Ever since I left my husband, until recently, I’d been living on this plane- the Plane of Survival.
I was in shock, struggling to survive, not sure if I could, and everything I did, thought and felt was through a survival lens.
I read once that people struggling to survive do not get depressed, nor do they experience existential dread, because they know life has a meaning- to catch that slice of pizza before it slides down the drain.
Every day is a quest to live and when you succeed, that is meaning.
On the plane of survival you are wired with extra energy. Feelings are suppressed. Vision narrows. You can run like an antelope. You have springs in your feet. You are twice as strong as you were before.
You see relationships through a different lens. Does this person make me safer? This isn’t a gold digger wanting to get rich, because wealth and luxury don’t exist yet. Nor does status. You just want to know, will they feed me? Would they be there for me if I needed them? If not, the law of the jungle commands you invest yourself elsewhere.
On the Survival plane, I was Slipper’s drill sargeant. ‘March Slippers, march!!!’ I would shout as I drug her through the streets crying. ‘If we don’t get there in 5 minutes, do you realize we could lose our home?!’ I didn’t care how deranged I looked to other people. Dignity is the first thing thrown off a sinking ship. Once you let it go you realize it was 80% of your body weight. At any rate, the more frazzled and distraught I looked, the more likely random strangers would be to offer me a sandwich. When you truly are desperate, looking desperate can be a good thing.
If you meet a person on the Plane of Survival, give them something. They aren’t a mooch, they are actually in need and there’s a big difference. There are many ways people can reach this plane and we all pass through it eventually. But please, don’t give them a pep talk or philosophical lecture. In this state you have the mind of a dog and words don’t mean a thing. Give them a sandwich, a blanket, a $20 bill. Or more if you are one of the Angels of this Plane. These angels were the best part. I had no idea how kind people were before living here.
The other good part is this world’s briskness. You become bolder, braver, more invigorated than you ever were before. Because you can’t afford to hide away in your safe and calcified world. It doesn’t exist anymore. Every day becomes an adventure.
But it’s also a dangerous time, because you will latch onto ANYTHING that seems to offer safety, regardless of its long term impact. It’s not a state where you can make constructive decisions about your future. The future and past don’t exist. There is an alarm going off and you need to stop it.
And so you also meet bad people, due to your low standards and desperation. If there is no clear path before you, becoming a criminal is likely. You don’t have the brain space to dream up some brilliant plan forward. You are disconnected- internally & externally- from things uplifting.
I think what people need in this state is social support. If the focus is put on them being self-reliant at a moment when they are drowning, their actions are likely to be destructive to themselves or others. It is easier to become a Contributing Member of Society once a siren is no longer going off in your head.
I hadn’t seen my dogs for almost 2 weeks because people were telling me it was too dangerous and I could get killed.
But one day I couldn’t take it any longer. As a single person I have friends, but its mental & airy. You miss the vegetable acceptance you can get through family. But Slippers & Patton are more than family. They are forever friends. Missing them was this pain in my heart that wouldn’t go away. I felt like they were calling me.
I’ll never forget the crazy smiles on their faces when I came through the door. We were all barking and crying and running around in circles trying to bite each other. Then James- who had not seemed to be there- called the cops but I didn’t even care. We were outside of time.
I went outside to talk to the police. They said I wasn’t in trouble. I wasn’t breaking the law since it is my house, my dogs and only James has a no contact order on him. But they said they didn’t want to leave me there just in case anything happened so they waited outside to give me 5 more minutes with my dogs & then told James to tell me a next time when I could visit them.
That was today and I just got back from 2 hours of seeing them. First we rejoiced, then we sang our favorite songs- Stand by Me, Fur Angel, Dog Went a Courtin’ & more. Then we had a snack. Then we lounged and stared into space. It was great to vegitate together. It is hard to be a vegetable in solitude. Plus they make me cry with their faithfulness.
Mushrooms were growing in the front yard of the house I used to share with Slippers and Patton. What does this mean?
