signs – audrey di mola – folkloric futurism

channeled + wrote this morning.
spoken + shared with YOU.

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MESSENGER?

right after i wrote that sentence a shiny big red heart balloon floated into my windowframe. it floated on the air before landing in the back yard of the house where i live. balloons from nowhere have been a sign from my nana not long after she passed. that and the encouraging rainbows i’ve been seeing in windows– first randomly in brooklyn, and then in several houses i passed during my morning walk in the in-between times.

i am being called to deliver this Legend. my fear stops me– not fear of what i have to say. not fear of being seen. but fear of having my voice fall silent. there is so much noise– how to cut through it? how to reach people when you cannot physically be with them?

i am reminded again– speak plainly, and even just for yourself, your voice will be heard.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MESSENGER?

i think i have subconsciously always been drawn to it– growing, as i got older, to accept it as my true duty– because inherently there is a letting go, a releasing, that is required. the messenger is the messenger no matter the circumstance. it is something that is beyond you– something you need to ‘move out of the way’ for, ‘keep yourself pure’ for, treat yourself kindly, for– so that it can move through you, and out into the world. something that is greater than you, but that comes from you.

each of us have this ability, and often we silence it.

yesterday i was asked, while the clinician from the counseling center drafted up a safety plan for me– what is worth being alive for?
and i realized in that moment– it was me. it had to be me. just me.

it is this inherent worth i have been seeking for many years, and certainly most acutely in my adult life– especially the past five years spent wandering the wilderness.

to step back– and give yourself permission.
to release your story.
to be Seen, as you are.
to soften and ACCEPT and let PASS the feelings and sensations that come through you.
to remember what it feels like to be, purely, a receptor..
you do not judge what you are receiving, you just be with it. which is even a subtler form of witnessing, for me– witnessing feels divorced and cold, sometimes, when i think of it.
this is a Seeing. a Being With. an Accepting. and a–
Creation of Safety, Within.
so that Whatever It Is you Receive– you know that you will be Safe in being with it, experiencing it, acknowledging it.

we have developed triggers and defense mechanisms that do not belong to us.
i have very many that i did not realize for a very long time.
in my discovery of them, i was bent on analyzing them– this, has always, given me fascination, control, obsession.
i deeply, deeply want to understand.
i deeply, deeply want to know.
but because i am a storyteller– because i take stock of my life in its episodes, its adventures, its memories, its STORIES– i began dragging this tome around with me. it has stooped my posture, and lowered– sometimes even obliterated– my ability to see through and into the Present Moment. into the Expansivity that is my birthright. because, of course– there is a life history here.
there is a sense of Self that is based on what has happened in the past. based on trauma. based on learned behaviors, inherited behaviors. and things we needed to do in order to survive.

i have realized, over the past day or so– in a way that is more alive than i have before– that there exists a Pain Body.
it is this Pain Body that is holding the hulking tome. not even carrying it– clutching it. offering it to you whenever you try to cast out into the Wild Unknown.
here, it shows you, reminds you. it remembers every single moment, every single page.
here, remember when you failed.
here, remember when you were betrayed.
here, remember when you felt smaller than small, worthless.
here, remember when you tried– here, and here, and here, and here. and it didn’t work.

i do not feel this force as malevolent.
it just Is, what it Is. as All Things Are.
it is a victim and product of its circumstance.

but You Are Not.
You Are Not.

i do not wish to destroy the Pain Body.
i have learned inside my Legend– that violence is not the way. force is not the way.
it is an Allowing, a Being With, a sure-footed present consciousness– that allows things to release, to Flow, for Highest Good.

i See myself, in my mind’s eye– where i have experienced so many things– guides, gifts, quests, signs and symbols–
i See myself taking the tome from the Pain Body. with its missing skin and its patchiness, its shackles and punctures, its hardened, sad eyes– its relinquishment of Trust, to be Seen. to be Touched.
why would i want to continue hurting this creature?
why would i want to continue punishing this creature— telling it how small it is, how worthless, in agreement– of what it already feels and believes it is, and is Not?
this is where the Great Work happens. the Allowing. the Accepting. the pivot we are all being called to make, right Now–
is an internal one. as they often are. but we remain distracted– by everything Else.

i was Met today, on that walk in the morning in-betweens– by my black wolf and my white wolf. they were those with whom i began this quest, long ago and just yesterday– all Time is all the Same.
we walked under the archways and stood before a towering stone support for the bridge above us–
but all i saw in my mind was a radiant stained glass, not unlike ones i had seen in lofty, ornate cathedrals.
in that stained glass i saw the Newness. i saw NOVA. i saw my Self.
and the black wolf, standing beside me, was his half-hybrid, half-human self.
and the white wolf, now, too– was a beautiful woman with white wings flowing from her temples.
i understood the Union. i understood the Balance.
i understood the other pages in this story– i could not fully understand, at the Time.

