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Listening

Today, I watched a video about how facebook may be listening to our conversations.

Something similar happened to me a couple of months ago.  I watched a youtube video about WGT, a gothic / industrial metal festival in Germany.  People interviewed each other in German. Even though I didn't understand a word, I was enthralled with it.
The next day, when I turned on Netflix to watch a show with some mumbly-mouthed actors, I clicked on the subtitles option.  To my surprise, German was listed as my first subtitle option instead of the usual first option, English.  It made me wonder if someone had been listening in on my phone, and also what privacy loss I'd agreed to.
It inspired me to write a story about someone else who listened.  This is one of my only writing pieces without anything supernatural happening.  Maybe I'm growing as a writer, or maybe I was just bored. In any case, let me know what you think.

Listening

 Astrea Taylor 

All rights reserved

People are boring. Most conversations revolve around weather or tv shows. Sometimes I catch someone talking to themselves or singing a little song. Those are my favorites, especially when they say something silly.

“Come on babycakes. You got this!”

That was Charice Clairmont, in Austin, Texas.

But that’s not why I’m listening. I’m listening because I can.

The level of inscrutiny at my job was amazing. Of course, I’d gotten it through family connections. My dad and the CEO grew up together, and it’s only natural to take care of one’s own. But being VP of Customer Clarity at Clarity Cellular didn’t have many perks besides this – listening. Listening to the lives of all of those around. 

Everyone signs their rights away when they sign their contracts. They all know it. They all hope no one takes advantage of it. But of course, we did.

When I’d first gotten the job, I was told I didn’t even have to show up to get paid. So, I didn’t. I shopped, took walks in the woods, and ate lunch at Cherries or Tudor’s.

I got lonely, though. Something was missing. I felt stuck. The world can be a vacuous place when you don’t have another rich best friend. And my husband, Chris, still had to work.

I suppose he got tired of me moping around the house and waiting for him to get home. He suggested I show up to work one or two days a week to take my mind off my ‘existential drama.’ I reluctantly agreed.  After all, I was a little curious, and apparently, I had my own office.

On my first day of work (technically), I got up early, slid into a pencil skirt and a pink crème blouse, and drove my BMW to work. I walked around my big, beige office. For six long hours, I ordered office furniture (an ivory sofa and pink puffy pillows) and opened company emails. I looked out the window at the other highrise skyscrapers. I drank coffee made by the department assistant and took an online training. But it didn’t help. I still felt empty.

I went to see a sound engineer I bumped into on the elevator. Josh swiveled in his fancy black leather chair before showing me around the areas I was supposedly in charge of. Everything was so foreign – the people, the reports, the work…

Our last stop was the soundproof research room. On the wall hung a computer screen that was bigger than my television. Josh controlled a mouse on the desk before it and a panel appeared.

“And then he said I offended him.” A woman’s voice came over the speakers.  “Can you believe it?”

“Well, I’m glad you told him the truth,” another woman said. 

I glanced at Josh. “Is this a real phone call?”

He nodded.

“Why do you have access to this? I mean, is it legal?”

 “Of course.” He clicked on a tab and the phone number showed up along with a name and a map. “You just entered the world of Ms. Keisha Drake. Looks like she goes to college at Harvard.”

I leaned forward, my palms on the desk. I watched the sound waves bounce along as their conversation continued. My fingers inched toward the mouse. I clicked the same button he had, the one marked Random. The call switched.

“…from the Nashville Memorial Hospital, please give us a call back…”

According to the information on the screen, the call came from that hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.

Click.

“…got into the cookie jar again. He’s supposed to be on a diet…”

Mary Baxter, in Davis, Ohio.

Josh grinned. “I’ll leave you to it.”

It didn’t take me long to figure out the software. That first day, I listened to so many conversations, it made my head spin. I no longer felt bored or without purpose. I felt filled with energy. It was almost as if I had a new personality.

Chris saw it too, later that night. He walked in from the garage and set down his briefcase. “Someone had a good day at work.”

