The mind is a skilled alchemist. In every moment of suffering is a silver lining, all we need to do is look. We do not ever truly throw ourselves away completely, but as we grow, we learn to juggle the roles we must adapt to. More than an alchemist, we are an acrobat. We must be in order to handle the fate that life has socked away in the back of its closet for us. When I was young I found myself on a tightrope that stretched on for years, not even an umbrella to break my fall. To think of the self as an acrobat would be the pessimistic way of looking at life. That is why I prefer to call myself an alchemist: the very nature of an alchemist is optimistic, I was given lead, but I specialize in turning it into gold. Life is not tightropes and trapeze; it is part chemical-reaction, and part magic. When I was young I was an eternal optimist, that never went away. Even after everything: I’m still hopeful.
Trauma is the pressure that turns coal into diamonds. When I was only a child I suffered abuse and neglect at the hands of my father. I had to remain hopeful that things would turn out alright because I was a child; I had no control over my fate. This is when I learned the art of eternal optimism. As a young adolescent, I was uprooted from my home because of the 2008 housing crisis and I watched a car run over a group of my peers. I received no counseling for either event, as a result, I became painfully aware of my own mortality. It made me adapt to the idea that it was absolutely necessary that I make my life count.
"Trauma is the pressure that turns coal into diamonds."
On a good day, a teenager is still faced with the mortality of their own death. One must become a boxer, and a fighter by trade. I myself had to become a fighter and an advocate for my own changes. In those years, I was forced to confirm to a church I wanted nothing to do with, I endured the Gunn High School suicides, and I was still under my father’s oppression. The school offered for me to take classes at the community college to take care of college credit early, but my father called it remedial and forbade me from it. He thwarted every other opportunity in that period of my life, and had he not done that, I would be living in a very different state of affairs today. I had to learn to fight for everything; was a necessary lesson to learn how to change the world one day.
My incoming reality was to live life as a beast, carrying the absurd notion that I should have burst forth fully formed and completely functional. I did have to learn how to function though, which I could not under any other identity, so I had to become myself. As a young adult, I had it no better; I had started a life in northern California, but my father came once again to take me home. I stood up for myself finally and was kicked out. Having no connections, I had to live in my car for two years. I survived with no resources or prospects. In response to my sorrow and isolation, I decided to make art out of it. I sought out my current home: a log cabin built onto the back of a 50s logging truck. It didn’t have electricity or running water, and the roof leaked. I now had a choice in how I saw myself: no longer was I homeless, nor was I a victim of circumstance. I had reclaimed my own identity. So with the police still harassing me, and society still shunning me for the faux pas of being a woman without prospect, or family, or property, I began to go to school again. It was an attempt to re-establish a sense of normalcy. Self-improvement became the objective, that is when I learned that darkness is not the absence of light, but the combination of all colors.
"I now had a choice in how I saw myself: no longer was I homeless, nor was I a victim of circumstance. I had reclaimed my own identity."
With color, I will paint. I crafted my philosophy of phoenix flame and the outlooks of poets before me. It’s like a brush-fire that burns back all of the mess and reveals the archetype of the visionary child within. As Arthur Rimbaud said, “Donc le poète est vraiment voleur de feu.” [Therefore the poet is truly the thief of fire]” (A. Rimbaud, Lettre à Paul Demeny: dite du Voyant, 1871). In this, Rimbaud was talking about becoming a great seer, mystic, or poet, because there is no distinct difference. One must look at themselves and consume the poisons-- or the deplorable parts of themselves-- in order to become a better person. I believe that to some extent that we must die in our personalities-- ceasing to exist for a moment-- to emerge again prepared for what awaits us. In this process, we protect our inner child which is the basis for our being, wildly impractical, and still more creative than we could hope to be as we stifle ourselves with the impression that we will be rejected.
