Issara Simone Edwards's Blog, page 4
October 23, 2022
New Moon Energy
Tuesday 21st of July 2020
Things keep coming up lately, things I haven’t thought of in years. Right now it’s like, yeah, I get it, I repress things and what? But, to be serious, the fact that they’re surfacing now would suggest I’ve reached a place where I’m ready to deal with them. But there’s just one problem. Being ready to deal with something and knowing how to deal with it are two very different things.
October 22, 2022
Shakti and Bellflowers
Monday 20th of July 2020
Hi. Do you feel that reluctance? Let’s begin… I suppose. Where though? Shall we go straight to the resistance, the clenching my jaw, around my heart, concaving my chest, buckling in surrounding, protecting?
I accidently took my sister’s advice and have been going on an internal quest, the best kind. This household is in isolation at the moment because my mother has surgery so, I’m using the opportunity.
So, day one, and I don’t want to talk about it. What’s day two going to be like? Okay. So, so, so, so, so, so, so. One more time, so. What did I find on day one of the journey into myself? Well, there’s the observer, the me that’s observing all of this, the inner prude, the librarian, the curling inwards snail. Then there’s the problem, I say problem, the uncomfortableness.
So, we’ve got the observer, (the prude), and this sensual swirling, snake charmer, goddess of desire, want and wanting, and they do not get along.
I found a temple decorated with white flowers, flowers I’d never seen before, sort of like bluebells or snowdrops but bigger, plumper. Three women around a bathtub filled with water and rose petals, one of them holding a baby. When I climbed into the tub, she handed me the baby and my stomach absorbed him. When I touch the white flowers they turn purple. Let’s pause and do a google search for those flowers.
They’re called bellflowers. Huh. symbolising humility, attractiveness, everlasting love and death. A flower that covers it all.
So, I never really thought of myself as a prude. I’ve always appreciated sexual energy in others, but I suppose not really myself. I’ve never experienced sexual attraction before, aesthetic attraction yeah, but never sexual, so it’s a weird experience to find that kind of energy within myself. And so I don’t want to write about it, I want to run from it. But this is just day one. What will day two be?
October 9, 2022
Alone
Sunday 19th of July 2020
Drastic changes make me want to do drastic things? Is anyone else like that?
Can distance grow all by itself, or does it need the people it grows between to actively participate in the gulf?
Does it need Shu, the separating god, the atmosphere, the space between, the light the shines between people, highlighting all the gaps?
There’s so much swirling around in my head, which thread do I pull, which one do I follow to the end?
There’s a paper and fabric tapestry I made in 2014 stuck to the wall next to my bed. I’ve been contemplating taking it down for a while now, putting something else there instead. It’s how I cope with change, I change everything around me, this is my control.
There’s this theory that people grow apart because they evolve at different rates, to different level, or one person doesn’t evolve at all. When this happens, we begin to attract new people who are on the new level we’ve reached, or something along those lines.
My thoughts on this, am I constantly evolving to levels no one around me is reaching, or has everyone else evolved and left me behind? Either way the result is the same I suppose.
Life is a tapestry and we are all threads, sometimes the threads are close together, wrapping around each other, sometimes the threads separate to form a greater pattern. Am I a loose thread that the weavers forgot about?
Today someone asked me if I’m getting enough sleep. How tired must I look for someone to ask me that?
I get more and more isolated every year. I think one day it’ll be just me. Am I ready for that? Have I actively created this or did I lazily let it happen?
I don’t fight for people, I don’t hold on. I let people go their own way. I always thought this was a good thing, no force, no grovelling, just release. But, maybe people want to be fought for. I’ve always wanted someone to fight for me, to care enough. It’s the desire to be loved because you’re loved, not because you had to beg for it, or earn it, not because they want something from you. It’s the fantasy of unconditional love. Deep down we all know it doesn’t exist but we still want it. This is what the movies don’t teach us, love is always conditional, it has to be for a species to survive.
