Tag Archives: healing

#2558

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The Morrigan once showed me the landscape of my soul: lush fields and verdant woodlands crisscrossed by fences of wood and stone, unnatural boundaries where no demarcation should be. See how you have let others lay claim to your sovereignty? She said. See how your freedom has been divided up among them like plots of land after a conquest? And I did see. I never chose to parcel out my soul, I certainly never handed out deeds, yet neither did I retaliate when colonizers encroached. I merely shied away, yielding ground to avoid confrontation. Now I’ve barely any land left on which to make my stand. If you will not fight to reclaim your soul, the Morrigan warned, you will remain a puppet of others’ whims and desires for the rest of your life.


The war is bloody and exhausting. It’s dragged on for years with what feels to me like little progress. Yet when I falter, when I’m battleworn and losing ground, the Morrigan reminds me of how far I’ve come. Every clump of grass won back is precious, She says as She shows me that landscape again. Every inch of soil. Every rock. You will have it all back in time if you keep fighting. In this way wars are won. And so I keep fighting. I keep standing up for myself. I keep setting boundaries. Under the Morrigan’s stern guidance I keep winning back control over the land of my soul – inch by inch.

#2432

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“Point,” Alice scowled as the practice blade darted through her defense and poked at an unpadded joint. She shifted her stance and went on the offense.

“Point,” The blade whipped around Ali’s attack to tap her unguarded throat. Blowing a sweaty strand of hair off her face with an impatient huff, she responded with a renewed assault, her own rapier a flashing blur in the sunlight. 

“Point,” Mage grinned as she slipped around the whirling blade, snuck a quick jab through another gap in her opponent’s light armor, and jumped back before Ali could retaliate. “Jeeze,” she called, “did you line your armor with lead or something? Why’re you moving so damn slow?” 

“I’m just tired,” Alice growled, trying to close the distance between them with each swing of her blade. “Some of us have been dreamwalking to aid the defenseless instead of lazing about the palace all day.” Mage only scoffed at this. “Oh darling,” she retorted, “you and I both know that’s not what this is about! You’ve been out of sorts for weeks. Something on your–” she dashed in, bopped Alice on the crown with her free hand, and dashed back out, “–mind?”

“No!” Ali rubbed her head and fixed Mage with a baleful glare. “I’m fine! Just drop it.” 

“You suuuuure?” The elf danced in a circle around Alice, feinting with the practice blade just enough to force the other immortal off-balance from dodging. “‘Cause you seem pretty distracted lately! What is it, huh? What’s up? What’s going on?” Her sword moved in time with the rapid-fire questions. “Are you mad? Are you sad? Are you hangry? Are you–“

“I’m not mad!” The shout echoed through the training ground, followed by the clattering of Alice’s falling sword. It startled even Mage into stillness. Ali’s next words were a mutter through clenched teeth. “I’m jealous, okay? I’m jealous that you got to have your revenge. You spent years meting out your own brand of justice for what Tivius did. You broke the Lighthouse, for gods’ sake! I’m not saying I wish I had done it instead, or that I agree with what you did, but…” She shrugged. “At least you let all your wounds bleed themselves clean.”

“Ali…” The sound was more sigh than actual commentary. Mage set her rapier down with a bit more care than Alice had and closed the distance between them. Before she could offer any platitudes, snarky or otherwise, Alice held up a hand to stop her. “It’s true,” the woman continued. “I fought for Tivs’ legacy until the very end, even when I was utterly alone. And then we came here and all that’s suddenly in the past, we’re free, time to let it go, and I guess I never dealt with the emotions I’d buried during the war. Not the way you did.” She hugged her arms around her thin frame. “I think I tried to heal the wounds he left so quickly that I never bothered to drain them and now they’re…”

“Infected and full of puss?” Mage offered helpfully. The lump that had been building in Alice’s throat broke free in a burst of laughter. “Yeah,” she chuckled, “something like that.” 

“Hmm…” A sly smile pulled up one corner of Mage’s mouth. “You know, normally I’d suggest tracking down the motherfucker who hurt you and exacting some very physical revenge as therapy, but in this circumstance that’s rather complicated. So…” The training ground blurred around them with a snap of Mage’s fingers. When their surroundings sharpened once more, Alice and Mage stood on the swaying deck of the Jolly Roger. Lightning jumped between storm clouds overhead and briefly illuminated the dark hulk of an island on the horizon.

“There we go!” Mage clapped Ali on the back and bent to retrieve her sword. “Why don’t you try reliving one of my battles? Blowing shit up can be very liberating.”

#2422

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Born under Leo in the year of the Dragon
Ace of Wands embers smoldering in my marrow
I am driven to create, feverish with purpose.

Yet now I prostrate myself upon winter’s wet soil
extinguish my flames, welcome the dark
and let scavengers tear out the choicest sweets.

I shall disperse in beetle bellies, corvid craws
rot down to inert atoms under the moonlight
cease, surrender, stagnate
go still
and silent
and rest.