I nodded and embraced him. He was right. Working did help me. 

I went back to work the next day, and the day after that. I was never on time, but I usually brought lattes for Josh and the other underlings. After a little morning chitchat, I went to the room and listened to more conversations. I laughed at jokes and shook my head at some of the stories. I even listened in on my friends, and on Chris’ calls. It was nervewracking, and my heart beat so fast. I kept thinking they’d hear me breathing, or know I was there somewhere. But they never did. All was silent from my end.

I did catch some juicy gossip.

“Can you believe Heather is pregnant?” Marissa had asked Beth.

But that was it. And at least they didn’t speak ill of me. Not that I heard, anyway.

By the second week, I’d gone into work almost every day. There was something about listening that gave me objectivity, like seeing a therapist who told you you weren’t crazy. It was a relief somehow. It cured me of my emptiness. Perhaps it filled me with something else. Contentment? Relief by comparison? I don’t know. 

In any case, I clicked around the program until I knew all the ins and outs. All except one button, that is –TR5-87. Every time I listened to it, it was different – a highway, footsteps, a muffled converation, dishes clanking. . . I wondered if it was a test program that was glitching.

And then, I heard it. The unmistakable rasp of a woman enthralled in pleasure. Her heavy breathing, gasps, and whimperings came across the line like electricity.

I stiffened. The slap of body slamming against body jolted me. My body responded with an increased heartbeat. To my surprise, my muscles clenched.

A man groaned. “Fuck. Yes, yes!”

A cold shaft of ice pierced my heart. My hand scrabbled for the mouse. It couldn’t be – not him. I clicked around the program, hands shaking, until I saw the number. But even before I saw the name, I knew who it was.

Chris.

A map said he was in the Clairmont Hotel. I covered my mouth with my hand as tears spiked my eyes.

They were done now. He joked about baseball, of all things. He didn’t even like baseball! But that was his number, and that was his name on the far corner of the program.

I swallowed hard and shut off the system. I needed to get out. The walls were too close, the air too tight. I’d been working too much. I ambled out of the research room toward my office.

Josh approached me in the hallway. “You okay?”

I leveled my head forward and didn’t acnowledge him. I couldn’t make human contact. I’d break down right there, in front of other people.

I grabbed my purse and keys, maintaining my façade until I was in the parking garage. But once my car door shut, it was over. Something else took over. Something angry.

I barely knew what I was doing, but I started up the BMW and drove straight for the Clairmont. I sped through yellow lights and cut corners, and even edged through pedestrians once. I had to get to the hotel. I had to see it with my eyes.

Eleven minutes later, I pulled into the valet loop and parked. I ran inside. I started at the bank of elevators, willing it to be untrue. As I waited, my tears fell on the gold and red-patterend carpet.

Thirty minutes later, when the elevator doors opened and Chris walked out with a coworker, something inside me died.

“Liz!” Chris dropped his coworker’s hand and rushed to me. “What…”

“Goodbye.” I turned to walk out of the hotel. He yelled something behind me. He even grabbed my arm.

“I can explain!”

I pulled my arm back. I wasn’t listening to him.

Chris moved out that week while I was at work. I holed up in my office, shades drawn, drinking black coffee and staring at the walls. Even when Josh knocked on my door and tried to cheer me up with a gif on his phone, I barely cracked a smile.

After Chris had cleared out half of the house, I thought about never going back to work. I could mope around all day lamenting the piano, or his book collection. But I knew I had to get out. I couldn’t stand to be in the house. I kept hearing Chris’ voice, kept seeing his face. Kept hearing that rasp of his coworker.

I spent a few days shopping for clothes for the next season. After all, if I was going to be a single divorcee, I needed new clothes.

Eventually, I did go back to work. I spent another day of solitude in my office, ordering new accoutrements.

