Day 22

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to blossom.

Anaïs Nin

Dancing in the darkness has become an almost nightly obsession, rivalling, nearly, the need to meet the sunrise. It is a strange and terrifying experience, but compulsive. It has none of the gentle certainty and reassurance of sunrise; it is wild and foreign, and untamed. In the sunrise and the early light leading up to it, I recognise myself and know myself at home. In the dancing I become a stranger, someone completely removed from myself in a primitive, fierce kind of way I do not understand. This person is not, cannot possibly be me and the very strangeness of my own actions frightens me. But also compels me. It is a transformation, a metamorphosis, transporting me from my dull, unimaginative, plodding and obedient self into – what, exactly? Into a living body. A body that breathes and moves and creates fire in darkness. My body ceases to be an efficient, functional machine, something that I use. Instead, my body becomes me and uses my mind. It is alive and exhilarated, making me want to cry out for very joy. And that, in itself, terrifies me. It is like flying in my dreams and floating off, so that I am in danger of disappearing altogether. Only, with the dancing, I do not disappear into nothingness. I become. Solid and tangible and entirely present in a way that is bewildering and new to me. The whole usual pattern of reality is entirely reversed. When I respond to that deep internal drum beat I pass through a doorway and enter into the mind and body of a stranger. Am I become someone else? Or am I become me? It is like a simultaneous forgetting and remembering.

Remembering. Re-member-ing. Transformation. Trance-formation. Oh goddess, I understand. I have seen these words before – I have read their deeper meanings. But I have not understood. They were merely intriguing plays on words, an intellectual curiosity. But now I have danced. I have stood in the darkness with candle light flickering all around me and stomped my feet, twisting my body and feeling my muscles and bones, ligaments and joints, all working and celebrating together. In these moments my body is no longer “for” something – it is entirely for its own self. It is, each night, completely sufficient, with no need for anything beyond itself. It is its own reason for being.

I have been re-membered into my body. I have become my body. It has become me. My mind and body have never been friends, have never understood each other. But in responding to the insistent beat calling within me, the two must somehow learn to unite and become one. And in being transformed, it is not so much that I have changed, but that I have been formed, new, through trance. New, and yet somehow old. I have been re-membered.

Is this why people go to clubs? To those places that I imagine to be so unbearably bright and loud and crowded that they would extinguish me in my first moments if I were to enter? To those “dens of iniquity”, as my father would, perhaps, not-so-jokingly say? Do they go there from their colourless, uniform jobs and colourless, uniform lives, to find themselves, to re-member themselves, or to forget? Because, if they have discovered, in clubs, what I have found in darkness and candle flame, how can they possibly continue as they were? How can they possibly ever say “yes” to what we call reality?

Are they terrified, as I am, by the distance that can be travelled when the body becomes master? Or have they not seen into the limitless void? No, not void, presence. Seen into the limitless presence.

I ask myself why my awe is all for dancing and not for work. Only one more week of my “retreat” to go and yet my mind does not travel back there in fear or dread. By all logic it should. To be honest, I nearly didn’t take this “sick leave” because I believed it would resolve nothing. I believed that I would merely sit, huddled, day after day, with the horrible realisation of the inevitable return before me. Fear, I was convinced, would haunt and follow me wherever I ran, refusing to be left behind. Because what is a short break in the face of an unending monotony of unredeemed misery and hopelessness? What could possibly be achieved or understood that would change that reality?

But I am not afraid of it, even if I should be. I am amazed at how quickly it has retreated into an irrelevancy, like a poor attempt at science fiction with no substance. For I have found a greater quest, a quest of coming into being greater than the limits of my imagination. If I am afraid, it is not of poor, puny work, but of the power of my own body dancing in the night. I am afraid of who I am be-coming, or re-solving into. I have been challenged with a self I do not know or recognise. I am afraid of being that self, of the consequences of accepting the challenge of being me. No excuses and no compromise. What are the consequences if I allow myself to be?

Cam, of The Rook’s Hollow channel, makes it seem beautifully precious and even sacred. Not because he finds it easy; I am pretty sure he doesn’t. But he is able to articulate the journey into selfhood in ways that I am newly appreciating. Cam is a wonderful, gentle soul. He reminds me, incongruously, of Liam in his gentleness. Cam’s gentleness is much more vulnerable and out in the open than Liam’s, but I feel like, when I look at Cam, I see a side of Liam rarely able to find expression. I bless Cam for being that missing part of Liam.

