Salves for the mind
Experimental remedies for the anxious and weary; a lyric essay
Have you ever strayed so far from yourself that it made you physically ill? As though your soul, spirit, astral body, or whatever it is you call that subtle substance that composes your humanity, had fallen out of sync with your flesh?
The mind lags. An invisible weight hangs from your limbs like cold, wet clothes. A strange haze colors your tunneling vision. Feverish skin, restless sleep, aches where there should be bruises, voices in free fall.
Asking for a friend, of course. Perhaps you know of an herbal tea.
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If, according to laws of physics, a fast-moving object cannot come to a complete, sudden stop in zero time, then neither can I. Rest begins in those hours before bed, I remind myself.
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Rhythm is the magic of unburdening. The weight of one’s world half-carried by the clever, beautiful architecture of breakfast, annual holidays, scooping cat litter, afternoon jogs, practiced small talk. Dawn is as promised as night.
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When rhythm fails, and it is always bound to crumble eventually, dissolution is the solution. Write outside for a change. Rearrange the furniture, break into a sob, solve a trigonometry problem, sleep in an extra hour, splurge on gelato, sing really loudly on your commute to work. The pressure must go somewhere. The earth splits open; I pry my ribcage ajar like a seed.
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What pours out is disorder, which is to say, multiplicity. You have too much fire, she declares. Skin is hot, even at rest. Your tongue is red. How is your sleep?
We resist this slouch towards entropy, mustn’t we? Try to, at least. I dizzily search for equations of my own equilibrium — a beckoning for the soul’s homecoming — and reach out for various bottles in the bathroom and kitchen pantry before wading inwards into that wine-dark sea.
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The difference between medicine and poison is dosage, whether it’s belladonna, acetaminophen, apologies, a bottle of Bordeaux, companionship, or cheap whiskey. I hallucinate myself into the edge of a table, into the still spinning night; into some blueish healing.
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In the belly of my beast, I pearl. From ooze to crystal I pearl. Here, a piece of sand to remember me by.
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Sunlight and insect crack open the glass dome of interiority. From the water I am levitated and anchored by the gravity of wanting. Dust, entropy, sunbeam. Murmurs of impermanence soothe me into sleep waking.
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O trees of life, when will your winter come?
We're never single-minded, unperplexed,
like migratory birds. Outstript and late,
we suddenly thrust into the wind, and fall
into unfeeling ponds. We comprehend
flowering and fading simultaneously.
And somewhere lions still roam, all unaware,
in being magnificent, of any weakness.1
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One evening, at the slippery edges of a spiral I am desperately fighting not to fall into, Horus crawls onto my lap and looks up at me with sleepy green eyes; a lifeline.
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And I feel I have something very serious and urgent to say to you, my non-existent reader, and I feel I should say it as urgently as if I were standing in the room with you. That life — whatever else it is — is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open.2