The next day, I wandered back to the research room. I ran my hand over the desk and gazed at the silent, black screen. Something about the room seeemd off, as if it were bigger or colder than before. I thought about the stupid TR5-87 button. If it hadn’t been for that, I never would’ve found out about Chris. But my life wouldn’t have been any better. I’d be living a lie, and that seemed worse.

Sleeping alone was cold and cruel. I felt unsafe, as if a burgular would break in at any moment. On impulse, I bought a condo and made arrangements for my things to be moved ASAP. It made me feel a little better. But there was still something missing.

I knew I needed to to go back into the research room. Listening was the only thing that made me feel normal.

When everyone else had left for the night, I turned on the screens and clicked the Random button.

“I miss you too. It’s so lonely out here in Seattle. I can’t seem to make any friends. The people here are . . . different.”

“I can’t wait for you to move back.”

Gerie Glass. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

I wiped the tears from my lower lashes. Not that anyone would see them. Just because.

One tear is a slippery slope. If I gave in, I’d have ten, then a hundred, then a thousand, or maybe ten thousand.

I clicked the Random button again. I didn’t dare listen in to Chris’ phone line. I didn’t want to hear his voice. I just listened to stangers, trying to make the best of their worlds, listening for the hope in their voices. 

After a week of listening, something changed within me. I started to feel positive emotions again, that life could be wonderful again. Josh was so nice. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to. His intense brown eyes said it all, from his strange habit of smiling at me to the way he subtly glanced at my decolletage. I didn’t act on it. It was prohibited in the company policy to date. But it was delicious nonetheless.

Maybe it was Josh, or maybe it was time that healed me, but six weeks after I uncovered Chris, I found the courage to push the TR5-87 button again. Listening to conversations was comforting, and this was too. The sound of being jostled in a purse or pocket as someone walked down a crowded street in Manhattan was reassuring. I’d hear snippets of talk, or little courtesies, like the man who said, “excuse me” just about every block, or the woman who sang a little song completely in meows. People could be charming after all. Those were the ones I stayed with, the ones that healed me.

But something still gnawed at my brain. I knew there had to be more people cheating, and I had the power to discover it. I could be a sort of undercover Jane, or a superhero. The masked woman tells the truth again!

I scanned the numbers and listened to the ambient sounds. Whenever I heard the distinctive slurp and slap of sex, something lit up inside me. I opened my laptop and looked them up on Facebook. It was easy to tell if they were married. All I had to do next is use the software to ping their significant other’s phone. The first eighteen times, they were in the same location.

Until, one time, they weren’t.

Two weeks into my adventure, I heard a woman moaning. I glanced at her information.

Elissa Elliot, Hotel Verdant, in Kissimme, Florida.

She was married to Mark Elliot. I opened another tab on the screen and searched for Mark’s location. My eyes widened when I saw he was in a ski resort in Colorado.

I’d finally found a cheater.

I hadn’t actually planned what I’d do in this situation. I glanced around the room.

What should I do? Should I call him? Or call her? What would I say? “Hello, this is the sex police…”

I picked up my phone with sweating hands. I blocked my number, my fingers fluttering over the keys as I typed his number in and then a text.

Your wife is at Hotel Verdant with some guy.

Three seconds later, a response popped up.

Who is this?

I glanced around the room at the soundproof walls.

A friend.

From the speakers, I heard Elissa laugh, and a man chuckled too. Then I heard the slip of clothing as someone got dressed.

When I left the room and slid into my BMW, adrenaline jolted my system. I’d done it.

That night, I slept in my condo like the dead.

Since then, I’ve revealed ten cheaters, reported twenty-five drug deals to the police, sent five emails to people desperately in need of singing coaching, and saved one woman from domestic abuse. I may not be much, but I’m making a difference. One call at a time. All I have to do is listen. 

Beauty, Belle, and me

The concept of *beauty* comes up in the Disney movies Beauty and the Beast, and in my new Dark Fantasy novel Belle Dame Sans Merci. In this blog, I'll explore the value of beauty and several other character traits, and share some personal experiences as well. 

