Hermiting at the Altar; Too Much/Not Enough Kids redux

ADD as psychedelic experience, ascesticism, Hermiting, action / potential

• Hermiting, the withdrawal to the cave > the cave of the heart > the altar as the roadmap that leads you home by your north star, your inner compass, your intuition

• Too much not enough kids > ADD is a super helpful framework but I don’t believe in diagnostics, the labels are limiting

  • Did Jung diagnose people? I don’t think he did. Freud treated “hysterics” and called everything a complex, neurotic

  • being human is neurotic, a dissociative experience - in some ways being healed is hysteria > spiritual oneness

  • Symbols are the language of the unconscious - but then we have to give them language to define them, to make them manifest as matter in this dimension

    • we have to limit them - by making decisions- killing darlings - drawing dimensional boundaries, building realities constructed out of words like McKenna spoke about. We create the architecture of reality by making sounds - but even more by writing them down - this fixes a little universe of observation in place and it’s defined by the “victors,” the writers of the scriptures of spirituality and history - so we have to insert our people in the annals to change the system.

    • how does the night world fit in? this is the world of the unconscious, abstraction, subtraction. DMT, death, and dreaming.

    • how do I express in the physical world something that is defined by immateriality? I long to be free of the tyranny of words, to live in the world where I can just feel and be felt without trying to produce something physical.

  • Holy anorexics, the spiritual ascetics, the women called hysterical because they longed to assume less form and dissolve into the union with God

• ADD is a psychedelic experience, more real than reality, allowing extra sensory and extrasensory material to flood in, making us extra-sensitive

  • It results in nervous system overwhelm, can’t feel enough but can’t come down, always trapped in suspended animation between two extremes, frozen and can’t manifest our dreams or even get through the basic functions of a day or do our bookeeping

    • All unfocused action, pent-up energy, so much potential we feel is always only being wasted. All this action, unrealized potential.

      • Action potential, the thing that causes the reaction in psychedelic neuroscience

    • AI: An action potential is a rapid change in the electrical potential of a cell membrane that occurs in excitable cells, such as neurons and muscle cells

      • What it is: A rapid change in membrane voltage that occurs in excitable cells > like ADD brains, overly excited about everything

      • What it does: Allows cells to communicate with each other, and is central to information processing and transmission in the nervous system > We are super empathetic and good communicators, superconnectors, hyperconductors

      • Stages: Depolarization, repolarization, and hyperpolarization > Ricocheting between the extremes

      • How it works: A stimulus causes a rapid rise in membrane potential, which opens sodium channels and allows sodium ions to flow into the cell > Something triggers us, either ecstatic or traumatic, and implicit memory floods in, activating and sometimes taking over us

• ACTION POTENTIAL ITEMS:

  • Draw something for the art show that depicts how artist, mystic, alcoholic, neurodivergent are all the same archetype

  • Newsletter on spiritual anorexics, the art of not eating, the holy longing to assume less form

  • Tag this blog with subjects

  • upload art of eating less pages and note page citations in that and Jodorowsky for PGR

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AI Summary: Riordan Regan reflects on the concept of worthiness, discussing how societal expectations and personal experiences shape one's self-perception. He emphasizes the importance of the altar as a roadmap to self-worth, highlighting personal items that symbolize his journey. Regan discusses the impact of parental expectations, the struggle with ADHD, and the transformative power of cacao and other rituals. He critiques the dominant culture's focus on production and advocates for embracing one's inherent worth. Regan also explores the complexities of spiritual practices, the role of the hermit, and the intersection of personal identity and societal norms.

Action Items:

• Share personal experiences and neurodivergence as part of art and scholarship to help others feel less alone.

• Focus newsletter on the nomadic path, the practice of letting go, and the worthiness of simply existing.

• Integrate the healing process into the creative work, rather than trying to produce more.

• Seek guidance from the astral and guides on how to share the insights and material in a way that can help the community.

