theloraxformula
hiking shoes that aren’t filthy are shoes misused.
We are animals that have outlived our own usefulness. We are animals that go against all intrinsic instinct for the sake of some doctrine that has been bred into our domesticated forefathers. Our senses are our only means of truth and we have annihilated all the truth they may carry. My senses do not lie, despite the illusions they are riddled with—my mind which perceives these illusions only contorts their truths into images some bastard animal within me needs to survive.
We are animals who go against all that we need to survive—we do not hunt, we do not run, we do not SURVIVE, we only exist. We exist and destroy and our destruction is not for the sake of survival. Our destruction is not as noble as a wolf ripping out the throat of a deer, or a bear tearing into a tree for the hidden beehive within it, our destruction is for destruction itself. We are self-destroying. Do other animals destroy as we, the most beastly of creatures do? I am a creature that destroys itself. All animals live—they breathe, they hunt, they fuck, they sleep, they keep going. They kill others to sustain themselves if need be. I destroy myself for the sheer enjoyment of causing myself pain. Does any other creature bumbling about in the woods do this? Does some other beat sit within its den, eyes open in panic, mind racing from memory to memory about something in the past? Does it howl out as I do at the anguish I’ve created in my own mind? I’ve evolved past myself. What was an evolutionary advantage—conscious thought—has become nature’s smirking revenge at my vain attempt to bridle it. I have become too accustomed to ruling over a world I cannot control. I have become my own God, my own devil, my own demon, and nature (the one leveling force) does not appreciate my tenacity.
I do not place my value on my heart continuing to beat. I do not find the sacred in my ability to walk without fear of a predator. And because I do not, nature has instilled something within me—hell, maybe in all human beings—to bring me back to base animal thought; she, he, it, has put a predator in my head. I do not run from some other animal because I am an animal within myself, destroying, hunting, all within the realm of my own mind. I am an animal that tries to kill itself, an animal that starves itself, an animal that causes itself physical pain and smirks.
Maybe I have tangled with my demons for far too long, maybe I have become what I’ve been trying to exercise from my own head. For my own survival I need to devolve. That which I see is truth. That which I smell, which I taste, which I feel with the pads of my fingers is reality- not the images which I have spun like a poor sky into my mind.
My eyes do not pierce through darkness, my feet do not slide without pain over rocks and carpets of pine needles, my fingers cannot tear into flesh, my legs are not strong enough to stride behind a deer. My teeth tear tender flesh, my ears catch what they wish, and my hands become hard only in cultivating useless words. I am, at my core, a useless animal. I am an animal that thinks with its mind, not with its body. An animal that invests its time in postulations and pontifications of what life is, of what nature is, of what reality is, rather than living only to live. I am an animal so domesticated I envy the creatures—the dog, the cat, the fish—that I see around me and force them into domestication. I domesticate that which cannot me domesticated by giving it some name. I name myself. I create an idea of something that needs no idealization, which exists independently of my vain attempt at control. I can tame all that is around me in my head—or I can create the illusion of tameness to make sleep easier. Does “God” sleep easy knowing that all his creations are within his control? Or did God kill himself when he learned that which he created, that which he thought was a possession rose against his own hand? We are our own Gods—do we not kill ourselves as we have created ourselves? All of the universe is meant to fall into destruction, we are the only animals who fight this. This is our own demise, for no matter how we organize, sterilize, domesticate, it all comes out in the end. This tapestry we are creating will unravel in our hands. Our gardens will rise from neat rows, our cats will prowl in this new untamed land, and we ourselves will destroy the conventions we hide behind.
Maybe that’s why we are the “smartest” of breeds in our ability to end ourselves. We can see our own inevitable demise and suicide is our evolutionary advantage—we end something meant for ultimate destruction preemptively. Or perhaps it is why we are the weakest of animals. We haven’t the strength to stomach our own illusions, our own lies, our own created truths. We have created a world beyond what is truly there—a world beyond our animal senses. We cannot survive in this world. Living in this world is our ultimate demise. But we have to live in it. The only way out of this labyrinth we’ve walled ourselves into is to cast the idea of the labyrinth itself away. But casting an idea only goes so far. The only way out is to take yourself out. It is the ultimate test of strength and of weakness. Are you strong enough to remove yourself from human created “sanity”? Are you weak enough to take away your own life? Is the life you are taking away only a creation of the human world you’ve invested yourself in?
Or are you strong enough to walk away into the woods? How much “truth” can you stomach before you overdose? I am proofreading this expelling of words (further an expulsion of some part of myself because my monsters are made of words) to further lie to myself. My “mistakes” aren’t MY mistakes—my words are my words, my criticism of myself is not my own, it is of the world around me. I am buying into a world the animal within me snarls at. What animal am I that does not live out its own purpose? What is the point of an animal that destroys itself? There is no point. I am a defect of nature. What animal finds fault in its own survival? No animal should wake up and find sorrow in its waking. What strange breed am I?