Ironically, both main characters are named 'Belle,' meaning beautiful. Belle from Beauty and the Beast was given that name by her parents. It's almost as if they expected her to be pretty, and not much else. However, it's ironic, because Belle seems to be the smartest girl in her town, perhaps for the simple reason that she reads, and no one else does. In the live-action movie, she even invents a washing machine, which shows her ingenuity (although it should be noted that it's a cheap character trait because it doesn't move the plot forward and as she doesn't invent anything else).

In my novel Belle Dame Sans Merci, Belle named by her case worker before she's brought to Hell. He thought she was too pretty to be intimidating, and wanted to emphasize her more deadly aspects. Belle goes on to use her beauty to her advantage -- to kill bad people to gain karma to go to Heaven. In that way, she shows cunning and intelligence.

However, some characters only saw Belle for her external shell, like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. "She's the most beautiful girl in the village... That makes her the best." Without knowing anything about Belle, he proposes to her.

Similar to Beauty and the Beast, in Belle Dame Sans Merci, a couple of demons are attracted to Belle. A djinni asks Belle if she wants to watch a dirty movie, and Beelzebub asks her to join the new demon recruits when they start a bar fight. (He had ulterior motives, trust me.) They obviously knew nothing about her, and yet, they wanted to hang out with her.

In my opinion, it's terribly shallow to be attracted to someone for their looks alone. I think back to my teen years, when I was an ugly ducking for a while. I saw through the douchebags who suddenly paid attention to me after I became more prettier, and I see through it now. But some people latch onto physical attractiveness with a death grip.

When my best friend's boyfriend (ahem, ex-boyfriend) was drunk, he always said, "You're so pretty!" to her, over and over.
It was annoying, but I didn't stop him. I let them have their connection, even if I didn't understand it. That is, until one night, when he was particularly soused. He kept slurring his admirations. After the fifth time, I couldn't take it anymore.
"You're so pretty," he slurred to my friend.
I set my wine glass down hard on the tabletop. "You know," I said to him. "She's smart, too. And funny. And kind!"
"Wellll, yeah!" He grinned. "But she's sooooo preeeeetty."

I'm not trying to judge relationships, or how someone views attraction within themselves and others. It's just douchy to love someone's outer appearance and not care about their inner beauty as well.

Beauty is an unspoken theme in both books, and one present in many women's lives, too. Women want to be more than just admired for their beauty -- they want to be admired for their character, their bravery, their intelligence, wit, charm, and skill, and more (though it should be noted that they don't need any admiration whatsoever, and may not desire it at all). 

So, both Belles are more than their names. They're also smart and well-read. But what about their other positive character traits?

In Belle Dame Sans Merci, Belle learns new skills to fight her enemy. She researches a weapon to kill him, and discovers something no one else had ever found before. She grows as a character, and shows intense bravery and sacrifice for her friends, proving she is more than just her good looks and intelligence.

Sadly, I don't think Belle from Beauty and the Beast has many of these additional traits. Her sacrifices are continuously made to help the Beast with his sullen-natured problems only, and not to help herself or her cause. She does show kindness, just like the other Belle, only it's to her own detriment, and makes her seem less intelligent. She demonstrates very little growth of character, unless a decline in independence could be seen as growth (and it can't). Contrary to her intelligent nature, none of the books she reads can help her escape (unless you count the mental escape). She does show bravery from time to time, but none of it seems to stick. 

I suppose what I'm saying is that Disney's Beauty and the Beast could have had a stronger female protagonist, especially in this day and age.

It's funny -- shallow beauty-chasers still try to cozy up to me, even at my age. It's disheartening to put up with such people and wonder about ulterior motives, but ultimately, I don't care. I'd rather read a book. One with a strong female protagonist.

Beauty and the Beast, Trump, and Belle Dame Sans Merci

Two weeks ago, I recorded an interview with Vick Mickunas for the Book Nook on WYSO, my local NPR radio station. I was honored and thrilled to talk about my latest book, Belle Dame Sans Merci. We recorded a 30-minute show that will air Sunday, July 30th, 2017.

