Now More Than Ever

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 The Agony & the Ecstasy ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

painting: Loie Hollowell

Hiya everyone 🌸 This is a free missive for everyone. Cause I love you & I appreciate you lending me your precious attention. A click of the ♡ button makes a big difference (for meeeee). So does sharing these love letters with your friends.

And to my paying subscribers, omg you keep these letters alive #ilysm

The agony & the ecstasy. This holy moment in time. Without going into the global details, most of which you already know, I would like to be a bit more personal here, a bit more lyrical, a bit more naive, because I do believe that is where we are living. The desire to believe in things. To believe in that aching in our heart. To believe in our bodies. To believe in the alternating in a gentle balance between resting & taking action. To believe in the world as both a place of mystery & a place of community.

I have had more continuous nights of anguish in the last month than I have had since adolescence. You might think it is about the state of the world, Gaza & it is, but it also builds much closer to home, in my little seaside community, a haven for many who may only spend a day or a week here, a place with a long history of gay & artistic bohemia. I planted my heart here a long time ago & have lived here off & on, mostly year round for many many years. Although NYC is where the vine began, this is where I live. 

I have found it hard to relate to town this year, in the fall of the empire. I know the analogy of The Hunger Games is wearing thin, but I am sure you can understand the flamboyant fashion of Provincetown, as joyful as its original concept may have been, having the insane air of the Capitol.

Let it be said, I feel ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE hating on Provincetown. I have loved this place deeply & perhaps still do, like a rapturous ex love turned sour but able to have its way with me at any time. It’s crazy when someone/something that reflected you in all your beauty & messy parts suddenly seems more distant & alien than you can stand. And of course this can all be in your mind.

The distance between things. For me it is “are they talking about Palestine?” & then “am I being too severe?”

Last night I watched John Early’s special NOW MORE THAN EVER. He laments millennial culture & remembers a Postmate billboard that says Hate People? We Get It. And I do get it.

I know, I know. I know I call myself the love artist. And I do love everyone. In a way. I love you. Conceptually, without even knowing you.

Or if you cross my path unexpectedly & we have a cosmic moment.

But in general, it is true, I have much contempt for people. It is because I don’t relate. It is because I feel alone. Because I am a terminal witness. Because I was born that way.

I have always been a conduit for everyone around me, starting with my birth family. It didn’t start out as contempt or bitterness. As a child I was just how I was, fulfilling a role that I was natural for. There was a sense of wonder there, a communion with the stream of information I was receiving, no different than the witnessing of the flowers & the water & my puppy & the source of all love.

But no one likes a witness.

All of this sounds so cranky on my part. I have received much acclaim as an artist for having this psychic barometer. However I learned this crankiness from the beginning because I was me & you were you & I saw you & then suddenly I became very very wrong because it was all none of my business actually, because I was that little canary singing in a very deep coal mine. It was easy to go from there to here to teach me loneliness & despair. 

I hope you relate to this. I have a feeling that you do. I think that is why you “follow” me.

Welcome. I love you.

Lately, I have found myself saying “Mommy” at odd moments. Weird. I was not a Mommy kind of girl. The oldest daughter & kinda aloof. I figured I meant Mommy in a more colloquial way. I am more of a Daddy’s girl if you know what I mean. But then, who doesn’t want their Mommy.

One night when I was in a particular Sybillic mood, tortured & seeing the trance of forgetting everywhere, I went to bed early with the aid of a cannabis sleeping helper & woke myself up in the middle of the night, speaking the words “You left such a huge whole in me & it is still here.” I was talking to my mother, out loud, my mother who died 25 years ago. That was a few weeks ago.

It would be so easy to let this be just one of many prophetic peak moments & let it slush & slurry into the blur but I am still saying Mommy. I try to ignore it but it is just right there.

This weekend, with the bitterness recoiling in my throat I turned on a podcast to fog out the noise. A talk by Tara Brach entitled Disarming the Heart. Oh boy.

One line in particular: Vengeance is a lazy form of Grief.

She shared a practice where bitterness, judgement & resentment is examined. Particularly if it is troublesome to you. (There are those who are completely at home with Judgement & I guess . . . Bless you). In a meditative setting, she instructs to turn over the resentment like a stone & see what grows underneath, see what the root is & she invites that there is probably much grief & sadness there. The grief may be that this person or situation was never right for you in the first place. These resentments are easy or easier. But the deeper, older, more tenacious judgements hold so much sadness in them. Not being recognized. Troubles being trivialized or brushed away. Not being seen. Being wrong. Hurting someone you love.

A few years ago, I was gifted a video by Thich Nhat Hanh where he was questioned, how do you stay present when the present moment is unbearable?

To which he replied, You must stay with yourself in that moment. You will show yourself that you are loveable. You will show yourself that someone is there. You will show yourself that this moment is true for you.

Mommy. Love. Now. I See You 🤍

THINGS I AM OBSESSING ABOUT:

~ Solstice & the opening of High Garden, my intimate one2one spiritual mentorship & coaching container. I open enrollment up twice a year, the Winter & Summer Solstice & there are still a few spots available. I offer many tools & much encouragement on a variety of issues: relationships, vocation & career pivots & currently holding A LOT of space around divestment & untangling oneself from the web of capitalism. If we have never worked together before, write me here for a short chat to see if we are compatible. If we have worked together in the past, well Hi & come on in.

~ I offered a bunch of treats in my essay above (watch John Early! laugh! soooooo much! take a break!) & they are all really helpful. Take the time to feed yourself 😊

~ This post by

Poorna Bell

gave me a lot of refuge as a writer & content creator, on the push to produce & create more & more & more, to stay relevant, to stay afloat, to be able to live. Super smart & right there. I think you might have to be a paid subscriber but remember you do get one free post & this one is worth it:

Navigating the Substack overwhelm even when you’ve been writing for years

~ And mostly MY GARDEN. I am in heaven over here. In love. When I am out there in the witching hour, everything makes sense.