who is coming to Be With the Pain Body?
it is this reunited Self. this reconstructed Self. a Self that has existed and yet has never existed, at the same Time.

i realized once more that when we feel Sovereign and Safe in our bodies, we can hear the messages Clearly.
they transform effortlessly and shift from the riddles or metaphors into plain spoken truth.
days ago– as in many times during my Legend– i actually did not want to kill myself. i did not want to die.
my Spirit was EXPANDING radically– in ways the old world, the old container– Could. Not. Hold.

we have a Choice, in every Moment.
be obliterated with the old container. the one that was too small to hold us. the one that restricts us.
or create a New Container for the Winged Self. one that can truly support the fuller Wing-Span.

that is who i saw on that stone wall turned mystical stained glass window, underneath the bridge.
standing in the park with my shimmering guides that only my internal eyes could see.

NOVA. do you know where this name came from?
a child had written with chalk on some stones that i stumbled upon, at the base of a tree.
“fairy house.”
and on the rock sitting above it– “HI NOVA.”

sometimes we are recognized by Spirit, by Wonder, in ways we cannot yet acknowledge ourselves.

yet this is the Work, and the Work i invite you to do, with Me, With and For Your Self.

this Newness is an ever-present Gift. this burst of a star, this beginning.
but it can only be given PERMISSION– SAFETY– KINDNESS– AGENCY– with which to begin–
if we gently remove the tome of our Past Lives from the grasping, tired hands of the Pain Body.
you may Burn it, or you may Bury it. it is no matter.
the ritual happens Inside.
i understand now that the more important thing– the most important thing– is not what happens to that book of the Past.
it’s what future-creating action is set into motion– when you sit down beside the Pain Body.
and let your Highest Self re-teach it how to Feel. Accept Love. Accept Touch. and Heal.

i thank you for the opportunity to flow this through me today.
it is not the Last, and not the First.
but the Present, Ever, and Always.

NOVA**.

for the times it arrives like a thunderbolt.

polarbear

yes, there were many joyful things mixed with the blood. – clarice lispector.

sometimes all we can offer are the words. sometimes all we have are the words. and for that i am grateful. this came to me like a wild mother, like a hand of profound power and gentle grace. she is what is comforting me in this moment of uncertainty- all deep breaths and strangeness. below is only a portion of this piece- my hand wouldn’t stop moving. i know this will play a part in annunciation, my third offering to the world- this word that has been following me around in different forms, different adventures, different creatures- since the summer. a friend and fellow poetess told me that doing the polar bear plunge is “good for the guides.” i had no idea how right she was. the door to this opened when i tried to start writing about myself in a loving way.. no coincidence. this is as much for you as it is for me.

the eyes that have been wearing glasses since childhood but only so the heart can see clearer. in the mists of the night, the reflected deer soul crossing your path. i am going to make a work of striking, strange oneness. like reality percepted itself. HEART that loves to the point of ruin, stands in the fire city, recreates it from mud and ash again, not blinking. not asking for anything, but THIS, always this. earth city, mud city, the hand palms and feet soles that bless the wounds and suck the energy from sky, air, ground, trees, dirt- drink it desperately like GOOD MEDICINE- the only kind left- the body you once extricated, criticized, now crashed to wholeness by the perfect sea- i am salt and longing, fragmented light still twinkling with magic so ancient from before i was born this way- it constantly tells me i’m okay and some days i feel pure enough to believe it, my hand going to pins and needles as i write this, my body born again in the shock of aliveness, perfect frigid waters, crying and laughing, howling, this is how we were born- and some days i feel wild enough to believe it. near to the wild heart i am cleansed by my own blood spilled, i want to look at it in my hands, know i died for something- gasping, gaping, the way an open wound breathes open mouthed just before healing- twinkling, i had never felt my lungs before, i had never heard my heart before- I AM. like she before me and all the animals i am still a cave painting swirling wind, fur and belief- fossilized in crouched cocoon i can feel myself at the river’s edge- I COME FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE and that place has healed me. make enough space in between your bones and ache for the incantation to begin, this is how we turn salt to sinew, memory to surrender to what is greater, wordless- i am always edging the notion between words and sleep, stretching like fingers towards the whole damn world’s oblivion, even jesus the christ had to leave to come back, you always wander to return, RENEWED. bless this heart, these hands, these teeth that love too purely, salt in the fierceness, the wound, the truth, the library- all i can do is scribble at the doorways in my head, i will unlock them all with heart fire the way a blaze never asks permission, it just comes to return and then leaves as if it never left, this is eternity in the flesh- can you feel it? burning boats and bridges, sweet algae climbing on the sides of memory, grasping, drinking, gulping the marrow- i will stay close to the lupine heart, i will be rock and moss and teeth and shadow- i will be the sunburst on the water, i will sing with eyes electric, i will stand at helm of fearful generator but in GREATNESS- I AM.