Suicide-adjacent, the inner lesbian, theatre as salvation
It comforted me deeply when I listened to a podcast yesterday that said Jung kept a loaded revolver in his nightstand just in case all the visions got to be too overwhelming.
I also listened to a Jungian perspective that said isolation is part of this process of receiving, but it does kind of make you crazy. You need to touch in with the world of forms and materiality. Volunteering with ecstatic dance has become that grounding for me; they are my family, and it’s a place where we have altered-state experiences, yet my responsibilities are very grounded in 3D: sweep the floor, plug the lights in, fill the water jug. And now, hand out my cacao informational leaflets, N’oj coming back around.
It’s a tricky one, that isolation. You need some of it to do the work, but it’s also one of the shadows I fear most, the unstoppable death force: the one that wants to get me alone and kill me. The one that has been working subtly on me ever since high school. But the way I transmuted it then was the same as now, I guess, turning it into research and performance.
It was coming out when I was in Austin, because there are no such thing as accidents, just parts of yourself trying to get your attention. On the wall of this housesit are three posters with “2010” emblazoned boldly across the top. The year that I had five “accidents” and turned the first car I had so proudly purchased into a mangled wreck of metal, as witin so without. The only one I had sober was going to see Stephen, where I spun out on the Texas highway and everything turned so slow-motion that I was able to see perfectly clearly that I was about to die, and I had nothing to show for my miserable life, but the good part was that I realized for the first time in that state that I wasn’t ready to exit stage right. I spun across five lanes of traffic and somehow came to a stop on the opposite side of the road facing backwards, and had managed not to hit a single person or even blow out a tire. I got a huge fine, but I survived.
The suicide feeling came back for the first time since I actually tried to do it, three years after that accident, on the train in London last Friday night. But the beauty was that I was able to see the effects of my medicine and healing work n action, because I actually was standing on the edge of it, peering over, from the observer position, watching it all unfold. Knowing I wasn’t really going to act on it. But man, did it come a lot closer than I was comfortable with.
It was prompted by going into an old pattern, one I thought I had cleared: thinking I had feelings for a cis man, because I felt like I needed someone to save me from myself. And it came along with a harsh lesson: that you need to be careful who you share things with.
They keep this shit esoteric for a reason. Tell the wrong people, and they’ll call you crazy.
He told me, gently, that not only were the feelings not reciprocated, but he was worried about me. For a few days, this only deepened my victim mentality. Just like when I was a kid, I doubted myself; I forgot I was a shamxn, because I didn’t know how to share what I was finding in a way people would understand; because the wrong people saw it, as happened when they read my journals and took my books away as a teenager.
There’s nowhere to hide when they get inside your mind and make you gaslight yourself.
But this time, I remembered.
And I realized the whole thing had been triggered by realizing that I actually was attracted to Jade, that mystical bearer of cacao, the queer owner of the ethical metaphysical store with whom I had been divinely connected, whose aunt has offered to sponsor my UK visa. The only other person I’ve ever heard of who is having high-dose cacao experiences; a healer who has learned from Indigenous teachers.
And very much a binary lesbian, like those who told me I wasn’t one of them. Like the ones I was told I would burn for being attracted to, my first memory of self-gaslighting.
Dave assigned me te creation of a 10-minute play in December, because I had to get it out of here, he told me over sad, tired, too-yellow eggs in the cafe of the quirky building across from the theatre, where downstairs it was perpetually Christmas, and once a year the rest of the world caught up with it.
There’s something poetic about that. And it makes me think of Lala’s, the bar of forever Christmas in Austin, Texas, where you could still smoke indoors, and I sucked on American Spirits and thought that Jeff was the answer to my anomie, and decided to leave Stephen before he came back from the holidays.
The play, we decided, would be about self-gaslighting. He told me he also wants to hear more about channeling. I told him that I had an idea for a one-person show where I would basically just do my morning practice in front of people with a more coherent through-line. I thought nobody would care about this. But he loved it.
I do think one of the people I’m channeling is McKenna.
Ha! The song that just came on shuffle has a chorus saying: “Help me to name it.” That’s the thing, innit?
So, before I realized that I was gaslighting myself again into thinking that I was attracted to a cis man who would save me from my own madness and self-destruction and forgot I was a shamxn who had a crush on an astral-traveling lesbian—and a Kame nahual, of course, because I am in love with the death and resurrection—I got into that dark place again, that part of me was trying, as it has been my whole life, to isolate me from my art and the queer spiritual friends who understand, and I stood at the precipice of suicidal ideation and peered over the edge. But I realized it was happening, and that’s why I was sitting on that train having this realization.
