Lava, baby

Kendrick Lamar’s new album has been on repeat for me since it came out. A favorite lyric of mine is, “I pray for those who pra(e)yed against me, every reason why my ancestors sent me, I deserve it all.” I deserve it all. A concept so foreign to me. We are trying to shift that.

Lately, I have been in the mindset of burning all my things and starting fresh. This act of rebellion, whether physical or mental, is so appealing, but I am such a sentimental gal. I love keepsakes and memories and baggage. These things make me feel safe (it is a false sense of safety), and my hyper-fixation of this said baggage keeps me in the constant need to therapize myself to feel worthy of my own attention. (This is a loaded self call-out lol) Do you relate?

My question for myself has been, how can I hold space and move on? How does one implement balance in a world of compromise?

Compromise seems like Hell’s waiting room. I strive to live a balanced life. I don’t want to be numb to my emotions. I find power in my sensitive soul. Additionally, I would love life to settle and not be on the brink of eruption at any point. How can I be the cooling magma instead of the fiery lava? Still a flowing entity, still doing its job and being authentic, still grooving. Gosh darn, I just wanna groove.

Burn ritual has been one since the dawn of time as fire symbolizes destruction, illumination, desire, passion, primal, purification, and transformation, to name a few. Many people associate fire with evil. If that’s you, lemme ask you this. What is evil? Is it a person, a fable, myth, is it you, your ex? Is evil an entity that exists itself? or is it a projection of fear? Many ways in which modern societies raise us is with the language of fearing evil, whatever that may be, and diagnosing life as innately evil. Seeing life as evil maybe doesn’t look like calling it that outright, but lying in the language we use when describing others and ourselves, the defeat we have in our hustle-grind structures and stressed-out lives, a complete turn away from a holistic way of life. Where retreating to our roots is preyed upon by the modern healthcare system (cough* cough* recent news). Where we are numbing ourselves daily with constant injustice, so much so that nothing is really surprising anymore. Here is a quote from The Great Cosmic Mother: “If life is inherently evil, the church fathers needed someone to blame; and who is better to blame than woman, who creates life from her own body? Living women, also, can be publicly punished, as the iconic and illusory devil can never be.”

It is easier to have a compromise, someone to blame in this context, rather than accepting two things as true. Humans are born flawed and have the repertoire to learn and do better.

The Witch Hunt continues

I focus on female-led issues because that is what fuels me the most, but the modern witch hunt affects all. This is what I call hysteria fever. Hysteria was a “diagnosis’ for women who were seen as too emotional. HYSTERIA WAS IN THE DSM UNTIL 1980. Otra Vez. HYSTERIA WAS IN THE DSM UNTIL 1980!!!!!

This is why it is so important to question yourself and your context and understand all that came before you. We are in a volcano of strangeness, and nothing is going to change unless we work together.

Fear makes us easier to control, and someone in control can sometimes seem like safety but they only have one interest at heart. Themselves. Let us learn from them and put the collective self at best interest.

To burn

Burning something is literally manipulating energy. It is taking an element and letting her do her thing. Letting her groove. You burn a candle to feel relaxed or set a vibe; you burn sage, incense, or palo santo for cleansing a space, burn wood for warmth, coal for energy, and water for sanitation or cooking. Fire keeps things alive. Fire is life! Not death, but a rebirth of changing one’s energy into something else, into some other purpose. Fire is redirection and trust.

I don’t want anyone burning down a building and saying that their Substack Therapist told them to. Rather, how can you learn from the properties of fire, or implement fire into your routine or ritual, where you can feel closer to Self and something greater?

You can write something intentional from the heart and burn it to release it.

You can make tea over a kettle and burning flame.

You can burn a holy wood or herb for a mental reset.

AND

You can decide to fiercely defend who you are.

You can let passion take the driver’s seat instead of random radio static chatter.

You can take time with yourself in a meditative state to decipher what it is you truly want right now, make space only for that one thing, and clear out the pathway from others. Burning bridges doesn’t always mean spiteful.

Be fearless like fire, be a fighter, a defender like fire, be bold like fire, be a pioneer like fire, be wise like fire, be ancient like fire.

I’d love to know more about your definitions of compromise and balance. It does not have to be the same as mine. LMK!

Abundant blessings ∞

-madison renee katherine