He is also modest and unassuming, disbelieving in the value of his own assertions and beliefs. But, in a recent video, he pointed out that everything we need is already within us and that perhaps we do not need to change the entire world with who we are. Like me, he does not watch the news. Like me, he is too-easily overwhelmed by the enormity, horror and incomprehensibility of it all. But unlike me, he finds his own solution. He does not rush out there, feeling responsible for fixing everything. Or, if he does feel responsible, he recognises the futility of that. And he makes a difference on a small scale. He makes a difference to the people he meets each day, one word, one gesture, one smile at a time. He knows that, if he can only be himself, then himself must be enough and sufficient. He has all that he needs, just like the Nine of Pentacles. And he makes his contribution on the small scale that is manageable to him. Only, not so small. He has reached all the way from England to Australia, given me time and space to think about who and how I am supposed to be, and returned to me a piece of Liam I had never quite understood was missing.

Who would have thought that when I drew that Sacred rebel card, “Conscious Connections”, that the connections I needed were not with other people? The conscious connections I am forming are with my own body, my own mind. They are with the trees and stars and the wind playing across the sand. They are with the universe itself.

I had a dream last night. Not a beautiful, Fanu dream (I wish he would return!), but still a vivid one. It was a confusing dream and I did not understand it at first. I was inclined to dismiss it but something made me write it down. And now, maybe, I think I understand what it was trying to tell me.

In the dream, I had a cat. A very old but very beautiful and precious cat. She was my long-time companion and very dear to me. I knew that, at her age, she must soon die, so I wanted to make the most of every moment with her. However, a friend had “borrowed” her for a few days, wanting some time with her because she also loved the cat. I had acquiesced, wanting to feel that I had been generous and sharing, and that someone else could benefit from my beautiful cat’s presence (let’s call her Cat, to make things easier). Today was the day I was supposed to get her back and I was feeling very relieved. Something within me was disturbed, telling me that I should not have let her go and that if I was not careful, I would lose, not only my beloved Cat without even the chance to say goodbye, but also something undefined but very important that could only be gained if I spent time with her and learned from her in these last days? weeks? years? of her life.

I was therefore filled with dismay when my friend rang and asked if she could keep Cat for a little while longer. Despite my desire to be accommodating and to help my friend, I felt compelled, by my own strong intuition, to explain my dilemma and say that I didn’t really feel able to stay away from her any longer. My friend was prompt in issuing an invitation for me to go and stay with her, so that we could both be with Cat. This I promptly accepted as an ideal solution and I packed my things with a lighter heart.

On the bus to my friend’s place, however, the niggle in the back of my mind pushed its way to the front and would not be denied. I had been refusing to see the impossibility of who Cat was. Because Cat was not mine initially, but inherited from my parents. A quick calculation told me that Cat must in fact be over 40 years old. That, of course, is absolutely impossible – no cat, no matter, how venerable, can live to such an age. What, then, was happening? As I reached my friend’s place, realisation dawned. Cat was a substitute. She was not original Cat at all, but a substitute and replacement, whom I had taken on and turned into Cat, in order not to lose what I had. I did not want to face reality, so I substituted her and continued to call her Cat. And now this “new” Cat herself was very old.

When I reached my friend’s place, things only got stranger. My friend was married, and I discovered that this was her first wedding anniversary. No ordinary anniversary was it, however. She had a special kind of marriage contract that had to be renewed annually if it was to remain legally binding. Each year, on this date, both parties must agree to continue the marriage for another year. There would be a renewal of vows that would be not merely symbolic, but entirely real. A little like a legally-binding and somehow very important annual hand-fasting ceremony.

My first reaction was one of real embarrassment at not having remembered the date. I felt like a real intruder: how could she possibly want me with her at such an important time as her first-ever renewal of vows? But she assured me that she did very much want me there and that it was wonderful to have me as well as Cat in her home. Then I saw her husband and had a real shock; he was not the same man my friend had married. Literally. It was not merely that he had changed, he was an entirely different person. He was a substitute, an imposter. My heart beat faster and I was alarmed. How could my friend not know? He seemed very kind and attentive on the surface, but I sensed an oily possessiveness and determination, a strange lust for power within him. And, disturbingly, I could not avoid noticing the small moustache he wore. I think that bothered me almost more than anything else about him.