Vick Mickunas and me after recording the Book Nook

However, after the interview, I realized there was more I wanted to say about Belle Dame Sans Merci. This is the first blog where I'll share my deeper thoughts about the creation and meaning behind my book.

When I was writing Belle in 2016, the U.S. primaries and election were upon us. Trump's corrupt businesses and abuse of power came up several times, and he made malicious remarks about a lot of people. Worse yet, he seemed to be edging forward with the rascist, sexist, homophobic, and general Republican-party line populous.

On October 8th, 2016, exactly one month before the election, a recording surfaced of him talking about women's beauty, or lack thereof. In the recording, he also says "Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything" (NY Times). And yet despite his beastly, patriarchal, assault-condoning speech, on November 8, 2016, he was elected to be the next president. Many Americans, including myself, were filled with dread and fear as he was sworn into office January 20, 2017. What would he do to the populous he seemed to detest?

Around the same time, Disney was planning a live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, to be released March 17, 2017. I'd loved the cartoon movie when I was a child. My sisters and I would crowd around the television and play it back on mute, voicing all the lines from start to finish. Knowing all the lines -- that's love!

But after I survived a traumatic, emotionally abusive relationship in my 20s, I found the movie didn't hold up. When I rewatched it, I saw Belle trapped and crying in pain and fear, and the beast lashing out in rage. Just like Belle, I'd been trapped under the thumb of a controlling, wild-tempered a**hole who'd cut me off from my friends, family, and money. Just like Belle, after crying for hours, I resigned myself to my fate too. He had some good moments. If only I could soften his temper and make him happier.

Before the movie was released, videos of Emma Watson arose, in which she dismissed Belle's suspected Stockholm Syndrome.

Emma Watson: "Belle actively argues and disagrees with him constantly. She has none of the characteristics of someone with Stockholm Syndrome because she keeps her independence, she keeps her independence of mind. And I also think that there is a very intentional switch, where, in my mind Belle, decided to stay. She gives as good as she gets. He bangs on the door, and she bangs back. There's this defiance that -- you think I'm going to come and eat dinner with you and I'm your prisoner? Absolutely not."

The problem with EmmaWatson's logic is that when Belle is imprisoned, she doesn't have her independence. Belle is his prisoner. She's not just hanging out with a sullen, emo friend -- she's locked in his castle surrounded by wolves. The Beast is planning for them to fall in love for his own selfish reasons. Also, it should be said that banging on doors and arguing doesn't make her free. I'm glad the new Belle expressed her frustration instead of cowering like the old version, but when she's talking back, she's still trapped. She's still reacting to a monster.

To make things worse, the servants constantly gaslight her and lower her guard with their kindness. He's not so bad once you get to know him. Just give him a chance! Oh, and wear something pretty. Contrary to what Emma Watson says, Belle does lose her independence of mind. She makes compromise after compromise.  Belle wanted "adventure in the great wide, somewhere." She wanted it "more than [she] could tell." She didn't want to be someone's "little wife."

When she does escape, the Beast protects her from the wolves in the forest. However, this doesn't mean the Beast isn't still an a**hole -- he's just protecting his vested interests against a pack of other monsters. If Beauty and the Beast truly were a feminist tale, Belle would've high-tailed it out of the forest at that moment. She wouldn't have helped her oppressor back to his castle-prison and then volunteered to be his nurse when there are plenty of servants who can clearly make and serve food. In this way, I do believe Belle is brainwashed. Maybe not in the technical Stockholm Syndrome way, but she clearly isn't acting in her own best interests.

And sure, the Beast changes -- he controls his temper better, and gives Belle more rooms to wander through, including a library. Eventually, he releases her so she can take care of her ailing father. Once again, if this were a truly feminist tale, she would've left at that moment and never returned.

