take time today to discuss utility.

dear self, dear heart, dear words,

"the snow is stirring up images of purple mountains and dark soil under grey blue skies," I overshare in the comments section of social media.

I believe that I have grown more in the past few months than I ever have before added together. My body is still soft, still bones and blood; but I feel a vastness within that wasn't there before. or, maybe, a vastness which has always been there, only before it was locked behind a door with smoke seeping out from the edges of the frame. I have lived a large portion of my life in fear of loss, in fear of the negative possibilities which populate a world such as ours, threats not specific to me but always looming. Perhaps it was this fear of the unknown which prevented me from opening myself like this metaphysical door.

I have said it before but I will say it again now (and every second on): myth is decreation, myth is splitting ribs, cracking bone, slicing sinew. And what is myth other than lifeblood? And what part of my life has not been steeped in a degree of mysticism? Of spirituality? Of question?

The power of interdisciplinary learning is slowly revealing itself to me, and I tuck it greedily away into this vastness I am uncovering. I occasionally stumble backwards, away from it, for it feels so cold and empty still — but, and this is integral to my transformation — there is light there. Speckles like gold glitter, like dust motes in sun beams, like freckles on fingers.

I find myself missing the mountains more frequently, with this sort of gut-wrenching intensity. It's like my body is drifting without an anchor, as if I am no longer able to see myself in proportion to this world because I have nothing solid to attach it to. At night, I struggle to fall asleep. There is an uneasiness that spirals in the air here. The snow, the ice, the rain, all steeped in something so temporal.

I am building mountains in the vastness, and one day I will show them to the world. One day, we can all look at purple mountains and dark soil under grey blue skies. Please forgive me as I falter along the way. Please encourage me when I feel I cannot continue. Please hold this image in your heart when you think of me.

A body on one side is a mountain on the other. Vast. Full. I am finally open, and sunlight is pouring in. I am finally open, and life is pouring in.