These are some older pictures of myself when I began this cycle. It has caused me to refect upon the now. Here I am living in the same state --- potentially taking on the same job that I had, where I once lived; many moon cycles before. What have I learned since then?
Going back to massage therapy, again. I am retaking the exam tomorrow and apparently writing a blog post is on the list of things to-do. I am not worried about it, quite the contrary. I understand my view of the body before I entered the workforce and now after a decade more of academia; I sit before you with zero degrees.
Cheers to new beginnings as an artist.
The goal is to live here in order to save up as much money as we possibly can this year (2022) and to buy a house. Oh, the irony. The full-time writer gig does not pay too well at the moment. Alas, writing -- it is a journey of bewonderment. Where I create the magic inside of the kaleidoscope of images inside my mind's eye. I must go back to the old profession in order to rebuild, again. And time and time again I fall back in love with the power of touch; each time a different perspective. This time knowing the benefits it will serve me, as it gives me time to think.
The magic of natural medicine comes down to the body healing itself. And I am not a "healer" if all have a genetic code that heals (and self destructs). My touch is as powerful as any human hand. For good, for bad. And the more I ponder my own mortality, and make peace with death -- I honor its purpose and plan. There are so many unknowns, and answers I do not know. Only those in the furtue know the unknown only to looks back at us and says, "duh? How didn't you know that?"
The greatest thing a massage therapist does -- is touch a person, lay hands on another, and comfort them for the time. Its safe, its consentual, its helpful to the soul. There is a trance that happens once one learn to dance around the body. And I honor that; made peace with my plot in my life and worked hard to figure out my own path forward -- to now beginning to take that voyage on the inside. (Instead of a trip all around the world). I could never escape myself, so I sat with myself and said -- "what the fuck do you want?"
To write has been the answer for a long time for me, and perhaps I hated that. I could not just simply -- write; for the longest time I sat stumped, stopped up. The flow would not come until it did. Always at the perfect timing of the universe. And then I didn't want to turn it off and I felt like I was making a choice: to give up art and become a doctor, or vise versa. I had to figure out how to do one thing over and over again in order to gain skill, and I have far too many interests not to be a writer. All the things I could have known in another profession, on another timeline of mine -- I can still write down on paper, now. And that's what I want: to do what I want when I want.
Is that so wrong?
Is that so bad?
Is that so horrible?
I wrestle with seeing the good in me, and the perspective I once saw the world through was flawed. And I was terrible, I was angry. Am I to hate myself for my sins? Even the tiny ones feel as large as murder when you believe that if you don't believe -- I'd been sitting in hell next to {insert an infamous war criminal]. All this comparison for simple missteps, even though one couldn't be good enough to go to heaven -- only the blood of jesus sets one free. Already the godly example is perfection, born from the semen of a heavenly being. All of the details were so confusing?!
Just, how did it work exactly?
Throughout my massage career there has been a lot of time to think. And I spent that time pondering the nature of what I believed; and my opinion has changed -- along with it, my personality. Perhaps, what I am shedding is the shame that stuck to me like tar; causing behavioral maladaptions as if mud had been slung onto a cars windshield. Once again, I beginning again and start the journey off anew. I am going back to the career that I fell into when I was eighteen years old.
And I feel grateful to witness this path with new eyes, and appreciate it -- again -- for what could be the last time.
Could be, but who the fuck knows.
