak up, what will we say? That we’re weird and lonely and loving and fighting for a space. That we want to matter to someone, to the entire human race? That we all hope for belonging, that we all hope you’ll hear our case?

To see a neighbor without judgment, is it possible, such a task? I hope so, I wonder. I lay my fingers down to rest.