On the Verge of Bloom

I was walking Winston down the block and listening to my friend Hannah’s weekly divination (I am a part of Hannah’s Holy Coven Patreon), where she gives the intuitive forecast for the week of what you should be keeping your eye out for. From 2022 into 2023, Hannah has been channeling forth weekly forecasts that have called for blooming after making a series of hard choices to keep your devotional discipline amid the swirling chaos of the times we live in. To date, I thought that I had put up the appropriate boundaries and made the right culling choices to be tending to what I should be tending. Yet, Hannah’s calls kept coming back for me to shed, shed, shed, so I can bloom, bloom, bloom. Most recently, in this divination for May 22 through May 29, Hannah noted:

“This week there is something to face. And we've been leading up to this point. you've most likely heard me say something similar the last few weeks. This is like the juice for your blooming. There is something that needs to be acknowledged, still. It needs to be said out loud, written down, given a warm bath. Maybe it needs a hug. Maybe it needs a funeral. Maybe it needs a celebratory tea party. Something, it needs to be acknowledged in some way. And then the next proper step is taken. So the question really is, what are you avoiding? And what are you still avoiding?”

The message was clear. There is still work to do.

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As I walked, I let Hannah’s words soak in for about thirty seconds. Then, like most humans confronted with an invitation to exit their own safe shore, I found a convenient little idea that I could use to beach myself like a deceased whale on the shores of some certitude that would end the heaving difficulty of shedding more of my comforting coping mechanisms from my life. In this case, I thought to myself, “well, it has to be that we are embarking on potty learning with Juniper,” and let the matter rest there. Yet, if I really think about it now, what in sam hill does helping my daughter learn how to be more independent with her bathroom use have to do with facing something that’s important to address for my bloom? Well, very little, as a matter of fact, and that is the point. I just bypassed this invitation all together, leaving work that I need to do uncompleted. I walked back in my basement, vegged out, and went on with my day unaware of the work still to be done.

Now, there are consequences to this sort of bypassing. In my case, this sort of bypassing prevents me from doing a deeper dive into what I still have left to shed in my life that is not serving the future me I want to live into. Here, I am thinking explicitly of Jessica Dore’s eloquent words in her recent essay on the perils of resisting closure:

“When I think about my own relationship to closure specifically, I think of all the times I've grasped for something sure in an uncertain time. And how often haste is followed up by a haunting, sometimes years long. I think of all the ghosts, the what ifs, and the regrets that have come from the grab for something sure in a time when nothing’s sure, or should be.”

Dore is right about how this bypassing feels like a haunting. I feel haunted by the dreams of what I could be and what I could grow into if I made even more space for my writing, spirituality, and woven craft. There is a very particular solemn sadness being caught in these liminal spaces where you know you still have habits to shed but you just won’t sit with the difficulty. It feels a bit like having your grasp on a root that could be used to pull you of a deep pit, but you are too tired to pull yourself out. You are on the verge of bloom but just can’t bring yourself to do the one tiny thing that will make those blooms possible.

Two pieces of culture, intertwined, speak to this liminal state of the surreal haunting that accompanies this verge. Sister Grotto’s Album “You Don't Have To Be A House To Be Haunted,” is of the veiled verge I speak of above. The track “Uncanny” speaks to me from that place. It is the whole of her voice; the mournful, repetitive melody; and lyrics on that track reminding us that we cannot hide. Sound familiar to the spiritual place that I described above? It sure resonates to me. Madeline Johnston includes Emily Dickinson’s poem, One Need Not be a Chamber — to be Haunted, in the electronic liner notes on bandcamp:

“One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain—has Corridors surpassing 
Material Place—

Far safer, of a Midnight—meeting 
External Ghost—
Than an Interior—confronting—
That cooler—Host—

Far safer, through an Abbey—gallop—
The Stones a’chase—
Than moonless—One’s A’self encounter—
In lonesome place—

Ourself—behind Ourself—Concealed—
Should startle—most—
Assassin—hid in Our Apartment—
Be Horror’s least—

The Prudent—carries a Revolver—
He bolts the Door, 
O’erlooking a Superior Spectre
More near—”