#2372

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You can’t publicly mourn anymore. Not really. You can’t claw at your skin or tear out your hair. You can’t howl and beat your breast. Polite society demands we tame our grief into dry-eyed stoicism or silent, stately tears. Lacking an outlet, I settle for picking at scabs that never heal and pulling out my eyebrows until my fingers ache, but it’s never enough. They call it dermatillomania and trichotillomania because if you do this to yourself there must be something clinically wrong with your mind. I think a more accurate term, if one is so necessary, would be obsessive compulsive mourning. Can we be blamed, though, given the state of the world? We’re drowning in grief and our bodies long for the catharsis of mindless animal exertion. Some sorrow you can only release in screams so loud they leave you voiceless. Some rage you can only set free by clawing it out of your flesh with your own fingernails. Some mourning only heals when you are surrounded by others who wail and rend with you. There’s solace to be found in the ugly, violent mourning of our ancestors – but instead we cage the misery inside ourselves, where it rots us slowly from within.

#2350

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The Morrigan is change in all its forms. She is change swift as lightning and disorienting as thunder. She is change that draws blood and sweat and tears. She is the sweeping scythe of change that severs the wheat from its stalk and yet She is also the slow, steady millstone of change which grinds that wheat into flour. The Morrigan’s change is not always the cataclysmic storm; sometimes it is the gently falling rain which, over time, will weather what even the tempest could not touch.

I think I misunderstood the Morrigan’s lesson for me. She revealed to me the tower of my subjugation, that mighty thing built of sorrow and fear, but She would not use Her power to bring it down. I thought this meant I must tear it down myself brick by brick, that Her lesson for me was that only through violent destruction of my cage could I earn my freedom. Yet one day as I clawed at the mortar with weary, bloody fingers a raven passed overhead, a black silhouette against the bright sky, and I suddenly wondered, What if I don’t tear the tower down at all? What if I just… walk away? 

Sometimes the Morrigan’s change is a wrecking ball. Sometimes Her change is slow, hard labor. And sometimes Her change is choosing to leave something behind. Time will wear this tower down all on its own. Rain will soften its stones; lichen will grow in the mortar’s cracks. Flowers and grasses will take root and, seeking the sun, will break apart what is no longer strong. If I return, all that will remain is a ruin slowly crumbling back into the earth, and ruins hold no power over the present.

#2216

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The Morrigan watches with crossed arms as I scrape and scrabble at the stones of my tower. I have dislodged a few, loosened a couple more, but there are so many I am afraid to count them for fear I’ll give up this foolish quest. My fingers bleed; sweat drips down my face; I am exhausted and aching and angry. Good, the Morrigan says. You should be angry. Look at this prison! Think of how long it has trapped you; think how long it will take to tear down. Embrace your anger so you never let anyone, especially yourself, place one new stone on its foundation. I want to tell Her I’m too tired to continue – but then a little light shines through the gaps now, a cool breeze flutters in, and the hunger for freedom renews my strength. I know I can do this. Slowly but surely I will dismantle this tower so it can never entomb me again.

#2173

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No regrets.

It has become such a trite phrase, an excuse for bad tattoos and wild partying. But what does it mean beyond those trivialities, beyond the shallowness of YOLO culture? What does it mean to truly live a regret-free life?

It means forgiving.

It means forgiving the past for taking you to this present. It means forgiving yourself for not understanding what was happening at the time, for not clinging to those final moments with tooth and nail. It means forgiving those who may have hastened that end through their carelessness or the flaws in a broken system. It means forgiving every person their lack of omniscience – yet especially yourself. It means forgiving yourself for the things you did and the things you did not do and how that closed all the doors on every possible future but one.

And it means accepting.

It means accepting that you can neither change the past nor predict how it will affect the future. It means accepting that we are only human and that we all make mistakes, every one of us every day, and nothing can change that either. It means accepting endings and embracing beginnings, always. It means accepting a new normal. It means accepting that new normals are not inherently bad, only different.

And it means being able to one day look upon a gravestone without flinching. It means knowing in your heart you did all you could and continue to do all you can. It is not an easy philosophy. It is not a philosophy of misspelled tattoos and drunken selfies. It is a philosophy of hope tempered with the weight of experience. It is a constant striving to do what you think is right in the moment and a constant forgiving of yourself and others once the moment has passed. It is closing the door on the past, yet never locking it.

#2154

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These crises are a dime a dozen, child. You have ocean trenches of depth within you, jagged mountain peaks of height, you could fall forever inside yourself – but would you not rather fly? In your dreams you fight against gravity, longing for the sky, for the freedom your soul knows is your birthright. You have wings, crow-daughter, use them! The chains which bind you to the earth are self-imposed, forged in your mind and anchored in your heart. There is no key, no spell, no magic phrase which can open those locks; you must break them yourself with your own rage and hunger to be free. You have the strength necessary for such a feat if only you will harness it, and now is the time. Demolish your gilded cage, become a wild thing of black feathers and witchblood!