I wanted to alert my friend and warn her. How could she possibly not have noticed? How even could I begin to go about starting a conversation along the lines of “Your husband is not your husband”? My one great relief was that this was the very day when the marriage contract expired. This could end. Now. If necessary we could grab Cat and simply run. But then I saw that my friend did know. She was completely aware of what was happening and in fact knew far more about the situation than I did. But she was going to go through with it anyway. For some reason she would not explain to me, she was acting as though there were no choice at all, as though the great choice, the great opportunity, that lay right before her, did not, in truth, exist, but was a mere form and pretence of choice.

It wasn’t as though she was happy with the substitution. If she had been, strange as it was, I might have been happy for her and thought that this was something she wanted and that was good for her. If she was entering this renewal with gladness, then I could be glad with her. But it was very clear that she wasn’t happy. She looked – defeated. Worn down. Without hope. Everything in me cried out to stop it all and make her change her mind. But that was not my privilege. She was her own person and I could only question, only suggest or advise. I could even argue, but I had to respect that the choice was hers. And she was going to commit herself to another year of – what exactly?

It was at this crucial moment that I began to wake, but as I did so, another realisation hit me. Even my friend had been changing throughout the course of the dream. When I first arrived, she was very like a lady I know in Canberra, Lyn. By the end of the dream she had become Carly, and, even though I could not remember clearly, I was certain that she had been at least one other person in between. My friend was also, you guessed it, a substitute.

What to make of such a strange dream? Now that I have written it, the first thing that leaps out at me is the idea of choice. I made choices within the dream. There were things about which I had no choice, even though I very much wanted to have it. And my ever-shifting friend had a clear and immediate choice, only she was refusing to acknowledge it, acting as though there were no choice. And of course, presumably, the substitute “husband” had made a choice and was determined to keep my friend for himself.

I feel as though the word “choose” or “choice” has been one of the ones most frequently typed into these pages. It comes back again and again, in different guises and with different voices. It makes me think of Sesame Street, long ago, when I was little, when each episode would be “Brought to you by the letter [A] and the number [9]” (substitute whatever combination of letter and number you like). Right now, if I were to declare a “sponsorship” for this diary (it ought to be my employer really – they’re paying for it!), I would have to say “Brought to you by the verb “to choose”.

The other concept within the dream, is, of course, substitution. That was so unsubtle within the dream as to be a slap in the face. And so I ask myself, what have I been substituting? What have I been refusing to see and allowing myself to substitute as if the replacement were the real thing? Right now it feels as though I have been substituting my very reality, my very self. I have allowed society to come along and tell me what I should have. I have allowed it to swap my real life for one of pretence, simply because it suits. I cannot help but call up a corny advertisement tag line: “Accept no substitutes”. No doubt it has already been used. But right now, it is not corny. Not for me. The dream is reaching out to me with an entreaty:

Accept and be who you are. Accept no substitutes.

* * *

I happened to glance up from my screen and was immediately distracted. Now I have to record it because it has disturbed and thrilled me in a strange way I cannot describe. I have just seen a bird, the like of which I have never seen before. I have absolutely no clue what it may be. It was quite a large bird, perhaps the size of a large owl, although it walked with the stance of a kiwi. I think it had a flat beak, like an owl’s and it was a pretty, speckled-y brown. Its feathers seemed loose and shiny, not sleek against its body – they fluffed out, giving the bird a puffed-up appearance, like a long-haired cat. They also made the bird’s neck appear very thick, so that its head almost blended into its body. For tail it seemed to have a series of plumey ribbons, trailing loosely to the ground.

What on earth can it have been and where did it come from? Why was it wandering through my garden? I scooped up my phone and tried to carefully go out after it, but by the time I unlocked my door, it had completely vanished. I looked and looked, stood still and waited, but saw no further sign.

It is still there though, somewhere. The magpies do not like it. They are disturbed and unsettled, calling and swooping. The order of the world and the normal pattern of life have been disrupted.