I don’t place dogs above humans but I don’t place humans above dogs either. They seem very much alike except in how they dress. People keep telling me to get a new dog, but the thing is I have zero interest in dogs as a species. I have an interest in two specific people- Slippers and Patton.
Scorpio is a water sign, which means love and emotion. It is a black 8 turned on its side whose goal is to dig the deepest hole possible in one spot in order to create bonds of love so strong they survive the threshhold of death. Death is the test of love and everything really. Only that which is real survives.
So I’m not a let go and move on type of person. I don’t mind suffering for something which has value. But I would rather not invest in something which death will hack apart. Only those things you would suffer, bleed and die for really matter in the end because those are the only things that carry forward. That is my philosophy anyway. I believe there is an eternal world where treasure accrues. A relationship that withstands the tests of hell becomes immortal. Of course, this willingness to accept pain can sometimes backfire and make you hang on to the wrong things. But I do want my relationships with Slippers and Patton to make it to the Forever World. They are such special friends to me.
Lettuces forever.
Which brings me to another issue…. for a while there I felt I was finding a groove. Surviving as a poor person was seeming not only doable, but magical. Cleaning my clothes in a bucket, picking lettuces from the Lettuce Patch for the Poor, accepting charity where offered… it felt like I’d stepped into a fairy tale. But when I shared my enthusiasm for poverty on Facebook people started throwing all kinds of fear and anger at my head, calling me desperate for attention, playing at being poor, condescending to actual poor people while also abusing all humanity by being a lazy slob who needed a job. They also said they’d seen me make soldiers cry with their own eyes. On purpose.
Normally I don’t mind retard attacks, but now that I have no husband it feels more unnerving than it used to. There is no one to take my side against a mob* nor do I feel as willing to lose the support of random acquaintances.
The get a job thing bothers me especially, because I do have a job. In fact I care so much about this job that I’m willing to sacrifice wealth, respect and safety for it because it feels like a divine calling.
I don’t relate to the view where your success as an artist is based on the number of humans who know your creations. What if you only had an impact on one human? What if that human was your self? There is no way to measure how impacts play out over the course of time. What is more impactful- a song known only to Noah that he hummed on the ark for his animals- or the most popular song on earth right before everyone drowned in a flood? You can’t say really.
And beyond that, I feel art changes the world even if no one at all hears it, because it carves new spaces in the world of imagination. The realm that precedes that which is possible on earth. Success is the extent to which you can open the portals you are trying to open and build the magical kingdoms you are trying to build.
At first I just wanted to write songs, but now it is important to me to write the specific songs that bore the hole I am trying to bore. I have a feel of the sort of energy I want to usher into this plane. Muses come and go but there is a muse behind them who is constant.
And if my muse guides me to beg for quarters why not? People got so angry at me for bringing up begging on facebook but I think there is something beautiful about it. Someone holding up a cup, giving you the opportunity to place a coin inside? Who knows what good could come from that? And what is the danger in a coin moving from one place to another?
The problem is these other people’s views on life & their horrible judgments of my character really threw me off my own wavelength to where I couldn’t write songs or anything. As though I was a monster for not devoting my life to a 401k plan. But it’s hard for me to see how a life where you aren’t following your own spirit is even a life to begin with.
For me there is no choice. Even if I try to do what others want I won’t. I just have to do what I’m going to do anyway and hope for the best.
“Lettuces For The Poor” Lettuce Patch. If you take a solemn vow to be truly poor then you can take a lettuce of your choice.
Also, I have been on dates. Sweet men and delicious food.
Also, playing gigs for dollar bills and delicious food. I love it how people throw money into a hat or a guitar case. That is what started me thinking how beautiful it could be to beg with a metal cup. In between music, men, EBT & lettuce patches I am eating better now as a poor person than I ever did as a married lady of dignity and grace.
