I wrote a little about writing and processing last week. Writing is a processing tool, as is walking and praying, all of which I try to do daily as part of a routine that sometimes I don't feel at all like doing, but I do anyway as part of a longer term commitment that requires daily attendance. If i can tick these off, I feel like I have achieved something on a personal level, apart from helping with teaching the children, cooking and so on - cooking's good too - often creative, so even if I can't get into the studio or face trying to write beyond the blog, these markers are reminders of a commitment to the light.
Getting into a meditative state through daily practise enables our deeper selves to speak, but a commitment to this requires determination. When I'm having a down day, like today, I'd sooner watch some trash TV or read a magazine than do something to lift myself up. Lifting up requires effort. It's often painful. Especially after a hysterectomy! Even writing feels self-indulgent. But I know change will not come without a haul, and without the haul, the image I have is of trying to get up a muddy mountain face and sliding, sliding, sliding. Sometimes so far down that it's hard to climb back up. Wallowing in the mud is down there. Being stuck in the mud is down there. Drowning in mud is also there.
Facing the abyss health wise bring with it an intensity that preoccupies the mind, but my mind has not changed in terms of what I believe my calling - or primary motive - in life is. Why do I write in the first place? Would you believe me if I said it wasn't for accolades, though I have had some of those? No. I write to change people's minds. Thematically all my creative work is to do with justice. Sometimes my mind is changed in the process of digging deep too. But have I changed my mind about dealing with the court case and the attendant abuses that began in childhood and reached wicked bloom in 2015? No.
Did the stress make me ill, as so many friends have pointed out? Mentally, yes. Physically? Probably. Will I let it go? No. It would make me more ill not to address it. And this from someone who knows mental illness and physical illness are equally destructive forces railed against any measure of a successful life. Besides, if I did not deal with what my mother intended to finally kill me, she and her demons would have won.
