Creative Offerings
Embodying our Existence Through Storytelling and Expression
In my mother’s garage are boxes and boxes labeled with ‘Amy’s journals.’ Some are written in my young, sloppy hand, some are written with the rush of an adult, ready to box up and seal tight, the contents full of crumpled napkins, cheap, lined notebooks and expensive fancy journals when I could splurge. There are phone numbers, addresses, little prayers and supplications that I don’t know what they refer to now although they seemed so important then. Directions to interviews and lovers’ houses, scribbles and poems and memories. Pain and pleasure and processing, highs and lows, joys and sorrows.
I have written since I was a child, I like to think that this is what has saved me, a pen, some paper and me trying to make sense of all of it. Writing and sharing and laboring has provided meaning, processing, hope, and most of all, an ability to not feel so alone. The paper knew me as I was trying to know myself.
Tell your stories, curious ears are leaning in everywhere….
I can’t help but cringe when I read my past journals, which I think is a blessing since it has shown me how much I have grown, how far I have traveled, and how much more perspective I have now and most importantly, how much farther I have to go! Writing reminds me of the marathon of this life, there is no all the way healed, fully evolved, check off this human processing thing. Writing is a life times work
Telling our stories is our birthright, Anne Lammott hilariously said it best when she shared, “remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it, if people wanted you to write more warmly about them they should have behaved better.”
Writings 2022 and 2023-The Lovers and The Chariot–Radical Rage
To acknowledge your rage is to acknowledge the life you have been given, the life we give, and those who gave us life.
We’ve been taught to suppress our rage, I say your rage is welcome here, let’s turn our shouts into movements.
Writings of 2021-The Hierophant-Radical Permission
Even though we are at the beginning of this year (as I write this it is February), the word that kept coming to me as we rounded into 2021 was radical permission. This seemed supported and held up by the card of this year, The Hierophant.
As I am embarking on new journeys, having shed many unserving ideologies and patterns , what has been brought forth to examine is my reliance on waiting for another to approve or grant me permission to proceed, or stop, to rest, and to identify my needs.
I have placed a great deal of importance on others approval and my worth. There are, of course, many reasons for that—childhood trauma and the capitalistic, productive heavy society, and patriarchal systems we dwell in have taught me to be a ‘good girl.’ It has been both liberating and scary (funny how they co exist in the same space) to decide, name and own my desires and needs and to embark on new ventures that are wholly mine. This has meant deeper vulnerability, a constant examination and curiosity of production and permission and my relationship with these two realities, as well as what it means to disappoint others with being myself.
The vein that is running through my self examination and exploration is a radical reclamation that wisdom lies within myself, in my bones and blood and experiences.
These written offerings are me opening my heart and my mind and my brain solely for the sake of myself and it feels deliciously good, scary and wonderful, all in the same breath.
Writings of 2020-The Emperor-Radical Repatterning
These offerings are my own personal honoring and appreciation of 2020. Of course I can begin to see shreds, hints, and beginnings of changing and altering that had begun many years ago (the moment I was born…generations and generations before me). Even as I struggled against it, the constant theme of 2020 for me was a deep call to repatterning, resifting, visiting and contending with the deep seeded pain and solid beliefs, thoughts, and stories I believed and operated from that were no longer serving me or others. I believe many of these beliefs were handed down to me, in my DNA, knitted together in my mothers womb, an opportunity to reconcile, to hold to the light, many grew roots in the chronic exposure and experience of severe childhood trauma.
I pulled the Swords over and over again, a call to examine my thought patterns and beliefs–especially those that felt so, so, so very real. It was all for the good, medicinal for my soul…and I could not have begun to move forward unless I went into that inky, moonlit part of my being. It hurt like rubbing a sore muscle, I winced, I was extremely uncomfortable, I questioned over and over again. What is evolving now has begun to be built upon solid ground as I begin to get more and more comfortable with the process of excavation–a life long journey and pursuit.
Blessings to you as you explore, please proceed with gentleness as there are hints of childhood trauma, violence, disempowerment and contending with negative self talk, give to yourself what you need should you feel agitated and worn, healing and art can call us to pause