DSTRYR

Dynamic times.

If we were to casually list the reality altering events throughout the past ten months we would catch ourselves having forgotten many. If the death of Mr. Peanut wasn’t the strangest initiation into the new year, our existence only became more distorted from there. Of all the conspiracies, I lean towards The Simulation Hypothesis. It strangely makes the most sense. But, then there are all the conspiracies, all with their damaging seeds of truth.

We are watching the figurative “needle” move forward at the expense of many lives. Many areas in need of change. As the tension continues, the good prevails and evil has its stranglehold. The most difficult, wrangling collective hurt and not reacting in the moment.

A week into August, my shadow met me as I woke and would agitate through another day of processing. It manifested emotionally, challenged spiritually, and hurt physically. My wife held space for it and I felt. Good days were manically creative and bad days were depression. It helped to hear that “something was wrong with you if you weren’t feeling depressed these days.” All in our own balance of healing - some working through it, some refusing. The Lost are produced into foot soldiers, broken souls, afraid and full of self-hatred. A wielded weapon.

You never know what is going to break you either. Kimberly Jones reminding us “they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge” did it. I understood the urgency and pain in that video. Unable to keep up with the malevolence and ineptness in American politics, we were not spared of it on the home-front either. Emotionally unqualified, bought and paid for politicians in Saskatchewan deplorably voting down a suicide prevention strategy bill. In an act of awareness, Métis artist, Tristen Durocher walked 635 kms from Air Ronge, SK to begin a hunger strike on the lawn of the Legislature. The province immediately served him a court sentence saying his teepee was not in compliance with the bylaws of Wascana Centre, ironically, as they manipulate and politically weasel a way to sell their buddies a chunk of that same public space. Tristen came subject to Saskatchewan’s most perverse. Taunters, hecklers and ridiculers pandered to by rhetoric. Regardless of a judge ruling in Tristen’s favour, everything was steeped in heartache. Our society of hurt and strife. A hurt that wins elections. Sick.

Tristen came bearing a fire. This fire opens strange portals to anger, rumination, empathy and inspiration. Exploring nuances is tedious and dangerous though and in defence of any human, we are all a complex gumbo of hypocrisies and short fallings, damages and traumas - all versions of oneself able to morph into yet another head of a dragon.

Social media abstinence is a gateway to spiritual discipline. As my home showed its damage I could only go inward, sitting in prayer and surrounding my space with amulets and guides for insight. As a child I was taught to pray the Rosary, its meditative repetition always calming me. Drawn to the mysticism of Christ my heart has developed contact with something I will never fully understand but the communication is there. I reached out through Oracle Cards and pulled The Destroyer.

To fully quote Kim Krans’ description:

The Destroyer – the final of the three archetypes in the trio of existence – has necessary yet painful work to do in the world. Culturally, we have an aversion to endings. And we hang on to permanence as a signifier of success. Yet The Destroyer pulls the rug out from underneath relationships, jobs, homes, and all forms of security. It’s the part of us that wants things to end. Its painful orientation is to uncover our true purpose. The Destroyer does not let us linger long in comforts, as it knows not much happens in that realm. With its piercing eyes, it seeks out stagnancy from a distance and the rest...becomes history. In the old myths this is the moment when heads begin to roll, the ground opens up, and castles crumble…

WHERE HAVE ALL MY HORSES GONE? (2020) INTERSESSIONS VIDEO “PREMIER”