loss

Side Quest: Mirror

/ RivkahRaven / 1 Comment

I walked on. Light filtering through the treetops told me it was only mid-morning, but I was unaccountably weary. Exhausted, in fact. Each step dragged. My bones ached.

Up ahead, I saw a strange shadow that was far too regular to be another tree. In fact, it pushed apart the trees around it, as if… yes. A door. As if a door had sprouted up faster than the trees, and twice as strong.

It was red. It had a long bronze handle, the kind that pushed down like a lever, not usually the kind you’d see on a front door at all. It was ornate and lovely, worn shiny in the middle of the scrollwork, as if it had been used many times. But this door hadn’t been here a few moments ago, unless I’d been in a daze and somehow missed it.

I looked around the edges. Trees. There was absolutely nothing behind the door, and yet it stood, ridiculously out of place, and yet somehow unapologetically a part of this forest.

Oh well. I shrugged, and tried the handle.

It moved easily, and the door swung open. I was in a living room that looked like an ordinary, somewhat rundown apartment living room. I peeked back at the doorway. Beyond the open front door, I saw the forest, just as it had been a few moments ago.
Well, I was on a quest; I supposed I should expect the unexpected, although I’m not sure that’s really possible to do.

“Cough.”

I heard a polite cough – no – the WORD “cough” coming from a room off a small alcove. The carpet was old, and in need of a vacuum. Really, could there be anything *less* magical than this apartment?

A cat framed by a square of sunlight gave me a rather unfriendly look and sighed. She had a gleaming exclamation point hovering over her head.

“Will you accept the side quest?” she said, in a bored tone, letting her eyes drift closed, angling her squashed face more toward the sunlight.

“Uh… side quest?”

She huffed an impatient sigh, and one eye slitted open to peer at me, daylight-blue in her striped, sooty face.

“You know the drill. You’re on a Quest! Hurrah, cheer. There have to be side quests along the way, to take you off your path, or give you a little more wealth, or teach you better skills so you can handle what’s coming at the end. In fact, I’ll tell you a secret,”
she looked around with an exaggerated slink, the exclamation point bobbing ridiculously to keep up with her.
“you CAN’T HANDLE what’s coming at the end unless you do the side quests. In fact, you’ll probably go insane, lose a few pieces of yourself, or die before you even reach the end, if you don’t take the side quests.”

“Well, if you put it like that… sure. Sure, I’ll hear what the side quest is, and then see if it sounds like something I can do.”

“No. Nope. You hear it, and you do it. You really don’t have any other option.”
in the other room, I heard the front door bang shut. I managed not to jump too noticeably, but even so, her whiskers lifted in a smirk.

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “All right then, lay it on me, I suppose.”

She sat up straighter and puffed her chest out.

Soft light rose in a corner of the room, like someone was turning up one of those cheesy dimmer switches from the 1980’s.

“Sorry. We haven’t had any modernizing done in here since 1986,” she muttered,

but my attention was caught, so I didn’t respond. On the far wall was a dim, ancient-looking, scratched mirror. In it, I saw the cat reflected, with that exclamation point above her head, and behind her…

“What am I carrying? What on earth?”

I was holding a huge mirror of my own. It was warped like a fun-house mirror, and a spider web network of cracks made it appear as though it would shatter at any second. There was blood on my arms, and blood on the mirror. I looked down at my own arms- empty, but still exhausted as though I truly was carrying that heavy, warped mirror that had splintered into my forearms, and cut me with tiny, stinging cuts.

The mirror reflected me, as well, but what I could see of it in the large mirror had twisted me out of all recognition. It stretched the cat into a nightmare shape, and the exclamation point over her head resembled an enormous dagger, or a torch flickering with fire.

“First part of the quest: you must set the mirror down.”
“How do I set it down, if I can’t see that I’m carrying it?”

“That’s the second part. First you set it down, JUST SET IT DOWN, and then you’ll be able to see. I should warn you,” she continued quickly, as I opened my mouth to reply,
“It’s going to hurt.”

So I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and I

set

the

horror-house mirror

down.

(to be continued….)

Days 4-8: No Bat Belt

/ RivkahRaven / 3 Comments

There’s a scene in Dark Knight Rises where Batman is trying to climb out of a prison. The climb could mean death if he falls- so he has a safety rope tied around his waist. He works out, gets stronger, makes the leap, and falls. The only person to make this leap and survive was a child, with nothing but desperation and fear to spur him.

Bat man’s prison mate says:

“make the climb as the child did. Without the rope.”