I’m not ready to be completely alone, I’m not sure what it will do to me. But saying that, I kind of already am. I only really talk to you anymore, only these pages, only the ghost, only the gods I call to. Maybe that’s why I’m alone. I need to share more, right? Be myself more? Communicate? Because that’s never scared anyone off.
I don’t want to be alone. I want someone on my level, whatever level that may be. Am I ready for that?
October 8, 2022
The Illusion of Happiness
Friday 17th of July 2020
Sometimes we hear things , little truths that we should have known all along. When we hear them, we know them to be true instantly because somewhere calm and still inside us, we already knew it. Do you want to hear it?
Okay.
Happiness isn’t in finding success, being in a relationship or having money, happiness is in the little moments.
There is some serious drilling going on outside and it is painful to hear. Where was I?
The problem is we’re taught that making money and being successful, having a loving relationship and a perfect family is what will make us happy. Happiness doesn’t come from any of that stuff. It comes from watching a movie you love, from spending time with someone who makes you smile, it comes from the little things that mean everything, not the big things we’ve been taught mean everything.
I’ve been thinking about what I can and can’t accept. Never falling in love, I can accept. Never writing or creating art again, I can’t. These are my moments of happiness, whether they’re appreciated or acknowledged by others or not. Combing words like magick, like alchemy, expressing with the written word. Inky fingers and paint smears, the feeling of a brush on canvas, watching something beautiful take shape.
I would love to be successful, to make enough money to not only survive but thrive. These things would make my life easier but not happy.
Happiness is growing vegetables and herbs in my garden, as small as it is. It’s reading poetry, listening to music, spending time with my sister, it’s stargazing, baking, decorating, learning something new, watching the world go by from a bus window, it’s chasing twilight.
What are your moments of happiness?
October 2, 2022
Petals all the Way Down
Thursday 16th of July 2020
Sometimes I hear a voice calling my name, mostly in the mornings. It wakes me up, calls me to attention. It’s usually a child’s voice, but sometimes an adults. The voice is always genderless and always serious, like it has a purpose.
This morning I actively listened, instead of passively overhearing. The voice cut in and out like radio static, some words lost, other garbled, but most of it pretty clear. It told me I’m not unmotivated to write, it’s the house, which sounds like an excuse to me, the house is full of stuck energies that need to be cleared away. So, I asked, how I was to go about doing this, and was actually given a recipe for a loose incense, but only for the living room. I quote, ‘to clear stuck male energy from the living room.’ But first I had to cleanse myself with a tea, and I was also given the recipe for that, which will remain mine, but you can have the recipe for the loose incense.
Palo Santo: To cleanse, heal, purify, protect, inspire, bring love and good fortune.
Dahlia: To inspire creativity, bring change and inner strength.
Dried Papaya: For good luck and happiness.
Dried Mango: For wealth, fertility and love.
Dried Green Chilli: For warmth, friendship, good luck and bountiful harvests.
Pretty straight forward, but I still wasn’t satisfied, so I asked why, why just the living room, why ‘stuck male energy’, why is it bad?
‘It’s not bad,’ came the answer, ‘it’s just stuck. It needs to be released. There should be a flow of energy. The energy is jammed. It’s the energy of every man that has been in that room. House hold…’
And I think about it. I’ve painted the walls and changed the furniture but by Grandfather is still sat on the dining chair because he hated soft sofas, still staring at the TV whilst I tried to speak to him, still ignoring me instead of listening and trying to understand. It’s still the room he slept in for over a year whilst telling me and my mother how worthless we were, how we wouldn’t exist without him, and how grateful we should be to him. It’s still the room where he longed for his real children to come and visit, but they were always too busy. It’s still the room he was confined to with his sick wife, where he had to be reliant on his stepdaughter to care for them whilst his biological children only visited once a week.
