Journal Entries/on Chronic Illness

november 7 journal: bring me a song

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a young forest in a late afternoon light

I have had an awful migraine today. It’s different enough from the ones I usually get that my normal meds haven’t touched the pain. I have been trying to sleep, but it’s more like trying to will myself into unconsciousness so that I can stop feeling pain for a while.

One of my partners rubbed my head for a while and made sure that my shoulders hadn’t dislocated while I wasn’t focusing on them (good news: not so far). I put a song on repeat that always helps my head pain and gently put in my earbuds even though sometimes they also hurt my ears and I closed my eyes against the dim light and I tried to rest.

The song is Traust by Heilung and the lyrics are in Old Norse (I think, I don’t speak Old Norse so I can’t be sure). According to this translation page, the name in English is Trust.

There is something about the rhythm and the way the singing is itself many instruments. It’s not music with lyrics. It’s music. There is one voice that stands out a little to me after so many hundreds of times that I’ve listened to it; it threads out a careful harmony and leads my ear to a place of more peace. It’s not the main singing voice, but one of the group making up the deep harmony that carries the song to the place it will go.

Eiris sazun idisi, sazun hera duoder;
Suma hapt heptidun, suma heri lezidun
Suma clubodun umbi cuoniouuidi:
Insprinc haptbandun, invar vigandun

Once sat women, they sat here, then there.
Some fastened bonds, some impeded an army,
Some unraveled fetters:
Escape the bonds, flee the enemy!

I think it’s a song about the old magics of protection and binding and releasing, of cursing and blessing. I think it’s a song about remembering the stories that make us who we are. I think it’s a song about the people among us who are willing to confront risk in order to protect those under their care. I think it’s a song about trusting our gods and the wisdom and the magic they gave us.

It’s a song stitched together with charms and words from different important writings.

When I listen to this song, I feel safe. Even in my pain. I am safe.

This video includes some interesting information in the description box, and for people that can see it, the lyrics are put on screen during the song — direct link to youtube video.
It is on Spotify as well — here’s the direct link to it.

There aren’t very many things that help me feel like I’m going to be okay when I am in so much pain.

A cloth that’s been drenched in cold water, wrung out, and folded over my eyes — so the weight and the cold can seep into my head.

Cool fingers on my too-hot skin.

A dark room to lie in.

Water to pour into my mouth even when it hurts to swallow.

My ‘migraine cocktail’ made of OTC meds that I always have on hand.

This song, over and over and over and over again.

These things are my medicine, a kind of magic, a way to make space for healing when it can arrive.

I find it ironic that when light and sound feel like daggers of pain, I can hear this song and notice that it lives in a space in my body that is somehow available for it, even when my own voice is too loud and audible phone notifications make me feel sick to my stomach.

Maybe not all magic is meant to be understood.

I wish you pain-free moments in this pain-filled world. I wish you a deep enough breath. I wish for you a hair’s-breadth of safety. I wish for you a brief knowing that you are loved.

xox,
Nix

featured image is a photo by Sigita Danil on Unsplash

on Deathwork & Griefwork/on Grief/on Praxis/the Cycle of the Seasons

samhain

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a small dark pot of tea on leaf-covered ground

Blessed Samhain to you on this day.

It’s not easy this year to write a poem for today. It feels like pulling at teeth that don’t budge, so today I won’t try to write a poem that does not want to be.

I will clean my ancestor shrine and light the candles and sit and listen.

I will think about the last twelve months and all the moons between last Samhain and this one — full moons, dark moons, Sabbats. Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh, Mabon, and back again to Samhain.

I will ponder what it means that our new year comes as the old year dies, even though the western society I live in doesn’t celebrate a new year until after the fuss and stress of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This is a season to ponder death and what might be left behind as we enter a new year.

We have been pondering death anyway. There are multiple genocides and ethnic cleansings happening in the world right now, children and adults dying this minute and the next, and all the minutes between when it started and when it might end.

How cruel is it that there are so many children dead. How cruel is it that they will not have descendants to light the candles and sweep clean the ashes of incense lit in their memory, no descendants to set their favorite food out or simply sit in their numinous presence.

How do we remember the dead who die so young? How do we remember the dead who die by the thousands? How many of us does it take?

There are many griefs I am carrying from the past thirteen moons.

The years since the start of the COVID pandemic have been so hard. There are people I cannot hug, funerals I cannot attend, loved ones I cannot sit with, walks I cannot take, shared experiences that I have to miss out on. I was already struggling with my immune system, and then found out that one of the meds I had needed (which my doctor stopped immediately) was reducing my white blood cells, and there are still a couple of years left before my body is able to re-make what was lost.

So I sit in the grief of knowing that staying inside is the only way I can fortify myself to continue on for however many years (decades, I hope) that I have. I grieve the time lost with my children because of things I cannot do. I still grieve the loss of my family of origin. I think they have got used to not having me around, now. I am a past memory, perhaps an old wound. I cannot honor our beloved dead together with them.

There is another grief that some of us spiritual practitioners share right now: the world turns and time happens but we wait. And in the waiting, there is grief. Perhaps we are holding our strength close for when we need it next. Perhaps these are still times of growth. Perhaps we are not disconnected from the traditions that we hold so dear.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that there will still be thirteen more moons between now and next Samhain. The wheel of the year will not stop turning, and in that I can take comfort.

I will freely admit that I am trying to find the light in a world that feels awash in darkness. I am looking at shadows and mourning, but what I want to remind myself is that shadows exist when there is light. Without light, there are no shadows. And so shadow itself can be a sort of comfort on a day like this.

I don’t always know who I am becoming, but at least I know that I am here right now in this place with this body and in this family, and there is love that I can access when I need it. I hope the same for you.

xox,
Nix

featured image is a photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

on Deathwork & Griefwork/on Decolonizing/on Grief/on Hope/Poems

maybe when we die

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a person shields a candle's flame with their hand in the dark

cw: this poem contains references to war crimes, death, and injustice

maybe when we die,
our heart’s memories are wiped clean
and we do not dwell inside
the trauma which preceded us in life.

but maybe when we die,
the beings who went before us
gather around to catch our last tears
and hear the lament of our last cries.

maybe when we die,
we will only be free
from hatred
from war
from genocide
from injustice
because our ancestors learned to be free
of this same pain
now that they are also dead.

maybe when we die,
soul-deep griefs are eased
not because we forget,
as if the pain never happened,

but because now is the time
when we can truly mend,
now that we can no longer be murdered,
destroyed,
annihilated,
wiped out,
sick unto death.

maybe when we die,
we will feel the relief
of the feeling of relief.
and our burdens will transform into stardust
and perhaps re-emerge as love.

maybe when we die,
we wait with arms open
to hold arriving souls
who are crying out for justice
and need their voices to be heard,
in a forever-ness not afforded to them
in life.

by Nix Kelley, October 26 2023

I am buffeted by the overwhelming tragedies befalling those being ethnically cleansed, those who need five more dollars to pay the rent next week so they aren’t evicted, those who need the resources to escape the threat of death.

The world is too cruel for me to cope, sometimes. Sometimes it takes all my energy to hold the slightest space between me and all this profound injustice, so that I can remember to eat food and drink water as well as weep and demand that this should change.

Free Palestine.

featured image is a photo by BBC Creative on Unsplash