Emma Watson may be correct about the technical definition of Stockholm Syndrome, but she did not speak about the emotional abuse Belle endured. Being abused emotionally and trapped in a relationship is a far more subtle abuse compared to physical violence, but it is still a very real incident. People feel trapped, like they can't escape. Or if they do, he will hunt them down and make them pay.

Watch the song at 4:01 and tell me it isn't horrifying. 

The unfortunate thing is that in most abusive relationships, the Beast never changes. I know from experience that narcissists will promise anything to get their relationship back. "I've changed! And I'm so sorry for how I treated you. You deserve to be treated better, and I'm going to start doing that." I can tell you from experience that whenever I fell for that, the Beast's ugly head would rise up again, taking my money, not letting me hang out with friends after work, and creating arguments that left me feeling broken.

When I was writing Belle  Dame Sans Merci in 2016, I was living through all of these emotions. I was actively rebelling against our soon-to-be-president, my beastly ex, and the patriarchal society in general. So in my book, I wanted to make Belle not only stand up for herself, but stay true to her desire for freedom and her goals. In short, I wanted Belle to be stronger. I'm curious why no one else made the connection between Trump and the Beast. Both are powerful figures with money, servants, and a hair-trigger temper. Both lash out. Both "take what they want."

In this day and age, both versions of Beauty and the Beast set a bad example, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. We shouldn't tell girls and women to cozy up to abusers and kidnappers. Women never be self-realized with merely yelling back at their abusers. We need to instill in them a sense of wholeness, where they value themselves and can recognize a bad relationship when they're in it. These girls need a community in which they can receive assistance instead of abandonment. They need goals and the freedom to attain them. They don't need to be judged for their beauty, grabbed by the pussy, kidnapped for months, repressed, gaslighted, and guilted into bad relationships.

I tried to give my Belle all of the strengths I wished I had at my weakest moments, and the strengths the Disney versions lacked as well. I gave her hobbies, a best-friend, a community, and people who see what's going on and offer assistance. It's my hope that by highlighting these issues, we might stop this kind of behavior from happening again.

Who knows what will happen with Trump's presidency. I'm glad we're aware of his beastly behavior, and that we're not all excusing it merely because he's a bratty, cursed prince. I was happy to see there are people monitoring every sexist comment that comes from Trump. I can only hope there are more who are watching and counting his errors than making excuses for him.

So many announcements!

Hello friends! In the last month, I've had so many non-writing adventures. I really needed them to even out all those long hours blinking in front of my laptop and the extra work that comes with buying and selling homes. While my time off has been absolutely amazing, it's coming to a close soon for a couple of great reasons...

I decided to start writing a sequel to Belle Dame Sans Merci! This sequel will open with Belle working with Donovan -- they're not killing errant people, rather, they're trying to get the baddies to go toward the light, whether that's turning themselves in, or making up for their past by doing good things in the world.

Of course, it won't be without conflicts -- Heaven isn't the place Belle dreamed of, though being near her family and Jane will ease the discomfort. She's also still quite bad on the karma scale, which is why she's still working. The witches will be around too, dealing with the mess that is Hell now that Lucifer is gone. By the way, I was so happy to hear so many people say the witches were their favorite part of Belle Dame Sans Merci. I love them too, and it wouldn't be a Belle book without the sisterhood.

I don't have a timeline for when the sequel will be complete. It will likely take me longer than a year to publish due to the amount of research I'd like to perform, but I have a general outline in my mind and the ending, of course. I suppose that's the beauty of self-publishing -- I can work on the novel as long as I need.

Another happy announcement -- very soon, I'm going to speak with the ever-awesome Vic Mickunis at WYSO's Book Nook about Belle. I'm ecstatic! He digs deep into the material and asks the best questions about brilliant theories.

In other news, I'm thrilled to announce that I will start writing for the Patheos Pagan blog! 

Happy squirrel is happy!