He doesn’t need more strength; he needs to let go of his last tether to safety. He needs to know that there is nothing to break his fall, and he’s truly risking everything when he leaps.

This weekend was a time of removing my bat belt, my safety, my rope. Strand by strand, I unraveled and dissolved it, thanking it deeply for all the times it had saved me, but also recognizing that I hadn’t yet been ready for it. I wasn’t yet worthy of a bat-belt, a lightsaber, or a spear; I needed to learn to be strong on my own, first. Leaning on the assistance had me not trust my own strength or worth, to the point where I felt helpless, scared, certain I couldn’t make it on my own.

Dark Knight Rises: Prison Escape Scene

And so, I took off the rope. It was a painful, days’-long process.

I’m preparing for the climb again now.

These days had some victories: I discovered again how good exercise has me feel. On days I couldn’t go to the gym, I went on hour-long walks, bringing my focus to breath, and the feel of my feet on the ground as they rolled from heel to toe. I canceled some friend dates (thank you for being so understanding, friends ❤️) and I also reached out and called people, and wrote to one friend, when the despair got too heavy to carry alone. (Thank you for lending your steady strength and compassion in my dark pit, friends ❤️)

I’ve leaned on trainers, a counselor, and friends – but I haven’t leaned too much. There’s a balance. There’s a time when no one can prep us for the climb but ourselves.

I realized I had been hanging onto someone as he made the climb for us both, and we both fell.

But accepting help from community with deep gratitude is an important step for me. Hitting rock bottom and not being able to show a “perfect” face to the world has had me discover that many people are understanding, kind, and empathetic. They didn’t judge me. They didn’t even seem to think twice, just held me or let me cancel…

yes, there were those who surprised me with a lack of empathy, but having no resources to deal with that also made turning away from those few, and dropping those communications very easy.

There’s nothing like having absolutely nothing left, to teach a person how to say no, and how to say thank you.

And so here we are at Day 8 of the training. I’ve bribed myself with inspiring shirts to get me in the mood to go work out 😉

Day 8: Padawan

I’ve stuck with the challenge of dietary change (I’ll put a sample day’s meals here, one of these blog posts…maybe tomorrow …), of drinking half my body weight in ounces of water daily, (not as hard as it sounds, especially if you get some exercise in,) and of exercise.

I have discovered that I am most unhappy when I don’t allow myself to be as expansive as my nature demands: so when I was living in the “shoulds” of: closed off, reproachful blame, and victimhood; when I wanted above all things to understand why, I felt sick. I don’t need to know someone’s reason – all I need to know is that they chose.

As soon as I allowed myself to do what people told me I “shouldn’t,” which is: love, forgive, understand, be okay about things, let go, be actually happy about things just as they are, AND continue to wear my rings because they mean that I belong to myself now, and are inscribed a with these words: Present and Wonder, that I must live in now,

I felt better. I feel – good.

Ready to make the climb and leap with no rope, no bat belt.

What if I fall? Oh,but my darling,what if you fly? -Erin Hanson

Maggid process- Finding a Story–Letting Go

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Maggid process- Finding a Story--Letting Go

With such a magnificent blaze the trees let go – I wish to burn as brightly.
Sometimes when I’m supposed to find a Maggidic story, the story finds me.
Often, it’s something I don’t really want to examine all that closely- so I might push it away for a time, but always it comes back, standing outside my door, wagging its tail,
and I have to say…all right. Come in. I’ll learn you, story, and I’ll tell you to others.
The pain that comes with the kind of clarity this requires is not small…
sometimes it involves facing things I’d rather not face, letting go of things in my life that I’d rather were “Forever,”
but when I finally sit down, let the story come fully, crack my heart open and let it really feel, there’s a cleansing that happens with the burn of loss. There’s the feeling that I am open, clear, and living absolutely fully again without blockages of things that aren’t really in alignment with my chosen expression in this life. There’s an immense feeling of power, as though my life force is no longer diluted…

but it’s hard to remember that, and hard to let go when the heart is aching with loss.

That’s when I look to the trees in the fall and winter as guides. How they celebrate the letting go–and how dignified they are when they are bare; what courage it takes to sit with emptiness for a time, to allow the barren branches to be, rather than trying to cling to the old simply so we won’t have to experience the pain of loss…
when we truly let go, and stand with open heart and bare branches, that’s when there is room for the new, beautiful, pure life to grow.

Let go…let go…let go, and feel with what radiant light you burn – glow, like the trees, with magnificent fire, and trust that something new that is good for your heart will grow where there are now empty branches.