Welcome back, my fellow sojourners in the realm of shadows and stories. In this post, I draw you deeper into the recesses of my journey, a spiritual and creative odyssey that led me to embrace the darkness and find my authentic creative style.
There was a time when I clung to the belief that I was protected. All the harm I suffered did not dissuade me from seeing and feeling the beings of light, the angels, coming to protect me when I was most afraid. Their failure to protect me in many cases was simply ignored. Pain and suffering were inconveniences forgotten in a fugue.
No matter how terrified I felt, I imagined a light surrounding me and felt safe. In that imagined safety, my art flourished but was the art of a child. It dripped with imagery of pain and violence that contrasted with the saccharine narratives I wrote for them. My stories were both uncomfortably mature, hinting at the traumas I endured, and juvenile in their portrayal of the world.
This light was a source of religious ecstasy. I would creep among the parishioners of the chapel and bathe in that holy light. Soon, I learned that I alone felt it. The parishioners' attention was upon the altar while my search was beyond. The cruelty and violence in holy books resonated with me, and I found inspiration for my tales. Those holding authority over morality were unsettled by the stories and more so by my defense of my art.
Questing and alienated, I sought greater truths. I will not go into details of that journey here, but the road was long and painful. My survival depended on facing those unpleasant inconveniences that I had the luxury of ignoring before.
It was then that the light waned.
That I realized it did not protect me.
That it might have only been in my imagination.
The light might have ceased to be of comfort, but the darkness was still to be feared. I huddled near any light I could find at night. I sought refuge among companions who had no interest in my well-being. My stories, sketches, and paintings took on more imaginary forms. I did not know then that these were just the repeated patterns of comic books, doomsday stories, and muddled tales from older children who did not understand their world.
I attended an event steeped in the rites and rituals of conventional faith. I needed to be alone, to flee the banal company that smothered my soul. I walked among the fear-drenched paths of the benighted forest. It was here, under the vast, starlit sky, that I experienced the epiphany. My eyes, nearly blind in the darkness, began to see the path. Dark set against darker ground cover. The night, which many viewed as a time of fear and uncertainty, revealed itself to me as a haven. For I realized that I was alone, and the danger of the dark was the same as the protection of the light, only phantasms of my weak, pathetic mind. The darkness, rather than obscuring, clarified my thoughts, and in its silent embrace, I found an unexpected sense of peace. By the time I returned to the company I had sought shelter among, I was unnoticed. Their eyes, dazzled by firelight, could not see me as I stood near them. The songs they sang to keep the darkness away drowned out my footfalls. I found myself a wraith among those who hid from the pain and disorder of the world.
I walked out into the darkness, never to return to that life. But our past clings to us, like the muck of pits we wallow in. I had to be free of who I had been. I had to expel the mewlings of my past. I had to find my true self hidden under the lies.
I had to destroy what I was.
I chose to burn my early works. The writings echoed the conventional teachings and beliefs I once held dear. I had realized and despaired once that I had no original thoughts, that everything in my mind was inspired or copied from something else. I hated them. I hated the world they came from. I hated myself.
This fire was not an act of destruction but a spell of transformation. All that I defined myself by turned to ash. The agony that came when I realized I had no original thoughts burned away. The fear was consumed. The victim died.
Reborn, I followed a vagrant life. I walked down back roads by night and passed through many derelict towns. In the cold rains, I stood, gazing at families sheltered in their hovels, and the sensation I felt I still can not describe. It was very much the same melancholy that I feel when I stalk among the stacks. The sense of worlds unexperienced and lives unlived, of the things I shall never know. I looked in at these people living their ordinary lives in their own extraordinary ways and missed all that I would never experience.
During my teenage years, I drifted through life, seeking sustenance in odd jobs and uninvited nocturnal visits to sleeping households. The adrenaline of moving undetected in the living world eclipsed any conventional teenage thrill. This unique form of ecstasy, found in the proximity to the unaware, overshadowed typical adolescent milestones. Even rites of passage like the physical embrace of passion failed to resonate with me, numbed as I was by the allure of my nocturnal escapades. Reflecting back, I recognize that my experiences diverged sharply from the norm, illustrating a detachment not just from societal norms, but also from the emotional journey typical of adolescence.
My embrace of darkness and the hidden became the cornerstone of my creative identity. It taught me to find beauty in the bleakest of moments, to weave tales from the threads of night and shadow. My writing, henceforth, became an exploration of this complex relationship with the conventional, a dance with the unseen and the unspoken.
These experiences profoundly shaped my worldview and my approach to writing. They taught me that true stories, the ones that resonate and endure, come from a place of authenticity, from the depths of our own unique experiences with the world.
As we journey forward, I encourage you to reflect on your own spiritual and creative paths. What moments of questioning have you experienced? How have they shaped your identity and your art? Join me in this exploration of the shadows within, for it is there that we find the most compelling stories to tell.
In our next meeting, I will delve deeper into the pivotal moments of my life that further solidified my path as a storyteller of the dark and the unseen. Until then, may your journey be as enlightening as it is enigmatic.
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