Not Everyone Comes With Us

Dear Reader,

Some general housekeeping on my end — I’ve moved over to Apple Music for my playlists as I continue to divest from the systems that be. In other news, I’ve journeyed 6 months without a solid place to call home. Thank you for your patience with my writing and continuing to show up here with me.

I can’t help but feel like I’m the problem. I’m actually sure of it. I’ve entered a new threshold which doesn’t in fact mean that anyone else around me has. I look to others to affirm the change — the ever-diminishing gap between freedom and fascism — the push to get us into the new world of imagination — back where I last left off. It’s not there. The timeline of what was no longer exists for me.

When one decides to step into the threshold of change, things don’t immediately shift. There’s a gap between what was, what is, and what’s becoming. This is a really crucial part of the process for me. I am asked to notice. I am asked to slow down. This is where my practice with faith is asked to meet my practice with accountability. I am asked to foster care around the things I’m growing towards while I continually shed the things I no longer wish to be.

This liminal space is hard to reckon with. This world is so hard to bear as the grief swells are constant. I turn to my practice with what is right in front of me, further from the bounds of my phone, for guidance and support. My spiritual practice has prepared me for so much of this work, as my trust with what is unseen feels unwavering at this point. I’m reckoning with this intention as part of my life’s work.

The practice of being an artist is much like the practice of faith — we sit in the space of imagination long before the thing — the thing being a painting or quilt or harmony — is birthed into the physical world. We hold onto the ludicrous nature of the idea like a seed in our mind. We speak kindly to the idea in its germination. We edit, rework, and toil with the idea until its roots take shape and is ready to be planted in the world outside of us.

I bring awareness to my heart. The softening of its edges allowing reception in ways I’ve never been capable of before. I bring awareness to my thoughts. The softening of my inner dialogue melting the frigid language of shame from its corners. I bring awareness to the places in and of my physical body that have caused me so much pain for not being just right. The softening of my belly and the scars on my face from a grief filled summer remind me how much I’ve overcome with the help of compassion and rest.

I notice myself being reworked from the inside out. All the micro shifts within the ecosystem of my mind and heart and body have shifted and expanded into something entirely different.

It’s not lost on me that people think I’m hard to work with. People think I’m angry, asking for too much, obstinate in my ways. There’s truth to that. I am stubborn. I’m pissed off. I’m tired of teaching the people around me to give a shit. It’s also not lost on me that some of my favorite artists both past and present embody these very traits for the people and things they care about.

Caring is political. Giving a shit about people and places outside of myself is the most radical act in my practice. I refuse to let others capture the sensations of rage and love and grief from my heart and force them to harden. I offer protection to the sensitive parts of self living in fear of rigid hands and hearts.

This hermit year has been one of complete advocacy. I’ve been dissecting the ways I’ve gone to bat for people who have not done the same for me. I wonder when truth telling became synonymous for being difficult?

I watch myself shift at a pace more rapid than I’ve ever known — sensing and feeling my way through it all like a newborn in the birth canal. I find comfort in the fact that eclipses always leave me a little more polished even if it hurts like hell. The hand of higher-self pulls out a select few parts of me from the wreckage.

The liberal in me is dead. I dig further into the rabbit hole of truth, my own, while others simultaneously dig into the sanctuary of hive mind. I’m reminded that not everyone can come with me. They don’t have time to. They don’t want to. They’re too scared to. Their timeline may link back up with mine again some day, but right now God asks me to push forward without the tethers of past.

I remain soft and open to the world. I remain vulnerable to pain. I remain human. I move forward on the path uncharted. I find hands and hearts that hold me in this next chapter of self.

Everything is sacred and nothing is certain.

Xoxo,

Meredith

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