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Coordinates: On the 8th of March I found myself quarantined in a random dusty hotel room in Maadi, Cairo with a mild case of Covid and a severe heartbreak. This is a transcription of the recording I made while on the journey. The following is Part One of the transmission, which will be the chapter for the Bored card, the reverse of Sacred.
It's very grounding just to see things as they are. I will read what I just wrote because it has brought me to this point.
The bright red hibiscus and honey tea spilled onto the bed. I saw the blood it represented immediately. It seemed almost pointless to "clean it up." Aren't we just transferring the dirt from one piece of cloth to another? But then I saw the mold and the mildew that would surely happen if I didn't quickly I hasten to clear off the stuff to get the towel beside my bed. I hadn't touched it yet in these three days of misery. So many tears yet none, none of them moved into the waiting towel. I hadn't even taken a shower with it.
What I kept hearing repeated over and over in my head was “you can wash a towel.” That's why it's not pointless to move the dirt in the water from one piece of cloth to another, you can wash it out.
I saw myself, the healer. Sometimes people are afraid that their energy is gonna stay in me, and that their tears will stick to me. I'm a towel. You're not hurting me. This is what I'm here to do. This is why we have towels. They're not special.
You can wash a towel.
You can throw it away. You can make it into a dirty rag. When it's finally done you say “thank you,” and you let it go.
You can wash a towel… that's why they exist. For a minute though, I didn't see any difference between the sacred cloth and a towel.
I have this very dear piece of silk that I carry with me that's very sacred to me. It's been on my altar. It was made at the beginning of this seven-year journey that I realized I'm just completing.
I took a photo that's printed on this piece of silk in Thailand. It's of a ladyboy at a drag show. I remember sitting alone in Chiang Mai drinking a very sugary, terrible, overpriced cocktail. I was so happy I was crying tears of joy to be there. I was so grateful to find myself setting myself free from the last stable paycheck that I was going to have in a really long time, for seven years or maybe forever. I took that photo and later I made it into art in another very beautiful sacred moment of creation.
I had the faith in myself to say “this is worthy of being printed on silk. This is my art and it's worthy of being printed on silk.” I had it done in London, and they did a beautiful job.
It scares people when I actually show the scarf to them unfurled. When it's all wrapped up around my neck, it's just beautiful colors and patterns.
I love that it has a duality, though. I know it's scary to behold it if I turn it towards you. I know which direction is up — I know which direction you will see the eyes staring back at you where it'll snap into recognition and you'll never not know what that scarf means again. Always going forward you’ll carry the presence of that beautiful expression of the Lady Boy with all the sorrow that it took to live into their truth of who they are to bring that joy.
I understood then that a towel and a sacred cloth are not the same.
There's part of me that thinks I should clean up a mess with that silk. It's just never gonna happen, I don't think. It would have to be a very special mess for me to take that silk cloth and say "I wish to inhabit whatever stains you impart because they will add to the beauty of this sacred cloth."
But, it will never be a towel.
We will continue onward with Part Two next Monday. I’ll show the photo of the opened scarf then so you can see the duality of beauty and piercing intensity.
secrets of the dragon
More about the Becoming Dragon deck in today’s Monday missive… I thought to tell you just a nugget about the Enneagram herself. Initially, it was used in a meditation school to advance people along their path. They noticed that different people needed entirely different kinds of prompts. What advice you’d give to one person would be a terrible course for another.
I suspect so many self-help books don’t actually help because they’re written by an author whose life path bears little resemblance to ours. How often do we choose the guru or expert who tells us what we want to hear? How often do we let external authority justify doing the thing our ego wants to trick us into repeating yet again?
It’s so easy for us to keep falling into the same ditch over and over. It takes wisdom, courage, and discernment to risk falling in the other ditch even once. The Enneagram helps us notice what that ditch is for us.
I used the system last week in a call with my best friend. He would’ve had me snowed it if wasn’t for me knowing which ditch he habitually falls in. Since I did though, I was like “oh hell no, we’re not letting you be fooled by this blindspot again.” These layers of spiritual bypassing are so subtle we can’t fully sort them by ourselves. It takes the others around us to help us to see.
Thanks for being my tribe and helping me to see.
Biggest love and hugs from Oaxaca,
Cris and Team Dragon