Outline

The Altar as a Roadmap to Worthiness

- Riordan Regan describes the altar as a roadmap that reminds him of his worthiness and existence.

- The altar includes personal items like a photo of himself in a suit, a squirrel, a Jaguar, Frida, Amanita, Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde.

- Other items include crystals, moss from childhood, a crone, a dancing deer shaman, cacao, and a cloth from Isaiah.

- The altar helps him remember his past and connect with his worthiness.

The Impact of Parental Expectations

- Riordan Regan discusses the impact of having parents who needed him to fill their emotional cups.

- He explains that this leads to a feeling of unworthiness and the inability to measure up to adult expectations.

- He always wanted to be part of the adult crowd and looked down on kids, failing to see their magic.

- Ben's advice that believing in one's worthiness would make the lack of external validation less impactful resonates with him.

The Hungry Ghost and Sensitivity

- Riordan Regan talks about the concept of the "Hungry Ghost" and how it relates to his feelings of never being enough.

- He describes how his increased sensitivity, due to ADHD, makes him feel overwhelmed by others' emotions.

- The cacao from Chiapas is helping him regain his sensitivity and feel more connected to himself.

- He emphasizes the importance of being present and tuning in to his body's feelings.

The Role of Material Culture and the Altar

- Riordan Regan explains how material culture, like the crone and crow images, helps him remember his worthiness.

- He discusses the importance of the altar in connecting him to his past, present, and future.

- The altar serves as a reminder of his Celtic lineage and the wisdom of the ancestors.

- He uses the altar to reconnect with his subconscious and feel validated for simple actions like going to the bathroom.

The Concept of Divinity and Worthiness

- Riordan Regan reflects on the idea that everyone is inherently worthy just for existing.

- He discusses the societal pressure to produce and the impact of this on his self-worth.

- He shares his experience of needing to be validated for simple actions and how this relates to traditional cosmologies.

- The altar helps him remember his worthiness and connect with his divine self.

The Hermit and the Journey Within

- Riordan Regan talks about the significance of the hermit in his journey of self-discovery.

- He describes the hermit as a symbol of solitude, wisdom, and the longing to assume less form.

- The hermit represents the process of going within and finding one's worthiness.

- He discusses the challenges of balancing devotion and self-punishment in his spiritual practices.

The Role of Psychedelics and Entheogens

- Riordan Regan differentiates between mind-manifesting and divine-indwelling.

- He explains how entheogens help him remember his worthiness and connect with his divine self.

- He discusses the importance of approaching psychedelics with intention and respect.

- The use of cacao and other entheogens helps him love himself and see where his false beliefs originated.

The Importance of Documenting the Process

- Riordan Regan emphasizes the importance of documenting his journey and experiences.

- He discusses the role of journaling in helping him feel accomplished and remember his worthiness.

- He reflects on the need to strip away distractions and integrate his experiences.

- The process of documenting helps him share his experiences and connect with others.

The Paradox of Healing and Society's Expectations

- Riordan Regan discusses the paradox of healing in a society that values production.

- He explains that true healing might look like failure to the dominant culture.

- He emphasizes the importance of slowing down and letting things settle.

- He reflects on the need to redefine what healing looks like and how it can be transformative.

The Role of the Hermit in Spiritual Practices

- Riordan Regan talks about the historical significance of spiritual anorexics and their practices.

- He discusses the challenges of distinguishing between devotion and self-punishment.

- The hermit represents the longing to assume less form and the desire to lose the form we've assumed.

- He reflects on the complexity of these practices for people born into female bodies or the LGBTQ+ community.