Also, someone I like asked me if I wanted to be friends with benefits. What does this mean? It sounds like such a cosmopolitan offer. My lesbians have assured me that pain this way lies. Then one lesbo called me on the sly to say she thinks its a great idea because relationships suck.
Also, I have a side hustle working as a secretary for one of my heroes, an herbalist. Years ago, I made a list of 10 people on earth I would like to meet. The other 9 were jackasses but this one has been a benefactor to me and changed my life. To receive help from someone you admire is a sweet feeling.
Also, it used to shock me how the black people on my street would walk down the sidewalk dancing and singing out loud. Now I do that too.
Also, I like the musicians I meet. I no longer hate people who play guitars. I guess I just hated the musician in myself because I grew up in a world where musicians had AIDS. But I’ve really come to cherish their freewheeling ways and the time we spend together. I love being able to ask people if they would prefer to eat a shit filled dick or have their own dick stapled to the wall & they will just consider the question and answer it rather than making me feel like I’m some kind of freak. I like being around people who are stoned. In their own way they are kindred spirits.
It’s almost like I’m becoming a free spirit.
Charleston West Virginia where I live.
Patton is glad I’m back. I wish you could have seen his smile a couple days ago when he saw me for the first time. He looked insane.Slippers my goldie angel.
* Btw…….. I said I feared no one would defend me from mobs now that I’m a single lady but that didn’t turn out to be true. My lesbians came to my defense just as they have before. Not just intercepting stones, but hurling them back. From a Scorpio perspective, nothing means more than a friend who will fight for you. This made me cry as well. I hope every female finds some serial killettes to have her back.
We normally start song time with Stand By Me, a song that was written by a dog for a dog.
I have been meaning to publish this for a month but I hate dealing with images of myself so much that I always procrastinate. Hearing myself sing makes me feel weird too.
Also, things have been so strange recently that I haven’t been able to play music until today, when finally I climbed back into being myself.
2020 was a weird year for many people due to all these bad planets forming a single mega-planet in the grim sign of Capricorn. It had been a dark year for me filled with many fears, mostly relating to money, marriage, totalitarian governments and eternal boredom. When I realized a couple of these planets were about to be moving into Aquarius- breaking up this monster after a year of total darkness- I got a little carried away with celebrating & think I accidentally got possessed by something in the process.
Which is why I have spent the last month setting up my Cardano stake pool & promoting it, trying to get people to stake, helping them with technical difficulties etc. If you knew me, you would realize how completely out of character this is. I would wake up in the morning, start watching tech videos & be at it- learning and helping others- until 5 am. Suddenly it was really easy for me to learn & understand these things. I found them interesting. It was very odd considering how much I hate all things tech. I can barely bring myself to record my own songs.
Eventually though, I was so different from my regular self that I started to get worried. I was so mental- basically 100% brain. I couldn’t even relate to the idea of ever having been a musician. Plus, I couldn’t turn it off. Solving tech problems & learning from dusk till dawn. I started to feel like the girl in that fairy tale who puts on dancing shoes that make her dance until she drops dead.
So, I tried to do an intervention on myself. I took down all the Aquarian things I had hung up on my walls so they are blank pink slates again. A few days later, I am starting to go back to normal. Luckily, I seem to have retained what I learned, so maybe I can be myself AND a tech zillionaire.
As you know, dying of poverty has been one of my dominant fears over the past few years, so to have hope of a different future feels…. well, it feels like the darkness has ended. And hope is actually what Aquarius stands for.
I LOVE YOU AQUARIUS! I’M SORRY FOR ALL THE BAD THINGS I SAID ABOUT YOU IN THE PAST!! Thank you for being my friend.
Live in a sea of broken glass Pieces were shining everywhere Somebody turned to walk around Somebody watching from the stairs
Pick up the piece to find you Has this always been your face? Pick up the piece behind you Has this always been your face?