Books for Eco-Feminsm are in! Am excited. {: (Taken with Instagram)
he snaps his barbed jaws made of thin sticks— you know
the kind that
SNAP and CRACK ominously underfoot when the woods have grown too
quiet, too calm, for all to be well
teeth gnashing— this the sound of dead leaves skittering against pavement and river rocks at dusk (that time when you need to settle down and get a fire started, but you’re not quite sure of where you are)
homeless
wandering the woods in search for something he will never find
hysterical, eternally lost his
eyes
are the dim, barely there glow of camp fires that go out too early
fingers the cold that creeps around the base of your sleeping bag and along your neck
cheek bones the sun-bleached sides of mountains that you don’t notice until you step over them, flailing to hold onto roots.
his voice is the unrecognizable call from some animal you cannot identify in the depths of the woods, but not so deep that you cannot imagine it coming towards you. not so deep that the sound doesn’t make your hair stand on end.
his feet are bound with the ghost skins of snakes that lurk under rocks, darting out only when you have one foot precariously balanced on its side.
he travels — howling and yowling like some hell cat out of deep
mountain lore— starved, half crazed, ravenous
fever hot and parched
his mouth a voracious, vacuous, vorpal cave
that leads down into his river stomach— that part of the river you thought was deep, but revealed its true nature with the electric sting of broken legs after jumping.
his howl is the wiping of the wind at your tent
angry hands running broken glass claws against your skin as you walk against it.
he is jealous of those who wonder the wood for he has no true home.
his ribs the skeletons of eerie, too thick mountain laurel trees and the hollow shells of long fallen oaks.
the light of the moon burns his moth-wing skin on nights when the forest is full of her radiance. so he yowls, furious and powerless
rattling and shaking his bones — the dead arms of trees that stretch out over too steep mountains, acid burnt and raw
his name could have been pestilence to the christians
but only the Natives know his name and only whisper it lowly
and on nights when the wind is calm and he cannot hear their summons—
Windigo.
his only purpose is that he has none.
his motivation is endless hunger
that is older than the mountain itself-
or maybe it was born with the mountain…
he in his rabid madness has long forgotten the origin of his emptiness.
he is hungry, and you are in his wood.
i am selfish in my adoration
- in my observation
as if this light, this moon is
mine&
mine alone.
as if no other being is looking upon same
face as i am, as if this face is put on for me.
as if she is my mother and she has no daughter quite as grand as i.
i bottle her clear, unlying light with my
eyes &
hide those bottles away deep my
chest
somewhere close to my heart so few may see it.
her beams are a lullaby sweeping over mountain ridges
that i like to pretend only i can hear as she sings over the
loud whispering of the trees.
i like to think that i am sole and secular in being bathed in her
spectacular, white-gold luminescence.
her engulfing gaze is the emanating heat of my blankets, encompassing me like a child.
i do not share this warmth- no,
no instead i wrap it tightly around me, i burrow down within it
and let it dissolve the cold of the world untouched by her light.
her light keeps the true night away—
even the creatures who ride the wind, howling and furious still.
they skitter around her;
quiet and heavy with awe as if they know they are in her territory and their kind are not welcome there.
her grandeur is not to be shared nor looked upon by unworthy eyes.
it would be vain to think that no other shall gaze up at her as i do
but i shall be vain.
i shall be vain and i shall try to trap her essence within my veins to keep
the undeserving away.
i am gluttonous with her abundant shine &
in quiet, lonely moments like this i {selfishly}
like to think
that she is smiling just for me.
From my drive down the Parkway at Sunrise. (Taken with Instagram)
Taken with Instagram
The full moon was still out and about while the sun was rising right behind me. Craziest thing evahh.
after sitting in a dripping wet and muggy forest
the world seems okay.
my decisions seem right
and all my hopes are in bloom.
My newly arranged masculine and feminine altars— can you guess which is which?
I went for a walk at the nature trails, did my mile, ate my breakfast near a creek on a rock, and sat under a random gazebo to read.
Wonderful, wonderful morning.
Be prepared for Alaska spam. :}
So today was a day of the senses. As an herbalist-in-training I’ve come to appreciate the ability and power of each. Smell- the most important as an herbalist- is rivaled only with taste. Wine, I learned today, is a medium of drawing out the chemicals within herbs for taste and for property. Rose wine is by far my favorite and lavender is complete shit. Each has a different aroma (some woody, some floral) and evoke a different feeling. The rose is delicate and whimsical sort of thing with a light pink color, while other more hearty wines like Rosemary or Marshmallow root have harsher, woodier tastes and deep red and gold coloring.
{look at me all sophisticated. pahahahaha. {: }
So, I haven’t been able to do too many herbal assignments due to the rain which means I haven’t had the pleasure of playing in the apothecary. I have gotten to weed the Ag Center flower and herb beds and mess around, so it’s been nice.
COOL RHYME FOR WEEDING GARDENS
{ Sedges have edges, Rushes are round, and Grasses have joints when the cops aren’t around.}
Just picked some Poke Berries for painting, gathered some chesnuts and fresh rose petals for my Mabon offering, and cut some butterfly flowers to go into my altar.
{If my Poke Berry art goes well I’ll post how to do it and some pics o’ da paper. Also, I have info about a few herbs I’ve been working with; would anyone be interested in me posting what I have?}
This day has really picked up. :D
I never really noticed how much I love nature, but these past few weeks have really helped me deal with my touch of emotional mania. It’s amazing.
Try it one day. If you’re having a hard day, pull on some shitty clothes, dig your hands in the dirt and work! You may scream at rough soil, give mosquitoes a ‘fuck you’, but you’ll feel better. Or I do at least….Nothin’ better than telling a parasite to fuck off (applies to people and legit parasitic insects).