Transcript:

The altar is the roadmap map that leads me back to the reminder that I am worthy just because I'm me, to the reminder that I deserve to exist, to the reminder that I'm worth it. The road map, the altar is the road map that leads me back through my past to the present so the future can be opened, so that a way forward can be enabled. The altar is the road map that takes me through the reminders of who I am and always have been, the photo of myself in the suit, the squirrel, the Jaguar from the jungle Frida, Amanita, Shakespeare and Oscar, the interdimensional picture that represents me in acacia, the 13 con Christine and the little animals, all the crystal counsel, the moss from when I was a child, the crone and the dancing deer shaman, the cacao and the cloth Isaiah, All the crystals that have taken me through this journey, the Celtic imagery that returns me to my birthright, kit, my guide, the crows, the heart that says Dance like nobody's watching that I got from the burn the Irish mugwort, the tower of Selenite like salt winking in the nitas, a pronoun badge the offering to the ancestors, a candle from IRIS from the baths, the 13 con symbol, and all these gifts for my friends, the worry, the worried all from Jess and oh, a reminder of my worthiness.

There's a reason that I stayed up all night reading the Add book, because it was all about the part where we feel our lives aren't worth anything that will never have produced enough that we have nothing to show for our existence. I say stuff like this all the time, because when we grow up with a parent who needs us to fill their cup, it'll never be enough. So we're born into unworthiness. We're born into a universe where we'll never be able to please our caregivers, where we'll never be able to make them happy, where we'll never be able to measure up in the world of adults, which we long to be part of, because we're brought into existence with our parents both telling us that we're special and a piece of shit needing us to complete them. I always wanted to be part of the grown ups crowd. I never wanted to hang out with the kids. I thought they were stupid. I looked down on them for that cup full of sand, and I failed to see that it was magic dust, and I just couldn't feel it.

So we grow up with this unworthiness. Oh, just like Ben told me, if I really believed I was worthy, it wouldn't matter if there was one shaman in the maloca or 20 or they canceled the whole retreat and we all went home tonight.

Too much / Not enough kids, guaranteed to flip your lid. You're my world, you're a piece of shit, narcissist and co-dependent, two ends of the same spectrum. Too much of what you don't need, not enough of what will fill you up.

And this is where the hungry ghost comes from. Never enough because it was never enough for your parents and too much of the wrong stuff. But when I sit in the dark with my candle in front of my altar, when I look at the images that help me remember. It leads me back to who I was before all of this, and I feel that worthiness again.

And little by little, my body starts coming back online. Little by little, the sensitivity is returning. It's requiring less and less for me to feel myself. I've been so defined by excess, and I've been so embarrassed and ashamed at how much it has taken me to feel something, because I realize now this increased sensitivity that is part of ADD makes me feel like too much of everyone else and not enough of myself. So everyone's shit is pouring in from every dimension, and because we're empathetic, we feel it, we're overwhelmed by it, and then we have to alternately escape from it and also try to feel ourselves through it, so we don't disappear completely, but we have to turn down the sensitivity on what's coming In from everywhere else. And so then that means it requires more and more for us to feel, the Hungry Ghost keeps eating, never satisfied. Empty calories, not satiating.

But now it's coming back. My sensitivity is increasing, and I sensed this the other day. The greatest gift is not just that the cacao from Chiapas from Annabelle is more potent—though it is—but it's that whatever has been happening to me in this portal of Friday the 13th, 40 Gregorian, full moon in Gemini, moving towards the solstice, all guided by Amanita and Cacaosita, it's returning my sensitivity to me. It's requiring less and less for me to feel. Izaias’ cacao had stopped having an effect on me. I was getting worried about how much it was taking to feel anything, and now, now it's back. It's coming back slowly. The sensation is coming back. I'm feeling it, and a lot of it's just about taking the time to be present, pay attention and tune in to the energy, and actually listen to what my body is feeling. Give it a moment. If you just put some space around it and you're not distracting, then you can actually feel it. And this is about today, three Ajpu. It's about finding the divinity in you, the holiness in you and not distracting. The world is full of distractions, and I dive into them because I feel that I'm lacking; not worthy unless I'm producing. And I get pulled in 1000 different directions and I can't focus because I'm so caught up in needing to be something, do something, because I was raised to believe that I was only worth what I was making.

