Hey there. I am still here. I think I was right about gopher
filling some therapeutic function for me: Now that I am in
therapy I don't feel the pressure build for expressing something
in text as much. In some ways it is a shame, as I often found
some interesting bits in what I ended up writing, but on the other
hand, I express in a different realm now and see it there.
I have been drawing a book of my dreams. The pressure is relieved
through that activity and through the therapy sessions. There are
different sort of weird things that manifest through these ways.
I am travelling through swamps and deserted shopping malls,
finding allies in basements and mute guides in foreign cities.
There are carnivals and submerged temples with mummies and
crocodiles. I am being depicted more wholly inside the dreams
now, being more centered in them, finding talismans and animal
helpers. There is a renovation, there is a shaping of masks,
reformation of personality. Now I am a woman, now I am a thought.
Now the puppetmaster monkey grins through my throat and the
doomsday cannon with an easter island face on it is being fired
in ruined Berlin.
This process takes a lot of my mental bandwidth. I think the meds
are making me a bit less energetic as well.
I feel like I am moving closer to some image of who I am in the
future. I see the power that is glowing behind the dreams. Even
though I have limited energy now, it is flowing more freely.
I had been sort of pushed into a dense ball. The energy was
hydraulic. Now it is more like a spring. It flows and bubbles.
It's not very stable, though, and it can be confused and turn
into stale puddles instead.
I had become sort of rigid. There was on and off switch for my
expression. I had become strangely asexual as well. Maybe that's
a wrong word for it. It was more like the limits of my
expressiveness had been defined inside a very narrow range.
I think I now understand it a bit. I need an emotional connection
in order to feel expressive and that was lacking. This
expressiveness is not only about "showing what I feel or am" but
it's a loop: If I don't express it, I am not it. That means that
I made myself into a harder, denser, more electric instead of
more watery, receptive, relaxed, calm. It also made me less
assertive since I was basically scared of exploding.
As I have spent more time in that spring, I have taken up some
meditative practices. I suppose they are somewhat tantric.
I create a loop through breathing and concentrating on moving
energy up the chakras and down the spine and the limbs. This can
become surprisingly intense. Combine that with the "physiological
sigh" loop and it's even more powerful.
There is something in me that wants to grow a long beard and
disappear into the forest. There is someone in me who wants to
merge with another through some emotional transfer. Can these
desires be cycled in synchrony with the realities?
I am planning my next adventure. I printed the map out and am
filling it with a permanent marker: A gas station here, a store
there. Rock paintings, a fire pit. I have bought a lot of stuff
recently, all to do with this trek. Solar power, waterproof phone,
hiking boots, tarp, more portable frying pan.
What am I emulating with these treks? I am not sure. I think I
want to create more challenging outdoorsy experiences for myself
in order to prepare for something bigger in the future. In some
way the forests have always been a good place for me, and they
are something I trust will remain somewhere out there even if the
social realities spin out and bifurcate into madness. I need to
know there is something to escape to.
And not only escape to. It is also a grounding in itself to know
that the society is not everything. Also, I think eventually I
will find more of my tribe by doing things that express my
realities.
