The Autumn Equinox is upon us, and the world does feel like it’s turning, to me. The leaves are beautiful as they hold on for just a little longer, the fruit is ready for harvest, the fields are being prepared for winter…
But here at home, it’s change of a different sort. New challenges ahead, requests for work and projects, lots of ways to spend the days as they grow shorter and we look inside…
And I’ve been able to do none of it.
For the past few days, I’ve been unable to work, or do much of anything at all, due to a very bad reaction to some prescription medication. The doctors have been very helpful actually, encouraging me to stick with it and see if I can’t ride out the side-effects, while moderating them… with further medication.
Today, I agreed with another (lovely) medical professional that enough was enough. Alternatives must be found. We’re on the case.
But it’s been a true rollercoaster of a week, to coin an overused but apt metaphor. I’ve been unable to focus on much of anything for very long, but when I have, whatever that thing is receives my full attention. I’ve been devouring one book in a day, but then getting bored halfway through another. Unable to stand doing anything which my brain isn’t interested in, so – entirely involuntarily – I’m being told ‘No, you’re not going to be able to do that’. Or badness ensues.
My perspective is entirely off, my worldview skewed. Alice in Wonderland doesn’t quite cover it, but the analogy isn’t bad – I’m here, but the messages from my senses are being slightly misinterpreted by my brain. Even walking the dogs down the familiar streets is a challenge. Communicating with others… good grief. Let’s just say I’m taking my time and doing my best to understand. And avoiding the News, because that doesn’t always make sense at the best of times.
This evening, I’ve found a rather wonderful documentary about Viking storytellers. With my love of tale-telling, it truly grabbed me… and somehow, my mind began to consider how our ancestors would have dealt with the stories my mind has been telling me this week.
I’m often asked if Druidry is a kind of English Shamanism. I’m not getting into that here (although I agree, there are similarities). But one thing we don’t tend to do over in these little islands is induce trance through drugs. Not since the 1970s, at least, unless I’ve been going to the wrong parties.
But that’s essentially what’s been happening to me now. Unintentionally, I grant you, but my perspective on the world has been totally altered through artificial means. I’m not seeing the generally-understood ‘Pagan Otherworld’, but my connection to the real is more vague. I feel the land beneath my feet, but am not quite sure where the next step will take me, or even if gravity is to be relied upon. I’m walking in another world.
So what must I do? How do I interpret reality when the tried and tested traditions of my senses and physics are letting me down through unknown chemicals?
My appetite has almost completely gone… except for what my body tells me it needs. My attention is fractured… again, until my mind latches on to something it wants to know.
Until this wears off, I’m going to let this strangeness take its course and try not to be overwhelmed in too negative a manner. If the tears come, they do; if strange sights or sounds are encountered, then that’s fine. Like a child in a strange new world, I will do my best to pay attention, and see what is to be learned as I ride it out.
Because I’m finding that stripping back to the essentials is what’s getting me through. What do I need? What can I cope with? Who do I want with me? The barest of bones, necessities, priorities. Those I love and trust.
And so I write it out, because my mind is telling me that I should. I listened to the voices of those wonderful Scandinavians, with their storytelling tradition of so many thousand years, and despite my pounding brain, try to tell my tiny tale here. Because this is the most creative I’ve been for many days, and that’s been one of the most terrible things for me – as you may have gathered, I like to be doing.
I apologise if this post is a little odd. But that’s me, right now. The times are changing, and so this somehow seems to fit. I’m looking forward to the week ahead, to the Equinox itself, to see what strangeness it brings, both in the spiritual and the everyday worlds.
And one rather fun thing to bear in mind: these mad chemicals are considered ‘medicine’, even normal procedure for those who administer such things. I’m not reacting ‘as I should’, perhaps. But my body and mind don’t know that – and are simply responding. Positive and negative are in the eye of the beholder.
Moving forward, gently.
The Catbox 