I knew I needed to go to the theatre. And I’ll be damned, I was redeemed by a play about a couple of gay Peruvians called “Jeezus: The Musical,” which contained everything from astute observations of South American politics to resurrecting the lord and savior by fellating a crucifix, and the music was catchy and the actors engaging and I was totally captivated, and all those dark thoughts fell away, and I knew I needed to put my pain and joy and stories onstage.
I waited around until they came out of the dressing room and gushed and asked if I could send them some scenes, and they said yes.
Then I read them and felt like they were a disastrous half-conceived mess, so I still haven’t done it.
But it’s a start. The first step is awareness.
——
Transmission transcript: Suicidality
More suicidality. It's all connected. I love when things just start to make sense, listening to this yangian life, yeah. Young was also haunted, slashed comforted by thoughts of suicide, images, the things he was receiving from the other realm were so overwhelming, he didn't know how to ground them, interpret them, make sense of them, land them, and he kept a loaded revolver in his bedside table, just to remind himself that if it got to be too much, he could end it all. That's exactly what I've been going through. But I've been alive things feel overwhelming that seem easy to other people, and I don't see another way out, except to be saved by a man or put myself in the ground. And how sad is that, and how much power Am I giving away to that. But that's what's happening when I was being brought back to Austin's wanting for a reason, because they also say in this podcast that when people start having quote, unquote accidents, that's the suicidal self trying to get out, that's the unstoppable death or trying To finish the job, it's the beginning. You start paying less attention. You start being less careful. You start by just kind of not fearing if it happens. And then it works. All the
times I crashed my car. I mean, I knew I was possibly trying to die, but to see here, it spelled out very sobering. There are a lot of ways to kill yourself. Some are less confronting.
LISTEN:
Insatiable
Holly Regan reflects on theit struggles with insatiability, exploring themes of trauma, addiction, and the search for love and identity. They discuss their experiences with alcohol, sexual encounters, and artistic suppression, linking these to past abuse and the need for validation. Holly describes their transformations into different personas—artist, mystic, and alcoholic—and the trance-like states they enter. They acknowledges the severe abuse they endured, the gaslighting, and the societal shaming that contributed to their behavior. Holly also touches on their journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and the realization that they are a shaman, emphasizing the expansive nature of the universe and the time available for personal growth.
Transcript here
Summary:
Insatiable Hunger and Emptiness
- They describe a feeling of insatiability, always needing more to fill an empty void within themself. - They mention the fear of the bottom being empty and scary, reflecting their inner emptiness. - They discuss how they make themself into whatever they need to get love, even if it means taking rather than giving. - They talk about the monstrous impulse that awakens every morning, comparing it to a beast that never feels satisfied.
[...] Action Items:
Forgive myself for not going to art school and quitting theater. (Assignee: Holly Regan)
Reconnect with and apologize to the younger versions of myself (Assignee: Fiona)
Transmute the trauma and shame I've experienced, especially around my sexuality and identity. (Assignee: Holly Regan)
Embrace the creative, spiritual, and authentic parts of myself that I've suppressed. (Assignee: Holly Regan)
Speaker 1 reflects on their creative process, discussing the symbolic use of letters and the deeper meaning behind their art, which includes themes of breaking free from cycles and ending a relationship. They recount a transformative experience involving a conversation with their mother, which led to a realization about their purpose in creating art. This realization was further solidified by witnessing a performance that resonated deeply with their identity and struggles. Speaker 1 also shares a profound revelation about their ability to perceive the dead, which they had previously suppressed, and expresses a newfound desire to document and explore these visions, recognizing them as a unique form of communication and a significant part of their identity.
Action Items
Draw the faces the speaker sees when they close their eyes and record the stories of the dead.
Transcript:
The word y, u, W, A, U, wait, W, A, y, u, written clearly. It's like the title of a magazine written in block letters at the top of an exhibit or I've created with art pieces of letters that were never sent to mark sending messages and some secret code about how we get out of the cycle of samsara, things that are casual, but they're also they're me telling me him, I'm not getting back together with him.
They're like these stylized letters, or like letters written on an old 1950s postcard from Hawaii, I'm saying Like you're never gonna see me again. Kay, by
mm, what if it's the part of me that thought they needed to be saved from men and saved from myself writing this letter to say you'll never see me again. I love that, that that feels like that could be true, and that could definitely be an art project too. Pat's is 12. He drowned. He's a redhead with freckles, and I see his head bobbing above the surface before it goes under. I feel like he contacted me when I was a little child, but I didn't know how to interpret it. All of a sudden, things are pouring in from the astral. I actually really unlocked something, and it crystallized, because I was talking to mom. Isn't that interesting. So I need to only talk to her when I've only had when I've already figured things out, I think for a while, because somehow in that, yeah, like I it's a good time to talk to her when I'm crystallizing things. I am supposed to share what I'm learning, but I'm not supposed to ask her input, and she can help me kind of connect the dots once they're basically already there, not even that. It's just like, in the act of sharing with her and some additional maybe filters she puts on or support she lends, makes it unlock, like I just got to the next level, and getting all the bells and whistles, because I realized that it was I realized that I lost the point of why to create anything at all until I was talking to her, and I realized that that's part of what made seeing that play so important, was realizing that on the train, on The way there, I didn't want to live anymore. And then I saw a couple Peruvian queers get up on stage, and I didn't tell her this part, but mime getting anally raped and sucking off not, yeah, no, not getting annoy raped and mimed getting defiled by a crucifix and sucking off Jesus and reclaiming their queer shame. And I saw my story, and suddenly I didn't feel alone anymore. I walked into that theater and I instantly felt happy, and that's why to create, and that's what I had lost, the threat of I was trying to make the thing for the sake of making the thing because I wanted my puppy to look at me and tell me I was worthy.