I was honored to be asked to write for this website. It's one of the best resources for people who want to get inspiration from others and stay connected to a community of like-minded people. I'm a very spiritual person if you couldn't tell, and draw a lot of energy from my spiritual practices, though my practices are eclectic to say the least. Although even the thought of labels chafe my mind, I know it's time for me to come out of the broom closet again. I've come to the conclusion that I'm a solitary pagan witch who operates on intuition with a variety of methods of connecting to spirit. Some of my beliefs and experiences flow into my fiction, but up until now, they've been only hinted at. This new blog on Patheos will be a new way for me to explore this aspect and will enable me to tell more stories about the world from my eyes.

Art by Daniel Mars

If you'd like to keep in touch, I'll be doing full-platform links from my facebook and twitter accounts. I'll be keeping this 'Blogger blog' for my fiction writing announcements / rants, and my youtube channel will be about writing fiction and my books. As always, my Instagram will remain fluffy, fun stuff. Connect with me at any / all of those sites for more content. I hope to see you around, one way or another. 

return from the other realm

I've been away, it's true. I won't bore you with the details, but the sands have settled somewhat, and I can catch up on writing. To reward myself for all my hard work lately, I gave myself the gift of a pagan midsummer festival. To say it has been life-changing would be an understatement.

I'm no stranger to the Pagan Spirit Gathering, or, more affectionately known as psg. I went every year from 1999-2007 -- even when I had little more than a bag of apples, a jar of peanut butter, and a duffel bag stuffed with colorful clothes. Why had it been so long? Why hadn't I taken the time to go to the most spiritually awakening festival I'd ever been to? I had a list of excuses -- asshole jobs that wouldn't let me take vacations, a severe lack of funds, the presence of more than one troublesome ex there, and a few strange interactions that put me off the scene . . . Those seemed like good excuses at the time, and I moved on.

I filled the gap with developing my brilliant fire performance group, Soul Fire Tribe. I wrote two novels. I courted and married the love of my life, went to graduate school, and worked my ass off. Instead of pagan gatherings, I went to fire-dancing festivals, or took staycations where I meditated and did yoga and walked under the moonlight in a forest with my best friend. I took actual vacations too, to places I'd always wanted to go to or return to. San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Ann Arbor impressed me with their architecture, history, and experiences.

But none of those things felt like psg. Part of my soul felt diminished. I hadn't felt the overbrimming magical sensation of belonging in a tribe in a long time. This festival was more than a thing I did every now and then. It was the high-point celebration of my religion, my spirituality. This feeling, combined with the recent politics, made me know I needed it more than ever this year. I bought my ticket on the first day of open registration. I was #64, so some people beat me to it, but it's a pretty low number.

On opening day, this past Sunday, I drove six hours to the site, my heart racing with each curve in the country roads. The festival was at a new site to me -- the tall trees and lake weren't familiar -- but I picked a spot to pitch the tent and set up camp with the help from a few kind strangers that would later become friends. I walked through the long, meandering road that ran through the campsite, scanning the faces of the wild and beautiful people for my long-lost tribe. Even thought it had been nine years, I recognized my old tribe members almost instantly, and they welcomed me back with loving arms.

Of course, not everyone was there. Some people had moved on, as I had years ago. But it was just as easy to make new friends. The festival was filled with people whose personalities and spirits sparkled so much, I wondered if they were fey, or otherworldly, or perhaps a god or goddess wearing a human form for the week. The workshops were magical, and the rituals were meaningful and enlightening. Everyone was unique in the aspects of their spirituality, but together we felt united.

I made a wish for my time spent there, and it has already come true. I've found my spiritual voice again. Even now, back at my desk in my still-new-feeling house, I can still feel the vibrant energy, can still hear the distant drumming, and can still feel the love and hugs from so many wonderful people.

Next month, I'll be running another special for a free ebook of Belle Dame Sans Merci, and I plan to continue the 30 days of Quotes from Belle Dame Sans Merci. Subscribe to keep in touch.

Until next time.

*

More quotes from Belle Dame Sans Merci

More at Amazon.