But if I'm worthy just for existing, what a peace that could bring, and that's the gift of the injury. And why I've almost been longing for that time recently is because it was a time when nothing was required of me, when finally the outside world stopped demanding, when finally it was a huge accomplishment just to put my pants on or go to the bathroom, and I really needed that. Really needed that. And that's how it should be, and that's how it should be for all of us. And I think that's why I would always get trapped in the bathroom on ayahuasca journeys, because we need to have that experience. We actually need to be validated just because we went to the bathroom and put our pants on or got out of bed in the morning, because this world is really overwhelming and demanding, and this is not the way it's supposed to be. An animistic societies and traditional cosmologies, there isn't this hungry ghost syndrome, because they are raised to see themselves as divinity, as embedded in everything, interconnected with everything. If you're seeing yourself in isolation and only worth what you were making, then of course it's going to be alienating.

The altar brings you back, the dark and the candle flickering; the images that are the language your subconscious speaks in, the images that remind your body, your nervous system, that return you to the feeling, that remind you you're worthy just for existing, that reminds you of where you've been and where you're going, that connect you to your past ancestors through the Present Moment, the material culture that brings the astral to the present to this moment, the material culture that captures the experience of a lifetime in a moment, the material culture that captures the past and who you've been and what you're meant for in a moment, the material culture that represents different snapshots in time; that captures different moments. Oh, there's a reason I woke up and listened to “matter is frozen light.” The material culture freezes the light, freezes the ever moving, fluctuating waves that are matter; that we pretend are solid. It just captures them. It just takes a snapshot of a moment of our past. I'm looking at the picture of the crone and the crow, and it's moving me so much. The Cailleach, this is my legacy.

There's a reason that I feel the need for Hermiting and that I crave the winter. It's because there is work to do here in my heart, because, yeah, because I still need to look within and be; to find my worthiness and connect through the ancestors, to feel this Celtic lineage, this connection awakening and awakening through the claiming of my name. Because I've realized that every time I tell myself a story of shame. Every time I talk down to myself, I use the name Holly, but I've never once beat myself up under the name Riordan, not really. Maybe I felt kind of disappointed for how I did during an ecstatic dance or something, but it's different. I don't do the shame with them. I've noticed this. Whenever that voice of shame kicks in, it always addresses me as Holly. Holly's dead now. Rest in peace. We transcend and include her, but we are stepping into our Celtic lineage, the Cailleach, the Crone, the hermit who goes within to find the wisdom, the Hermetic messenger who turns the pain into alchemical gold and brings the learnings back to the village, who walks between the worlds. But that means I have to winter. That means I do have to withdraw. That means I do have to go within. That means I can't be producing all these things that people expect of me, but that I put upon myself too. I started doing it again yesterday. I offer myself up, because if I stop for a second, I feel like I should be doing something, because that's that ADD shit. I feel like I'm unworthy if I'm not moving a million miles an hour every second, even when I'm sitting still. And it's fucking exhausting, and I'm tired. I don't even have anything to show for it. Instead, I'm just burned out. So it's time to change things. It's time to cut some shit out with Tijax, use that obsidian blade to get rid of these limiting legacies coming into our own, the Crone. I remember who I am, sometimes in community, sometimes in proximity, but oftentimes just by lighting the candle and sitting down and looking at the images that are the language my subconscious speaks, and that are the language that the ancestors speak and that the dead and the plants speak in, the language that the divine speaks in, which really just means the reconnection of all these other things to me, The reminder that we were never separated to begin with.

We talk about the medicine like we are sick and need healing, like we're broken and need fixing. It's this legacy of shame, the Church Fathers who taught us that we were worms and pieces of shit that God had to redeem. So of course, we make medicine a deity. We've been taught that we are inherently unworthy, that we are naughty and undeserving, that we need to punish our bodies, put them through the trials, starve them, beat them, deprive them for their desires, make us dirty. That's what we've been taught.

