Well…I have gone deep into my darkness. It was bound to happen. I think a lot of it is just a reaction to all the euphoria that I have felt over the past 10 days or so. All the excitement, the change, I need to return to my cave and just ‘be’. I began a descent into the underworld in the winter, which is natural. I consciously decided that I wanted to see how deep the cavern went. Then all of this 'drama' began. It was the perfect opportunity to be introspective. There is a curfew. There wasn’t much else to do. Interesting how God gives you exactly what you need. Wow!

I was euphoric in the beginning, watching my world turn upside down. I was being given the opportunity to experience something completely new. Fascinating! I was facing a new kind of darkness, and confronting fear, a new adventure. It forced me to see how I had shifted, and that was good. But now it is getting old and now we are at the point where we just have to endure. Endurance is not my strong point. I am a person who moves from inspiration, it is my guidance. I have a lot of energy for change, it fuels me, but I don't have energy to maintain anything. I now accept that about myself. Doesn't necessarily make life easier to embrace that but it is who I am.

Now I am descending again. Seems I came up for air and to recharge my battery, to see what was going on. This descent is quite interesting I must say. Not only is it clarifying to go into your depths but also very creative. Man there is really a lot of good stuff in the darkness! We know that the chaos, the unknown, holds the potential for everything. I feel like I found a whole room or wing of my house that I never knew existed. A room filled with treasures. As I enter and go through all the stuff there I find they are real treasures, gifts. And they are all a part of me. Pieces that I never knew existed. Wow!

What is interesting is that this is actually a recurring dream of mine. I mean REALLY recurring. I couldn't even count how many times I have had it. In the dream I am always in a house that know is mine but it looks like some amazing Gothic castle not the house that I am presently living in. It is always the beauty of the house that makes me remember the dream upon waking. I wake up remembering the amazing 'home' and then I remember the whole dream.

In the dream I am always in a room looking around in wonderment 'wow, I didn't realize my house was so big, so amazing'. Then I open a door and find a whole other room or section of house and note 'I didn't realize this was here'. I begin to go through the rooms, looking at all the things in there in amazement.

I know the house symbolizes the Self, the place that we dwell. After remembering the dream I always think 'wow there must be a lot of stuff I don't realize is there'. But have never ventured to find it. Now I understand what those dreams were telling me! And now I understand how to access it in a waking state. But I need to be willing and fear less to go there.

So what I have found so far in those rooms? Longing, parts of myself that I had chosen to reject, a poet, an abuser...all very illuminating, an amazing journey with many tears and sobering realizations. Fear not the darkness for that is where our true selves dwell. Be willing as Ishtar was to stand naked before yourself and see the truth because that is where your real power lays, in who you really are, no pretext, no illusion. We loose all your energy just keeping up the mask, creating a façade, which leaves us no energy to use it!

Yes, amongst all those treasures I have found a poet! Which I find very amusing as I have a disdain for poetry! I remember what a friend said while we were having a discussion about how much we hated poetry and why. She said 'why don't they just say what they mean!' I agreed. ‘Ah the woman doth protest too much’. Slap in the face.

What I have discovered on this journey is that with poetry I CAN actually say what I mean without the constraints of having to be grammatically correct or being concerned whether anyone does understand what I mean. It is liberating. I don't care if anyone understands it; it is merely an expression of my internal state.

I came to this realization a few days ago. I was watching one of the TED talks. I find them illuminating and inspiring. The one I was watching was a poet names Suheir Hammad. I wanted to like her, even though I don’t like poetry.

She recited two poems. I listened with anticipation and excitement. She got to the end of the first one and I thought ‘what the hell is she saying?’ She spoke a few words and then recited another. Again I was really with her, excited and wanting to understand. I felt it but when she got to the end I thought ‘what? What is she saying?’ I don’t know what she is saying, but I do know what she means. I was just expecting it to make sense. I did ‘get it’ just not in any logical way. Because it is a piece of art work not an essay.

Watching her made me realize it is an expression, her expression. She inspired me. I think a big part of my realization came from the fact that I was ‘watching’ her recite her poems. I believe that art is not separate from the artist. It is their personal expression and often loses its integrity when performed by others. I have also come to realize that this is true of the Dance I do (more about that later).

As soon as I released the belief that it needs to make logical sense, the words began to flow. It was that simple. And the way it is presenting in me is as a force that needs to be released. I often feel like I am purging. I can feel it rising in me, quickly, but rather than running to the toilet I run to my journal or computer as a flood of verbiage comes issuing forth. It is THAT powerful. It often comes in full form, or in large pieces. I can be seen running from room to room birthing my new infant until it is complete.

This morning when I was making coffee and musing about this new found expression I thought to myself  'well, it's not really poetry it is more like prose, nothing rhymes' (apparently I still have some resistance to the idea of being a poet). Well...you can imagine what happened next, ‘never say never’. The pressure built and bam! I birthed a poem that rhymes. How disgusting! I have become all that I hate! It is very amusing. I can see why ‘the poet’ was hiding in the shadows. It wasn’t safe to come out ‘the inner critic’ was laying in wait.

My new found expression is liberating and empowering. I have a problem in my neck, in the cervical vertebrae. I have had it all my life. I KNOW that it is all about the throat chakra. But what to do about it? All these years, all the work I have done, I have never been able to heal this issue. Perhaps I have finally touched on the root of this issue, not allowing myself to express my creativity. I have always written a lot. I thought I was ‘expressing’ myself. But I can see that I was expressing my ideas, not my soul. It was an approximation. It was safe and ordered. Now I embrace the chaos and allow the truth to emerge. We will see as it unfolds.