How I function in a tin can in the middle of the ocean when the world is on fire

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Today I’m frustrated because there are too many people sitting in my spot.

Two days ago I was elated because I had a spiritual experience while held in the arms of Yemaya in Aruba.

Such is the swing of daily life at sea.

You build a routine only to have it disrupted, over and over again.

There is a place outside on deck seven that I refer to as “my office”. It is my refuge. It is the only place on the ship where there is no music playing. There are big couches and shade from the sun and the waves washing away from the ship for miles in every direction. I do a lot of my best thinking there.

Unless it’s a sea day, like today, and every one of the 2700 sailors onboard have no port to explore, no beach to get drunk on, so they stumble upon my space and think “OH NEAT, LOOK WHAT I FOUND” and lay down and fall asleep.

The audacity!

This is of course their ship more than it is mine. I live here, but they pay for it. Such is the truly zen level of acceptance I have achieved.

I came here with the intention of giving you a “day in the life” post, but I can’t do it.

Why not?

• It’s formulaic and I’m done producing what I think people want instead of what feels important to me.
• There is no such thing as a typical day here. Everything changes while everything stays the same.
• Nothing about this week has been normal. Nothing about my life or my soul or my country or this world or even the cosmos is normal right now.

If you’re witchy like me, you probably noticed all the articles about the big astrological shifts happening this week/month. I’m not an astrologer and I take most things with a grain of salt so I won’t attempt to explain them to you, I’ll let the experts do that. Saturn and Neptune moved into Aries (my sun sign) which is a shift 36 years in the making or maybe 6000 years in the making depending on which corner of the sky you’re interpreting.

The Lunar new year changed over from the Wood Snake to the Fire Horse. There is fuel to be burned and the fire has begun. There was a new moon and an eclipse and a full blood moon on the horizon.

I am 40 going on 41. I just went through a devastating experience where all of my codependent and insecure attachment tendencies that I REALLY THOUGHT I had worked through were violently hurled upon me. Like I thought I was being presented with a delicious cake that I had patiently waited years for but instead the eternal jokester snuck up behind me and shoved my head so hard into that cake it went up my nose and burned my eyes and choked me out in a very not sexy way.

My nervous system went crazy. I questioned everything. All these years in therapy trying desperately to understand myself, as if I could just understand why I am this way then I could fix what’s wrong. The underlying belief being that there is something wrong to be fixed.

When I’m at sea, I have a lot of free time. The kind of free time that might drive some people absolutely nuts. I come into these contracts with PLANS. Writing projects, fitness goals, journals to fill, languages to learn and books to read.

I finished my most recent book (The Stand by Stephen King) which is about a million pages long and was the same book I was reading when I went through the aforementioned devastating experience. I needed something very different to read. I proceeded to download as many “classics” as I could (I wish I didn’t have to rely so heavily on a kindle while I’m here but I’m sure you can understand the logistical nightmare that physical books provide)

My downloads included The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1984, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights (duh), Frankenstein, The Old Man and The Sea, The Bell Jar, 100 years of Solitude and more.

But all the nervous system regulation I was doing: intentional breathing, grounding into my feet, mantras of “I am safe” and “That was then and this is now” were not doing the whole job, I needed HELP in the weeks between therapy sessions.

So I went in search of my second spiritual awakening.

My first spiritual awakening happened in my early 20s when I read books like The Alchemist and The Untethered Soul. I distinctly remember the sense of peace I got from the practice of meditation and detachment that I learned from those books.

But time took over and I forgot.

So I started reading Eckhardt Tolle’s The Power of Now. I’m still reading it. It’s what I need. Rewiring 20 years of neural pathways and divesting from an addiction to pain is not easy. In fact it is very painful and confusing.

Some favorite metaphors of how it feels to be me right now:

• Being dragged along the muck and silt at the bottom of a river.
• Dissolving into goo inside a cocoon, fully rebuilding into a butterfly who must fight and push and break it’s way out and then lay vulnerable for days until it’s wings are strong enough to fly.
• The thick ass seed of a lotus flower that has finally cracked open and must push it’s way through the mud before bursting free into the water and blooming.
• Trapped in a fucking washing machine full of razor blades.

That day in Aruba I wrote these words to myself:

Today’s the day I broke the pattern

Todays’s the day I took my stand

Today’s the day I chose myself

Today’s the day I shed my skin

Today’s the day I took my power back.

It was February 16th. That day held astrological power but also personal significance.

The experience of the last month has been the most painful rebirth of my life, and I believe it will be the most powerful.

I don’t want understanding anymore, I want peace. I don’t want to shrink myself to make other people comfortable, I want to be big, loud and honest. I want to know that I belong in the room where it happens. I don’t want anyone to ever touch me again unless it’s with love.

This week in St. Maarten I rode the highest zipline in the world and I chastised myself the whole time for not staying in the moment. The next day I suddenly remembered the powerful way in which I can connect to chi (the life force of energy that flows inside us) as easily as flicking on a light switch and I felt like a powerful magical sorceress.

Healing is not linear because it is a spiral and holy shit am I riding that spiral right now. Around and around like a blender I go. I’m exhausted, I’m exhilarated, I am DOING THE DAMN THING.

I’ve started writing to God for strength. GOD. I have a very eastern definition of God and I’ve finally stopped being so prissy about using that word. Interpret it however you want. I need divinity right now.

We all do.

This transformation is not singular to me. The old systems are dying. Good riddance. The weak, shriveled patriarchy is gasping it’s last breath. It’s death will be violent. The divine feminine is rising. She will not shrink away and hide her power anymore. Her reign is coming, albeit slowly. The full transmutation may not happen in my lifetime, but I feel it on the horizon.

The only hope for the human race is spiritual intervention. I can’t say whether we can do it, but I know I’m doing my part. Right now, in my tiny corner of the universe, by facing and embracing my darkness and divinity.

Here’s your day in the life at sea:

• I wake up
• I struggle to get nourishment
• I hydrate
• I sit in “my office” to write, read, drink coffee
• I take pee breaks
• I giggle with TJ (ship bestie/show partner)
• I nap
• I go to the gym (cardio! lifting heavy! it sucks!)
• I eat again, however unsatisfactorily
• If it’s a show day, I do the show
• Breakfast for dinner
• Bed

Additions: Have an existential crisis, cry, battle my inner demons, feel guilty, feel enlightened, swim in the ocean, volunteer on land, wander around a new port with cellular roaming turned off, talk to my mom, my therapist, my best friend, embrace the universal truths I have to share, feel scared for the world, feel helpless, delete instagram, resist the urge to live in my pain body, wonder if that guy with the pink scrunchie thinks I’m cute, ignore the DM from the community dick, doubt myself, believe in myself, trust the process, break one rule just to feel alive.

and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.