Sometimes, The Answers We Seek are Not The Ones We Think We Desire.

I closed my eyes and remembered the tears streaking down my face. I was watching myself cry in the mirror to see if I could get a hold of my emotions, but they were unleashed. Sometimes, this happens to me; I lose control of my emotions. It is a moment when I am left feeling torn asunder by everything around me, from the kindness of others to the pain of others to the anger of others. This isn’t something that happens to me very often because I am a very cold person, keeping my emotions under tight rein. I know that this, possibly, could lead to more ruin and less control, but it is as it is. It was during that moment as I was trying to pull myself together long enough to fetch some ice cream and salt to make me feel better that I thought, I could really use a Fallow Time right around now. Everything is coming at me too hard, too fast, and I can’t handle it anymore. I distinctly heard a growl and a laugh. There were two OTHERS™ responding to me here and they both weren’t going to give me what I wanted. I am only the servant in one case and the daughter-devotee in the other. My wants don’t figure into this.

I left it at that. I wanted nothing to do with religion or thoughts. I wanted to lose myself utterly and I succeeded, admirably. I was startled that I could get into the Song of Ice and Fire series (the Game of Thrones books) so deeply. But, I knew that I needed something that could take my brain out of the equation and leave me mellow and content. I had been able to do this as a child, why not as an adult? And I did.

At small points, I would poke at the tender spot where the wounds were. I would pull away from the book and look into space. I would stare down at my hands or blankly at the television or just out the window. I would hem and haw, silently, to myself as I tried to figure out where I went wrong and what the next steps are. But, my mind wasn’t really interested in that, so much. It kept going back to the FT I had demanded. I had woken with those words upon my lips: Give me a Fallow Time. It’s too much to deal with now. I can’t handle this now. The work has been on-going and hard. I’ve watched myself write almost daily, and some times twice daily, in this blog as new things come to me or as I work more diligently on other things. And this is the first time that I’ve requesteddemanded a break. Of course, in some ways, this could also be construed as the first major snag in my ongoing journey, but it’s more than that. I realized a while back that I’m going hard and I’m going strong, but I’m liable to burn out sooner as opposed to later.

This flame isn’t interested in guttering, thank you.

It was as I was poking that this came to me. This was the headache that I had achieved yesterday with Devo’s assistance, which I ignored. I wasn’t going to get up and bring myself back into the fold, so to speak, just to write about it. I was taking a break. And the headache flamed, but it eventually went out.

The point is that I had realized that this demand for the FT was more than just a little snag on my ongoing journey. It was that I was worried and frightened by all the new things I had been discovering and working towards. I was worried that I was flaming hotter than I could withstand and that I would end up pulling away and bottling it up for fear of losing myself in the long run. It was a larger fear and something that had been worming its way into my heart and making things harder of late. Why else had I not looked into where to begin the calendar? Why else was I only working towards the living in ma’at instead of the physical aspects of my practice? Why else would I get an idea (researching Native American tribes and their stories in my area; looking to others’ festivals and celebrations for ideas on my own; researching voodoo and the lwa for my pet project; etc.) and then let it fall away for a time before I picked it up again to look at it? I was scared and worried.

But, Sekhmet has a thing for me. It will become more apparent later when her posts in the PBP show up. I am a daughter of fire, just as she is. I can withstand the heat and the horror and the hard work because I am modeled after her desires. I have often said that she was there at the potter’s wheel with Khnum and I still thoroughly believe this. No amount of mistrust in myself or my path will stop me from feeling that way. I was full of fear and that’s the thing with fear: it tends to eat you up and spit you out. Fear is part and parcel to being human, I suppose, but I don’t have to let it rule me.

And I won’t.