Watching the moonlight dripping down Watching the starlight spin away Everything moves around and round Never a way to make you stay
Pick up the piece to find you Has this always been your face? Pick up the piece behind you Has this always been your face?
Mirrors were broken on the ground Pick up a piece to keep me sound You leave the room and then you’re gone Watching the walls spin round & round
How can I not believe in you? You were the one man standing there Everyone knows the things you do But underneath it all you care
Swim in a sea of broken glass Throwing the rainbows on the wall Breathing so hard I have to gasp Caught in the ecstasy I fall
Pick up the piece to find you Has this always been your face? Pick up the piece behind you Has this always been your face?
I have been hounding James for a while to let us move to the woods of Maine & live off the land, certain the only way I could find happiness would be to live a simple life as a lumberjack. And just like an answered prayer, it has turned quite cold and we have no heat in our house, giving me the chance to live out as least parts of my fantasy. The worst part of being cold, I think, is how your wrists freeze up, making it hard to do things with your hands like type or play guitar. The best part is that you never forget to cook. Instead, I hover around the warm stove all day, cooking up anything that can be made out of corn, beans, eggs, butter, sugar, and dandelions. Which is quite a lot, actually.
As you may know already, I am quite obsessed with corn- more as a spiritual entity than a food source- and I have a corn colored stool which I can place next to the oven, giving me a warm(er) spot to write or sing while corn sandies are baking or dandelion tea is brewing. So all in all, the cold life is not a bad one.
Sometimes I think about the relative virtues of poverty vs wealth. Do you? I mean, on the surface, it is obviously much better to be rich and perhaps that is all there is to it, but at the same time there are many valuable things which only poverty can create. I wonder how many of the negative feelings we have about poverty are based in reality, and how many are due to our collective imaginations absorbing the dreams and life goals given us by Hollywood.
Poverty can give you focus, humility, ingenuity, appreciation, and perhaps above all, the need to fall back on your own inner resources. How many rich people remove their own teeth with a pair of pliers? Additionally, since no one will respect you when you are poor, poverty forces you to mine you self-esteem from within. There are lots of movements now to eliminate poverty from our society which always seem to start off with the assumption that the poor are worse off than the rich. That is an assumption I do not share. From an astrological perspective, the rich can be said to be learning the lessons of Jupiter- ease, growth, expansion, generosity- while the poor are learning the lessons of Saturn- endurance, patience, faith and how to thrive within restriction. Sometimes when the rich want to help the poor, I wonder if they are merely projecting their own sense of emptiness onto someone else, in order to feel better about their lives.
I don’t think the poor should be pitied or helped- they should be admired and learned from. Most of all, we should stop making people feel bad or ashamed for living on a limited material budget, and stop treating it as a problem to be solved.
My change of heart about poverty came when I realized one day that life is really what you give to it, not what you get out of it. Because we all come here from a spiritual dimension, I believe, where we are kings. We do not need to be kings in this world, but what we do need is the opportunity to make something of ourselves. Poor people have the same opportunities to contribute to life as the rich ones. They are not less blessed, just financially thinner.
In some ways, poor people can contribute more easily, I think, because they have less to lose. They have no pride, no dignity that they must cling to, and therefore they can develop true integrity more easily. In a moment of time when everyone is clamoring to be respected by society, I think we have also forgotten how easily external respect can rot a person’s character. It isn’t respect that we should be seeking- much less demanding- instead we should be turning ourselves into someone that WE can respect, by aligning ourselves with our own guiding stars. Because we are only in this world for a short time. When we leave, we leave behind the approval or disapproval of the crowds. But whatever gold we have managed to weave into our souls will travel forward with us.
*
And now my fingers are too cold to keep writing. So let me summarize by saying, Poor people, you are awesome, always hold your head high. Your true treasure is stored in a vault in the sky.
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I have to include this clip because it contains the song “Beer for my Horses” by Toby Keith, one of maybe 3 songs in the world that I like. What a man Toby Keith is, or at least pretends to be in this song.