I don't need these men to tell me that I'm worthy. I
him seeing me, giving me the label add is actually a spell he put on me. Brewery, a sorcery. I now has become an excuse for everything.
Something like that is only helpful if it can be liberating.
He saw my pain, but then trapped me in a trance with the spell he put on me, black magic, sorcery, men always trying to tell you something's wrong with you. I
He thinks I'm crazy, but I'm a motherfucking shaman baby. Holy fucking shit. I've always seen faces when I closed my eyes ever since I was a kid, but I would kind of shut them down because they freaked me out. They're the dead. That's the dead speaking to me, Holy fucking shit. And it comes in the hypnagogic state. Oh, my fucking god, this is so incredible to realize. I gotta draw them. I gotta listen to them. I gotta record their stories. I feel like there's one called Alan. He's Asian. He was trying to speak to me. He was trying to raise his hand, or it looked like he was trying to pinch something. His dad wasn't listening. The dead have been speaking to me this whole time this way, ever since I was a little kid. And this came through some thought train as I was laying here, half awake about the play and about how the chosen children always have some kind of ability to communicate with the other realms. And I was like thinking I didn't have one. And then all of a sudden I realized it's the faces that appear to me. This is what I got to draw. This is so fucking cool.
Transmission transcript: Rebekah the temptress
Rebekah. Rebekah, now I'm in love with a girl named Rebekah. What is it about these Latin ladies? She danced with all the men at the dance today. At ecstatic she captivated all of them. I watched them. I watched her put each one under her spell was a charm her body, the dance that put them in a trance. She enchanted Lubo and Richard and Simon the DJ. She even got up behind him while he was playing, and started like fluffing him and I almost wanted to say, stop. And if it was anyone else, Richard would have told them to get the fuck out of there. But she put him in a spell too. And she put a spell on me too, but I already was, I already was in. She put a spell on me the second she looked at me. What is it with me and these Latin ladies, I can't resist. Does this make me some kind of colonist, like it just happens to be my type. But Is that racist? I feel very complicated about this. She's just oozes pure sexuality. This has nothing to do with her nationality. I'm talking just separately about her at this point, she like is sex personified. She's a goddess. She's Aphrodite. Her hips just the right amount of sculpted, the kind that makes you think that she gets them naturally from dancing, and not from doing a bunch of crunches, but she's got those little lines on either side of her stomach that were visible through the space between her Crop Top and her spandex that hugged her perfect ass, round, voluptuous, but not big, just well, but kind of big, but not really just perfect. I mean, she looked like a fucking sculpture of a goddess, gyrating those hips, her hair soft, her face suggestive without being excessive, like she's so soft as well, just tempting. And I smelled alcohol on her breath, and it reminded me of all those dangerous men that lured me in with their I don't know, some way that they were free in which I was not. And I grasped that today, and I wanted to absorb her power and be able to feel that for myself. You could like it came from a confidence, like a pure confidence. She's fucking gorgeous, and a past version of me would have been jealous and kind of hated her for it, and how does she charm these men? I wanted to learn how to get that confidence for myself, that's what I wanted. But also she's really fucking hot. I mean, I also wanted her to fluff my hair and grind on me the way she was grinding with them and we danced. But also she's perceptive, and I think she could read that I have boundaries, and also maybe she's not into trans people. I don't know we're women or whatever, but wanted her to rub all up on me like she was rubbing all up on them. But then I actually didn't, because the last thing I need right now is to be put on under another spell. I just got out of that trance. But it was interesting to watch. I mean, it was like she was just deliberately going around, charming everyone. Kali Ma, the snake charmer, getting those men under her paw. It's like, yeah, we need you on our team. So you can do that, so you can hypnotize them, so we can sneak in through the side doors of the borders and the spaces that would try to keep us out and take them, yeah. Kali Ma, be our snake charmer. We need you on our team. That's one way we can win. They'll never even see it coming. I watched each of them fall right under some magic.