A life must sometimes be punctuated by death in order to emphasize its importance. This means that sometimes it is necessary to put life into perspective with its absolute opposite as this helps one understand the nature of their potential. In such a space, it is no use to be afraid of change. We fear change on any other day, for change mimics death in the idea of anti-existence. Compared to true death, change is a much easier option to swallow. Change leads to the evolution of the soul, and the reinvention of the self-- which is necessary as we do not spring forth from the womb fully grown, and fully armored. This stage of becoming is much like art, as art is only a reflection of humanity. It is the art of processing trauma, adaptation to our ultimate environment. We do this by mimicking those around us, just as we create art that builds on all of the art that came before. With this, we are the culmination of everyone who came before us. Each person contributes to the collective, and with any luck, we will integrate our findings. This is a concept religion has attempted to preach, but never have we successfully been able to teach.
Humanity has always attempted to learn the reason for their existence in order to put an end to the misery of it. Truly the origin of this thought is an attempt to find my place in the world, which was less about the world to change me, but for me to change it. Sometimes we are teachers, and sometimes students, as life naturally has its ebbs and flows. I’ve always wanted to teach, but not in the traditional way; I want to teach like a painter paints, or a poet writes. This is why I write poetry. My ideas are mine until they reach someone else, then they too are a part of that person. This makes an impact on not only each individual but the collective: humanity.
"A life must sometimes be punctuated by death in order to emphasize its importance."
I ultimately hope to inspire others and prompt them to understand, as well as aspire to be understood. This is called the alchemical language of birds: Universal Language. It’s an attempt to bridge the gap between social groups and individuals through the use of language, symbols, and archetypes. We are all made of stardust, but we are not like the universe forever drifting apart; we are humanity, coming together at hundreds of light-years per second. We are moving toward the spirit, or, the truth of our oneness. The only way to improve society is to improve the self, as society is only a collective reflection of the self.
To achieve this, it would validate everything that I do and create. Hunter S. Thompson said in his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, “Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.” This was part of a set of rules to live by. In his notoriously somewhat cold, nonchalant way of speaking, he says it with an underpinning of accursedness and irony. He is creating as he writes it, and the quote sleeps between the pages of his most popular book. By attempting to interpret the quote, I run the risk of misinterpreting his words, making them my own as they pass through my perspective. To imagine my own words twisting through someone else's perspective makes me cringe, but the idea that they might emerge on the other side more enlightened delights me. There is nothing more valuable to me than the chance that I might help someone else grow. Otherwise, I would be silent, and I would have no thoughts. Perhaps Thompson knew this when he published his work, that or he was just crazy. Regardless of if he was crazed, he was wise, and his wisdom may be hidden in the cover of his madness.
"I think; therefore I am."
The mind is a skilled alchemist; no longer will I accept nothing, because the nature of an alchemist is to make something out of nothing. I will spin hay into golden thread, the transmutation of lead. I have become this way to compensate for the dysfunction that I had been born into and continues to follow me. It is the unfairness that is natural to come from the world. The only way I can possibly make sense of it is through the work of symbols, the use of language, and the chemical reaction, and magic of alchemy. Arthur Rimbaud wrote, “C’est faux de dire: Je pense: on devrait dire: On me pense… Je est une autre. [It’s wrong to say: I think: One should say: One is thought… I is another.]” (Lettres d’Arthur Rimbaud dites du “Voyant” 1871.). This is a joke of course, but it is the way he described his writing process; with which I identify: we are what we think, until that thought is expressed and then it has its own life. That is a poem, it is me until you read it, and then it is you too. This is an important idea because I am not just me; I am influenced by Rimbaud, who is influenced by Baudelaire. So as a result, I am me, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire. This is how a voice develops, this is how humanity develops: poetry is just a snowball of the bones of the dead poets that came before. However, it is not just poetry; because poetry is just art: an expression of humanity. Humanity is just the compiled social facts of the people before us. In short, as René Descartes wrote “Contigo; ergo sum. [I think; therefore I am.]” (Descartes, Principia Philosophiæ [Principles of Philosophy], 1644.)
Comments