So we need to bring back the original meaning of medicine, which isn't something we take to become different. It's not the magic pill that fixes us. It's the pharmakon, the elixir, the soma, the Ambrosia, the entheogen, not something outside us that makes us better, but that which awakens the Divine Indwelling. Could you believe it? Could you believe that the divine dwells within you? Could you believe that you are Christ consciousness, too? Could you believe it? Could you believe you are the living spirit, that you are Buddha, that you are Jesus, that Christ consciousness is something that lives within all of us, that you are Shiva, and that you swallow the elixir that to get the poison out of your throat and cough up this mucus and taste the nectar i.

When I injured myself, it was such a fucking gift to just be able to simply exist. And once again, I remember that connection from when I was a kid. I got to be my favorite person to just hang out with again, and ceremony was my sanctuary. I went deep inside, but I liked being with me. And sure I got lonely. I'm sure I needed more but, but it was important, and this is still present. So the unworthiness must come from somewhere outside of me, even though it feels like it's internal, it's just a tape that starts playing. It was programmed by someone. It's not who I really am.

I think Izaias taps into here one of the core wounds of our society, believing we are unworthy. And so his ceremony was beautiful because it was all about believing we are worthy, just because we exist, and that the plants and their ancestors really do love us. But I still think he deifies the cacao maybe more than we should, and the energy is diverted. I don't feel the same spirit as they do from the cacao from Chiapas. It does feel the Hungry Ghost a little bit. It kind of makes me want more, not as much as Lou goes. I do want to understand this pharmacology and kinesiology, tasting Isaias cacao, I am transported back to Mikaela's and Joe's, and I realized that somehow the particles of cacao dissolving on my tongue have been returning me to my own worthiness, but how I've been beating myself up for abusing the medicine, for feeling like I needed it to Get by, I did for a while, and yet it was working all the while, little by little, somehow it was returning me to the memory of my own Self-energy. Little by little, it was activating the divine within, and it's happening now. I'm loving myself again, and I can tell that it's easing me out of this phase. Eventually I won't need her like this anymore.

And this is the thing with any addiction, it works until it doesn't, even if that's what it is, and maybe that's not what it is, maybe that's my demonization of it, like maybe this is just a freaking resource and it's a medicine, if we can approach it with intention, and I am, I'm doing it with respect and ceremony. I'm wrapping it in a cloth and putting it on my altar. I'm not abusing it. Cacao is helping me love myself again, and Amanita is helping me see where I first got the false beliefs to begin with. This is where I think psychedelic is the wrong term. Mind manifesting is very different than Divine Indwelling. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. Your mind tells you that you're a piece of shit, unless you make more shit and get paid for it, but the entheogen reminds you that you're winning just by existing. I am because you're living. The entheogen has reciprocity built in mind manifesting, creating a world mind manifesting, generating a world of mental fixation. That's not what we want. It is showing us what's inside our mind, what's inside the ego to unwind. But really, the point is to restore our divine element to us.

I drew the king of swords, someone capable of summing up a situation with great emotional serenity and the sword, Tijax, cutting away the belief that I don't know what I'm trying to say, the King of Swords is also embodying the dark side of Kan that can create a false reality. But then I asked for more clarity, and I drew the Hermit. This is what keeps me honest, keeping me in the light, and not the dark side of 13 Kan, is retreating for contemplation, being willing to abandon everything over and over again. And this is why the nomadic path, and this is why the newsletter needs to focus on that and share it. It is worthy, and people need to know it, and people want to know it. I am here to practice letting go of the quote, unquote stability, the false sense of security, over and over again. That's my karma in this lifetime, burning through the attachment to places and situations, burning away the attachment wounds that make me view everything as a womb, a tomb. Everyone is a uterus, the life giving place that can become death, a tomb, like Jesus’, where you can either resurrect or sleep forever.

