swaddling

Hello, diary. Happy Solstice.

My arms and legs feel clotted from working hard all week, sitting sedentary at a desk. Four whole days without having to answer to fussy graphic designers = paradise. I love my clients, but I am looking forward to not having to quote a project, source paper samples, order ink draw-downs, wrangle with book layouts, and schedule press checks until next Wednesday. When I haven't been working, I've been swathing myself in decadence - tapas, expensive Chinons, swills of brandy, chocolate the color of black magic, tiger stripes, and fake gold.

Amidst this indulgence, I went to see Petra again. She's my psychic friend who is not only a fellow red/curly headed Virgo from Arkansas of fairly immediate Cherokee ancestry, she and I even have the same bad ring tone on our cell phones. As opposed to the tea leaf reading that I received last time, we did a more in-depth tarot & clairvoyant session and talked about utilizing ancient energies (I embody the more mythopoetic fairy/elfin archetypes), gaining spiritual sovereignty (she pulled the Queen of Wands), and fracturing masks. She said I wear two masks - she saw them clearly, splintering my face into discernible halves. One has the contours of a phantom mask, with an odd spherical cup covering my right ear. The other is more fragmented and has left a deep scar in my cheek from repeated attempts at removal. I have worn the masks for so long that they have ossified, bolted at the temples (she said this plugging explains my frequent tension headaches which only occur at my temples, particularly the right). The masks have, to some degree, protected me from the world, but at potentially disastrous risks - of hiding things from myself and others, of disconnecting from myself to the point of disassociation, to the point of not even recognizing myself in the mirror. A life, covered in rime.

She offered to do a channeled healing that would help loosen the masks. I had to stare her blankly in the eyes for a few minutes while she spoke in another language (tongues?) and visualized the masks chipping apart. I felt a warm ruffle traveling up through my throat while she was speaking, like birds flapping their wings along my esophagus. She said it would take a few days for the healing to integrate, but I haven't had a headache since then!

Much of the reading was quite general, touching on larger forms in my life that I tend to minimize the importance of, that are actually huge & looming, titanic - that the most important things right now are taking really good care of and connecting with myself, and exploring my abilities as a healer/seer. She's convinced I'm psychic, that I am starting to receive subtle signals (particularly with regards to numbers and ESP-esque coincidences, although, there is no such thing as coincidence). Sitting on the code of the universe, waiting for it to unfurl.

We also talked about resisting the language of pattern/routine. Doing something fun/incisive/exploratory every day. Like Fred Rogers sandbox kind of fun. Today I'm going to sew together some Christmas presents and buy a few more jewels for my lady friends. Moe is getting a flea collar and hairball meds for Christmas, although I might surprise him with a catnip mouse. Another year at Maryrose's Monday night, the drunk poet society. I hope we have a resurgence of singing "Under the Bridge" acapella with a lot of that Chris Piuma ukelele.

More soon,
~ADE