It’s still the room where my uncle slept on the sofa for almost a year, after he had had a fight with my grandparents and was disowned, after he was dumped, after his business fell through and he went bankrupt, only his car left to his name. It’s still the room where he plotted his next move, raged against his parents, his ex, the people who didn’t believe in him, his ideas, his genius.
It’s still the room where my dad sat, for less then six months, before bored of domesticity, he left.
‘This is the house of a woman, a sanctuary, your mother made it so. She bought this house, on her own, had no help to pay off the mortgage, raised two children by herself, made it clear she could only be reliant on herself. Male energy needs to feel needed, included, a part of, it finds no sanctuary here, only resistance. It can’t flow, it gets stuck, trapped and all the demons they carry get trapped in with it. Release it, let it flow.’
It doesn’t hurt to try.
October 1, 2022
Ophiuchus.
Sunday 12th of July 2020
Hi. How awake are you right now?
I keep waking up exhausted. I keep waking up with this physical feeling like I’ve been travelling all night.
I came across the term ‘spirit time’ recently, the idea that time can slip away from people that are more ‘spiritual’ because the spiritual isn’t linear. This isn’t entirely relevant but it could be later, I honestly never know where these things will go.
Ophiuchus. I’ve been having these weird dreams that feel, to me, to have some weird, unknowable truth to them.
I dreamt about Idunn sitting on a throne of nuts, the whole path that led to her also consisting of nuts. But Idunn is apples so I looked it up and found this little story of Loki turning her into a nut so he could smuggle her into Asgard.
I dreamt I was part of a group of people driads who worshipped these living trees. So, I looked that up and found dryads, one letter off, I suppose, ancient Greek tree spirits or tree nymphs.
I told my sister about these dreams and she said: ‘Maybe you need to go on a quest.’
That night I went outside and the stars felt like this giant looming over me, and we should all know by now how I feel about things looming over me, terrifying. But I pulled out my phone, opened up the star app and looked up this looming giant, Ophiuchus.
One google search later: if we take into consideration planetary shifts, I’m not a Sagittarius, I’m an Ophiuchus? Okay, what do I do with that?
8:30pm the next day, kitty eye mask on, bird tweeting outside, it’s daily meditation time, and there’s a guy with antlers, throwing things into a bonfire. There’s a ball consisting of water and fire swirling around each other, only air keeps them apart. The antler guy tells me its a seed.
I walk up stone steps into the sky, and Sagittarius turns his bow and arrow towards Ophiuchus, but doesn’t shoot, just points. Then the bow and arrow turns to the ball of fire and water and he hands it to him. What does it all mean?
I looked up Ophiuchus again, old myths, old stories. Ophiuchus represented Asclepius, god of healing and medicine. He was inspired to become a healer after witnessing a snake resurrect another snake by using herbs. The snake representing divine knowledge and the fundamental energies of the universe. He was taught by Chiron, the centaur, (Sagittarius) who handed him the seed of knowledge. Okay. Again, what does it all mean? Possibly nothing at all.
September 25, 2022
Straif
Friday 10th of July 2020
Waiting to die. Living a long and trying life and this is what she has to show for it. A life of quiet suffering and determination, of hard work and abuse. What’s left at the end of it all? Is this the reward? Tell me, Grandma Moon, is this what you hoped for? Is this all that could have been?
Have I told you that my grandmother is in a care home in Dominica? No family around her, no visitors allowed due to strict lockdown rules, completely blind, and no one has been able to speak to her in months. They never restored the phone lines after the last hurricane and all none of the mobile numbers for the carers are working. She’s completely cut off. Maybe she doesn’t even know why?
Meanwhile, in England, we get on with our lives because what else can we do? And she remains where she is, the bleak future we all hope to avoid…
September 24, 2022
Write a Poem Everyday.
Extract from ‘Dreamcatcher’, taken from ‘Oceans and Dust: Poems for Loneliness’, available now on Amazon.Wednesday 8th of July 2020
I used to do this, more than one a day in fact. But… what day is it today? Three days ago, I started an online poetry class because, well, I wanted to.