Johnston brings to life Dickinson’s poem by sending sound waves to your body that perfectly describe the even more paralyzing fear that comes with encountering the ghost of what or who you could be. It truly is even more terrifying than the external ghost or assassin. This is something I am too familiar with as someone who experiences obsessive compulsive disorder. I am hounded by theatres of horror I create in my mind, which are ever the more terrifying than any spirit I have encountered to date. I too cannot hide from “that cooler host.” The only difference with this unique haunting I am discussing above is that it is of a visage that I would like to come to pass. Consequently, it is accompanied with a pained melancholia, not the panic brow sweat of those more pedestrian hauntings that I do not want to come into being.

Video excerpt of Sister Grotto performing “Videotape” from that record.

I want to take Hannah and Dore’s advice to heart, because I do have work I want to complete in my lifetime. I want to write books. I want to weave largescale weavings, where I have contributed to most parts of the material spinning and dyeing. I want to devote myself to journey to other realms and building up my plant communication practice. Taking Dore’s advice, I want to approach Hannah’s invitation differently. Specifically, I want to get “lost”(Dore’s verbiage) for as long of a spell as I need to think through what I could shed, embracing the need to stay with the difficulty. I want to make explicit time to sit with Hannah’s question and ask for assistance from my spiritual team, resisting the urge to just find the easy answer and boot up the gaming PC for some drop out time.

Sometimes, the answer though is right in front of your eyes, but you need constant reminders from your team. The universe had other plans for me before I could get lost on my own pursuing this question. In my monthly mediumship session with Hannah this past week, my team called me back in to address the question of what to shed again. “Your team is still saying that there is something that you are holding onto that you need to let go of,” Hannah said to me. Oof, I laughed to myself and said to myself in my head, “okay, Okay, OKAY!” Something shifted in that moment. I felt a rare release in terms of acknowledging to myself what I could shed that could allow me to pursue some of my life goals that I had for myself. In that moment, I recognized in probably the most clear way I have to date that I use video games to an extent that hinders my ability to be present with all the other work that I want to be doing.

Do you have any coping strategies that you picked up while living through this pandemic that are stopping you from living the life you want to live? That’s the big, tough question that is right underneath this acknowledgment. Throw in having a baby during said pandemic and witnessing some of the most dishonest and cynical politics in my lifetime and you got yourself a prescription for picking up a habit that can serve as a crutch. For me, videos games have been this safe, nostalgic space to escape for a moment from some of these crushing realities and weighty responsibilities. They are a place where I get to be the kid I wasn’t able to be. However, there is a point at which your coping strategies take up too big a space. I feel like I am there, on the verge of bloom.

Most of the people I play video games with online during this plague have either died (rest in power, Luna) or moved on, and I don’t even care if I win the game anymore. Here I am, logging on to find that elusive bit of freedom, joy, and friendship in a world of bone-crushing domination. This is the sort of the sad realization of investing too much of my own thoughts of my self worth in imagined worlds created to suck money out of me and where I am trying to make friends by being good at something. Its just a whole replay of part of the reason I stopped playing tennis. Well that, and the debilitating, recurring injuries to my legs. I feel like I stepped into the fullness of this realization during my session with Hannah. Since I am still physically able to play video games, I still want to give myself space for rest and joy within those worlds. This isn’t an all-or-nothing purge. No, its more of a tightrope walk where I try to find a different way to do the thing that I and my inner child love while also making more space for taking the next steps with this project and my weaving.

Ultimately, this is deeply interwoven with my discussion of devotional discipline, also very driven by my collaborative work with Hannah, in an essay back in February. In that discussion, I talked about my updated conception of devotional discipline as a daily practice:

“I approach my own devotional discipline practice as a pathway of sacred actions that stir my bones that I will perform dutifully each day with reverence to keep the flame of my traditions, my goddesses, my beloved dead, and my crafts alive in this world and to receive any wisdom that might be imparted in turn. I want my definition to be the north star guiding the actions of the hermit druid I see myself as in my mind’s eye.” excerpt from Devotional Discipline essay