So I have to be forced to leave a place as soon as I get comfortable, I set myself up for it. It's the only way to see that I am my home and I come with me. This is divinity. And the Hermit is trans. They can be active or receptive. They are Hermes, the light bearer, carrying the torch of knowledge. Eve the serpent, 13 Kan bringing the fruit. It helps us awaken. They represent the cold winter. They are Saturn, the wisdom of solitude, the Crone, the Cailleach. Jodorowsky says the Hermit is kin to the Emperor, yes, the king of swords, the king who has given up his throne, he who has given up his attachment to matter, and he comes after the Fool. The Fool's path has taken shape become the organic life experience of the individual who has drawn lessons from their own path as they've walked it. He has drunk the elixir of knowledge and known death to be reborn. Soma, Amanita, the Eucharist, the holy grail, cacao: all awakening medicine,

So the neurodivergence has to be part of the art. If you feel like you don't know what to talk about, talk about the fact that you don't know what to talk about. Bring your experience into the thing. This is autotheory, seeing the roots of my beliefs that I am unworthy is part of the neurodivergence, part of my experience, part of my identity, part of intersectionality, and it must be brought into the art and scholarship and shared as part of who I am. This is why the critical perspectives on phenomenology are important because you can't separate yourself from your lived experience, not really, not if you want to share with the village, especially people need to hear about these experiences because it makes them feel less alone, and you have to share the pain to turn it into alchemical gold and tell them you found out why, so they can know too.

Reading this ADD book is transformational, and they need to know it; too much, not enough kids is a powerful image, and the images are what speak to our subconscious and connect us through the centuries, what's transforming the wound of ADD into a power, may be the ability to do and be and exist in multiple things at once. The ability to see everything as interconnected, the ability to exist in all the realms. From this perspective, ADD is a psychedelic experience, more real than reality, letting in all the sensory; seeing its fractality and its inherent divinity.

I've wondered if who I if I knew who I am without writing it down. Well, ADD is characterized by a loss of sense of self. Not knowing what it means to have worth because you exist, measuring everything by accomplishment, trying to fit your parents’ standard. Now suddenly I understand what it means this phrase I've been hearing always being measured and coming up short because I was always trying to fill my parents cups, and there was never enough. It's impossible. They were still miserable. So I was always a failure. Suddenly I'm transported to that memory in the jungle of when all the animals and beings were gathered around watching me, waiting for my big moment, and I just coughed and spit and I couldn't even throw up, and I blew it, but they didn't care. I was the only one waiting for it. But I always saw myself as a failure in the world of adults that I longed to belong to, and this is in the Nutcracker, Clara just wants to join the grown ups party. Well, sorry, not sorry. I wanted to go to your party, but now I don't.

And this is the ADD teen I was just reading about. Sorry, not sorry. I don't want to go to your party. I'm the Misbehavin one, spoiling all the fun, pooping on your party, I'm grounded, but with no grounding, no root always torn up by the shoot. They tell me you're nuts. You need medication for all your misbehaving, but they don't see that what fuels ADD is all this restriction. What helps us break free, rather than falling into patterns of addiction and depression is not more rules, but less; more freedom to let our queer, divergent selves Express, because otherwise you never learn to be responsible for yourself if you're only doing things that you're supposed to because you'll get punished. You don't even learn what you like or what you need or what actually makes you feel secure. Everything you do is wrong, and then all you want to do is rebel and counterwill, and your friends can be a tether, but then they take them away from you over and over, with only the parent barometer, which says everything you do is wrong and sick and a disorder. Family is the fucking disorder. The culture is the fucking disorder, not the kids. Where do you think this behavior comes from? Nothing comes from a vacuum. Original Sin, Bitch please. We're born bad. Bitch, please. Organisms get sick from the environment, from the culture they're stewing in.

It wasn't Eve, it was the fucking garden, even if you want to believe the narrative that the fruit made her bad. Then, okay, where do you think she fucking got it from? The garden you put her in.