Writing like this again feels amazing. I didn’t realise I lost a part of myself, left it behind on the road side… supressed it…
September 4, 2022
Honey and Exercise Bikes.
Friday, 3rd of July 2020
‘Is it time?’ Said the timid mouse, hiding in the reeds.
‘Is it time to open the curtains? Is it time to vacuum the floors and change the sheets,
Tidy the surfaces, open the windows and let in some fresh air?
Is it time to water the plants, to acknowledge something else exists besides ourselves?’
‘Almost.’ Said the little bird watching from the elder.
‘Almost. Now shush, and listen.’
~
Over the past few days I’ve had a lot of things I’ve wanted to write about, and this is where I start?
~
I’ve been letting go of things. Firstly, as you may have figured out, I’ve let go of being published again. I’ve let go of the idea of having that brand of a respected publisher behind me, backing me, validating me, being my name for me.
I’ve taken away the deadline of having a completed manuscript by December and submitting it to the Bath Novel Awards. I mean, I still might submit it, when I finish it. But, I’m not going to go through the whole thing of letting myself down if I don’t meet my own goals and deadlines.
But I want to talk about what happened when I made this decision. I suddenly knew exactly how I wanted this book to be, and seeing the finished product so clearly is inspiring me to get back to work on it. I feel like I can do what I want with it now, and I’m excited about it. It’s not catering to what I think will get me published, it’s not “This is what people will like” it’s now, quite selfishly “This is what I want. This is what I want to explore. This is how I want to tell this story.”
Do you know whet else this has led to? It’s so stupid. I suddenly realised that I can buy the honey that I want, not the one that my sister prefers. She moved out almost a year ago and this has just occurred to me. Also, I can let the seat down on the exercise bike so that it’s more comfortable for me, not that weird in between setting we agreed to that accommodated both of u. She doesn’t live here anymore. (Technically it’s a cross trainer, but I keep calling it an exercise bike, no idea why.)
So, does this mean I should start thinking about what the plan is for when I do finish the novel, self-publish? I don’t know. Self-publishing is truly letting go of the the need to be recognised as someone talented and valid by a superior body, and knowing, in yourself, that you’re talented enough and worthy enough. It’s believing in yourself. I don’t think I’m there yet. I want to believe in myself, in my writing. The voice in my head that telling me I’m not good enough isn’t mine, well, it is, but it isn’t.
There’s this part of me that knows who I am, knows my talents and knows what I can do with them, explore with them, loves them in fact.
The part that tells me to stay small, stay hidden, don’t be too different, it’s not me, so it can shut up, any time it would like. Please?
I have so many ideas, but do I have follow through? I have determination, and I’m stubborn, does that count?
Do you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna take my time, do what I want to do, be more myself and… work on the fear that if I don’t hurry up and make something of myself that I’m going to die penniless and alone, unimportant to everyone. Seriously though, I had to get a new laptop last week because it worked out as cheaper and easier to buy a new one on credit then get my old one repaired. I am financially fucked, with a voice in my head saying, ‘What about the future? What about five years from now, ten years from now, retirement? What about pensions?’ Like I know anything about pensions! All the weed in the world isn’t going to make that one go away.
So, right. Worrying never helped anyone. So I hear. I could always win the lottery. It might help if I played the lottery. I can always start playing the lottery.
We’ll aim for opening the curtains tomorrow.
August 18, 2022
The Key, The Door and the Spider Guarding it.
Tuesday 30th of June 2020
I could run, turn away. I could try to find another way. I could let my fears hold me back.
Spiders are symbols of our darker impulses, of the things we keep buried. What am I burying?
I can choose to face my fears, the only real threat to me is myself and my choices. I’m in my own way.
I can open the door. I can walk through. I can see what’s in the dark.