This definition has been helpful as a guide for my everyday life in many ways. I tend to my altars more than I ever have. I do my protection magic most every day. I also place my offerings of fresh water and rose water to sacred death, my mom, and my goddesses on my altar every day. I work on at least one of my sacred creative practices each day. Since I wrote that essay, the amount of time that I feel plugged into my work, with this project especially, and my own spirituality has increased exponentially. That’s the payoff of devotional discipline. Yet, I conveniently left vague some of the boundaries I would put in place to support this devotional discipline. This is a sort of Mary Oliver, “let’s enchant them with the world to get them to care about the climate” approach to personal evolution. That may work for some people. For me, I need explicit boundaries with practices that can become all-consuming, because I only know the deep-sea diver approach to playing games (thanks, competitive tennis.)

Here I am again telling you about the boundaries I need to put in place in order to live into the future I want for myself. I need to not only devote myself to my sacred creative disciplines, but also need to put up boundaries with video games to make further space for my creative pursuits to thrive in my life. Look, we tried crowding out the vegetating in video game land with the magickz of everything. It worked pretty well, but I am a parent, husband, and have a full-time job as well. I just don’t have the luxury of exorbitant amounts of vegetal state time, nor do I have the energy to make up my mind on what the appropriate amount of video game time is in each day. I need to set a broad boundary for video games for the week and then fill in the extra time with other non-internet-technology pursuits. This act is no different than the gardner’s act of culling out plants, like some ground covers and mint, that will not allow any of your other plant kin to thrive. Consequently, I am taking seriously the imperative to act in my future self’s best interest today in this moment by putting up boundaries with a practice (video games) that are taking up too much space. I think Hannah said it best in her weekly divination this week:

“If we do not tend to the present moment, the future that we truly want cannot exist. So don't forget don't forget also how much choice and agency and power you have. And you must harness that in the present moment. To make changes to the future that will be the present at some point. And to also heal the past. Right, it's all connected. It's a beautiful spiral. It's a beautiful circle. It's a snake eating its own tail. Always and forever.” Hannah Haddadi of Mourning Light Divination

Yes, I am harnessing the present moment for enchantment and not vegetal states in the hopes I will bloom even further than I have thus far.

All of this reminds me why I am a druid. I must confess, being out on the hedge alone, it’s easy to lose sight of what makes my specific path a druidic one. I could easily jettison calling myself a druid and just be an Irish polytheist or a witch. That certainly would be descriptively accurate. But, it is my own rootedness in my own garden where I interweave myself with my plant kin in an ancient annual cycle that is older than time itself that reminds me I am a druid. I don’t need to be reading headlines on science direct to see how interwoven my spirituality is with “nature.” No, I am my plant kin and they are me. I find my stability and my path altering wisdom with my hands deep in the loam (yes this is a nod to the constellation of friends around loam magazine) that we all share. The more I become consumed by them and the more they are consumed by me the more I will have achieved my vision of becoming wildcrafted into the landscape: A figure veiled in a beard of moss and home to 400 orbweaver spiders, indistinguishable from the life around me/unrecognizable by human civilization.

So, here’s to living back into the sort of dogged determination I displayed in my early druid days—those heady days after I walked barefoot out of a canyon outside Abiquiu, NM. May I build the boundaries and enchantment that get me to the place where I can be the luddite, anarcho-socialist magician/handcrafter that I see in my dreams, with harm to none. With the “Fires in the sky” only building in intensity, this spell feels even more dire to bring to fruition. Its not just a matter of my own self-fulfillment, but of approaching druidry as a toolkit to weather collapsing systems all around me. This is what first brought me to druidry while reading John Michael Greer and listening to metal in my cubicle. Having survived the initial waves of this pandemic, I want to take myself back to that orienting frame for my druidry and remind myself of the bigger stakes to these boundaries. May this magic deliver us all from the perils of collapse, with harm to none.

“All my life
Underground
There’s no light
There’s no sound
All my life
I’ve been blind
don’t go out back at night

I’ve been waiting all my life
Fire in the sky”

Plague X by Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya

I was inspired to write this essay by this moment in my garden hanging out with my yarrow who is on the verge of bloom, just like me.

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