And I think this is why I write things down, because at least then I can look back and feel like I accomplished something. It's right here. Look, I existed briefly for a moment. There is proof. I get up at 3am because for a few hours, everything else is quiet, and then I know who I am. I am a hero at bonus time, I am clear at bonus time, I sit with myself for hours, and that's more than many people ever do in a day or a week or even a lifetime. So even if I forget, half of it by the time the sun rises, at least I experienced it. I instant. So I guess the key is to come back to it and strip away the distractions. And integration means to review what's been coming up. But you know, maybe also what's okay if the same stuff just comes up again and again every day, and I don't remember it, and I have to write it down. I mean that for now, this is how we go

and document the process, you know, document the process of all this. Happening. Tijax is about healing. It's not just about making incisions. It's about stitching the wounds back up as a 13 Kan. My purpose it's not to produce. It's to be a healer and a shaman, to make art, but mostly to help people. And that starts within, the healing is part of the process. Ti hush involves cutting out what doesn't serve and I keep trying to add more.

So if you feel like you don't know what you're doing, then make make art about it. You feel like you don't know what integration is, and write about that. We are a doing culture that measures people by what they produce. So of course, we think integration looks like more work. Of course, we think we have to have something to show at the end of it. Of course, we don't know how to just rest and let things settle. Of course, we keep chasing peak experiences. We think healing is a place that we get to. We think healing is something that we should be able to summarize in that PowerPoint presentation. We think we should have something we think that being healed means we should be able to produce more afterwards. But no, I think it actually looks like the opposite. I think when we're really healed, it probably looks more like a failure to the dominant culture. And this is the paradox. If you're really healing, you probably look quote unquote lazy to society, because you go slower, more deliberately, you care less. You know you're worthy, just because you exist so you don't have to try so hard. And yet, every journal entry I write could be a newsletter. And all this shit that I'm channeling, I feel like probably could help people if I weren't so concerned about how to present it. So I don't know. I ask for guidance, and I ask for help from the astral and my guides to show me how to share the material with the village so I can help people, but first to feel it and ground it and integrate it and believe that I'm worthy just because I exist too much, not enough kids guaranteed to flip your live. You're my world. You're a piece of shit, narcissist and codependent. And how do we heal it? You're nuts. You need grounding.

Your grounding is inside you and what's surrounding. The hermit crab has the home they carry on their back,

Going far enough inward makes you come out the other side as everything, remember? It happens every time you die, and there's always a new beginning.

But the Hermit is also about the longing to assume less form, to disappear completely, to take up less matter; suicidality, extremes of ecstasy and trauma and of Awakening, this desire to lose the form we've assumed. And how does deprivation, asceticism, quote, unquote, anorexia, restriction play into this the description of all the spiritual anorexics about history, the women who fasted through Jesus and the ones who were demonized by society as hysteric—what's the difference?

I don't know if that part was getting picked up on the tape, and that feels Important to restate: the spiritual anorexics, the women throughout history who starved themselves for Jesus, for divinity and society told them, you're crazy. You are hysterical. Your brain is deteriorating. You need to eat something. I've been yelled at on the street to eat a sandwich. They don't know my story. They don't know what my body needs. And the hermit represents this asceticism as well. From Jodorowsky book, detached from desire, I dwell within my heart as if inside a hollow tree. My body is a vehicle that I witness as it ages, passes and vanishes. But you can get lost in this to attain ecstasy, I cultivate indifference to achieve the love of all things and all beings, I retire into solitude to come out On the other side of enoughness.

You retreat into what seems like not enough. It's interesting. It's a question, where is it devotion, and where is it punishing the body because you feel like it doesn't deserve to have pleasure? These can be hard lines to draw, and maybe that's the work of a lifetime. But I know it's even more complicated for people born into female bodies in this culture, and for the Trans and Queer.

What's devotion, what's disorder? Is there such a thing? What’s sickness, what's us, and what’s society?