Impending Doom and the Crossing of Thresholds

It is Monday morning and all I feel is an impending sense of doom. Unspecified, untied, a sensation floating through the ether- my body has decided to latch here as though it is the source from which she receives her milk. A sensation that lacks sustenance, substance, subsistence. Look how the bones of my soul have withered! See how the soles of my feet have calloused! I have walked when unmoved to escape this impending doom, not pausing to consider her actuality. Are you real? Are you true? Or are you a fabrication as a means for protection? Preempting every misstep in order to outrun annihilation, as though the shoulds of this world have convinced both you and I that we are not safe within her holding. Are you doom? Or fear in the guise of vigilance? For if you are fear, then I am your origin, and the breast from which this body has been drawing her milk is my own. 

I stand at a precipice, a threshold, an ushering in of a new season of existence and an honouring of all that has passed before. I am hesitant and afraid, yet entirely ignited by the Lovers that lay before me. They beckon me forward, to be brave, to be bold, to claim the life that my soul has written. I worry about the details. I worry about the steps. I worry that I am not good enough or ready enough or true enough to walk out of the dream and into reality, with all that I am in tow. They tell me I can take the dream with me- but a protest erupts in my body at the thought. Impossible! Unheard of! Stories of disbelief fire along all neurons, synapses active and alive, furiously commanding that we cannot, we must not! To venture beyond the confines of our walls, of our safety, of our tentatively crafted haven, would mean certain doom for all that we are. The world is harsh and cold and unforgiving, says my body, as though all that has been is all that will continue to be. 

The threshold is not new, it has not arrived in my life uncalled, unprompted, uninvited. I have danced around her for years, kicking stones over her edge to test the distance of the fall. I have heard no sound, no song, no ripple of water reach out to me from her depths. A silence, full and pregnant, and brimming with all that i might one day be. This is all she offers. Her call is subtle, energetic, somatic, and sometimes I think the impending sense of doom I feel is not an evil, but more a calling so grand and so divine and so powerfully potent, that the version of me which exists now cannot help but be afraid. As a child, I was most terrified of my imagination in the dark. Some nights were sleepless, overwhelmed and terrified by the creatures and shadows that emerged from behind my eyes. I couldn’t control it- if I pulled at a thread of thought, her entire essence would come pouring through in an instant, my mind and my heart awash with demons and devils and desperation. I found solace in my sister's bed for a time, and whilst the presence of those I love will always be an antidote to the horrors, still the horrors persist. 

So, let it be said that there is a presence within my body that is inclined towards interpreting fear as an evil. As a nightmare. That when I am thrown into the flux of the unknown (by storm or by self), an immediate assumption is made that it will be horrifying, painful and unlikely to provide the fruits I am wishing for. I cling to safety. I convince myself to cling to safety. I see myself convince myself to cling to safety- and I understand. There is a part of me, still a child, still an innocent, still entirely undeserving of the pain inflicted upon her. Still confused, still floundering, still begging and praying and wishing to be safe. To feel safe. And where I used to feel frustration, and sometimes anger, with her unwillingness to expand, the dominant voice within me now is soothing, spacious, and understanding.  There was a time in my life where I would force myself to act, punish myself into success, and berate myself to build momentum. There was a time when I believed I did not deserve to be loved, an inherent flaw within me rendering me unlovable. There was a time when I saw the scared and lonely parts of myself as a nuisance, and did all that I could to sever our ties. I have betrayed myself as much as, if not more than, all those who betrayed me in turn. I have dismissed myself as much as, if not more than, all those who have dismissed me in turn. I have hurt myself as much as, if not more than, all those who hurt me in turn. My heart breaks for the version of me who thought she was entirely undeserving of safety and love, even from within herself. 

As I stand at this threshold, this precipice, this ushering into all that I am becoming- I am hesitant and fearful. I am disbelieving and doubting. Almost every impulse in my body tells me to turn back, to step away, to find peace along some other road, where the expansion of all that I am does not require me to jump. I have run before, and I may run again, but there is no denying my repeated return. Curiosity, excitement, arousal- impulses within my body that pull me forward as though a Siren calling softly:

This is all that you wish for,

This is all that you need.

Beyond the edge of this threshold,

A soul, set free.

I am singing these words to myself at each moment. I am holding the hand and the heart of my inner child, standing boldly and bravely at the edge of this threshold- telling her that I’m scared too. I am looking into her eyes, and drying her tears. I am sitting with her, holding her, loving her, supporting her- until she tells me she is ready to jump, I will not jump a moment before. Gone are the days of flagellation, replaced only with the sweetest of admirations and adorations. When I write about slowing down, it is not because I believe the fast pace nature of my spirit is wrong or out of place- but because I recognise a part of myself, of my body, of my being, is longing to feel safe, to move from a place of safety. And although I am beautifully and wonderfully blessed to be loved in the way that I am but all those I cherish so dearly, I know that it is only I, only me, only the we that lives within this body, that can decide how we get to be loved. 

And so I see the doom that rears its head this Monday morning, and I raise you love. I raise you ‘what ifs’ steeped in the divine magic of this existence, and suggest to myself the possibility that this which I dream of so constantly, is true, and not only true- but imminent, here. I see the fear and the hesitation and the procrastination, and I say we have time for it all. Nothing can deny you the truth of your soul, nor the truth of your path. All is unfolding exactly as is meant to, and although you may feel wobbly and uncertain, like wandering through unfamiliar forests in the dark, remember that you are born from this very soil. This existence was forged through imagination itself, and the divinity within you is its own source of life. Its own source of magic. There is a world you are building within your heart and your mind, and spirit is supporting you to build it within the earth. Trust in all that you are, in all that you are here to become. Take your time, and trust that you will. You always do. I say this to myself, and on this Monday morning, I walk into life with a certainty in my step, and a mission on the tip of my tongue. No doom in sight.