A Weapon of Mass Seduction

Captain's Log, 8.22.17

I love how many of my friends are checking in with me to see how I'm feeling after my awful ex got dragged publicly. And I love the care and concern. I really do.

THAT SAID. I find it hilarious anyone thinks I'd be upset. Yall. I DID THE WORK. I've been doing the work ALL YEAR. I'm a thousand miles away from 2015. So truly, thank you, because I love being cared about and checked in on. AND I am super okay. I'm happy that the truth is out without my personally having to open that can o'worms, because I don't need that muddying my waters when I've worked so hard to heal.

The only thing noteworthy that I can add to the story is that in the wake of his separation I offered him a consensual non-monogamous BDSM relationship so he could have his fantasies responsibly, and he STILL chose monogamy and lying. AFTER ALL THAT. I figured hey marriages are messy, and while there was no question he made mistakes (which he fully admitted), I chalked it up to societal default monogamy and sexual repression being the problem. I thought he deserved a chance at having what he wanted in an honest way, and I offered him that. And in return he took everything I offered and then piled so much shame on me for it that I spent a good year of my life thinking I was completely unworthy of love, that I'd always fall on the wrong side of someone's Madonna/whore complex. As those of you following have seen, the effort I've undertaken since the start of 2016 to undo this fuckery has been monumental.

Monogamy is not the problem. One troublesome marriage is not the problem. When you hate yourself so much that you only get off when the women you desire hate you too, then you will continue to hurt people so that you can revel in the guilt over what a piece of shit you are. And when you are a rich white man who has every resource to heal (especially considering you were dating ME and had access to some of the country's best sex & relationship counselors) and instead you consciously choose not to so that you can stay in the comfort of your patterns of hurting both others and yourself, that's no different from abuse. And I'm glad to see it made public.

This eclipse season, AS I'VE TRIED TO TELL YOU, is amazing for anyone who's been doing their self-work and awful for anyone who hasn't. And I have been doing mine with more fervor and commitment than anyone I know. From the vantage point of my own experience I actually feel like this is coming out now so that I can be publicly honest about what I went through without drawing the attention of breaking the story myself, and that this is one of the final pieces of shame falling off me so that I can fully embrace my wholeness. I've been getting the message all week that my healing process is almost complete and I'm ready to come in for landing, and I couldn't be more relieved.

So thank you for checking in. AND I feel completely at peace with the situation.

Arden and the Wolves / Enfocus

I did an interview for my band Arden & The Wolves with Enfocus Magazine but I got to touch a lot on how music relates to heart-centered spirituality.

Read the full interview here. 

Captain's Log, 8.13.17

This morning Pamela Madsen shared a beautiful live feed lecture about contraction in expansion - that is, the fear on the way to embracing your power that you are becoming too big.

I share this fear in a slightly different nuance - rather than bigness vs smallness, I carry the fear of complexity vs simplicity. Which is maybe nearly the same thing but the subtle difference to me is key.

I used to combat this by fitting myself into roles that were easily digested, particularly by the patriarchy - gogo dancer, lingerie model, submissive. I was so afraid of my brilliance that I genuinely wanted to be a prop, a beautiful piece of decor. Even my band I treated as a vanity project, something I did just for myself. My kinks meanwhile existed as a means of escaping my own brain. I started to forget that I was smart. I needed love so badly that I feared challenging anyone.

My last relationship - if you could call it that - ended because my ex couldn't hide himself from me. He left me (twice!) for a woman he could be his false self around rather than do the work of self-acceptance, and I wrote this blog promising myself I'd stop playing small and apologizing for my intuition. All I had to do was set the intention and cast a few spells on myself, and my whole world shifted, seemingly without my effort.

I'm not at all easily digestible. I can barely digest myself. Things happen to me and from me on a regular occurrence that I can't even explain let alone expect others to believe. My relationship to spirit, my relationship to language, my relationship to manifestation and creatorship are all shifting in ways I can't explain. My voice is becoming clearer, both in the auditory and linguistic senses. My perception is becoming stronger. The things I talk about are becoming more and more complex. And all of this is shifting me away from my safe harbor of simplicity.

I know a cool and beautiful girl who takes photos and rescues cats. I don't know her very well but she seems very kind and talented in her field. And sometimes I envy her. Sometimes I think my life would be easier if I just took photos and rescued cats; I think I wouldn't feel as threatening to people's belief systems because everyone likes beautiful photos and cats. When I imagine her I don't see her triggering people's core wounds with her work, I don't see her making people feel uncertain about what they thought they knew about God. She seems like the ideal girl you'd want to date - talented, beautiful, kind, and constantly surrounded by kittens.

I never found a home in simplicity. The easier the job, the more I sucked at it. Turns out the things I'm good at are actually the things that are difficult for most - dissecting feelings and motivations, solving human behavior, pondering the mysteries of the universe, literally practicing magick.

And yeah, I fear being too much.

I know this is coming up for me now because we're in eclipse season (along with the Lionsgate portal and complicated retrogrades in Neptune and Mercury) and it's time to shed all the past stuff that's no longer serving us, and clearly my failed attempts at simplicity and convenience fall into that category. So I suspect I'll be fine, and that these are normal feelings, but I'm going through them anyway.

And if I lose everyone I love and it's just me and God at the edge of the world, then I guess it's me and God at the edge of the world. I no longer have it in me to pretend to be something I'm not.

A Manifesto, for My Sovereignty (And Yours)

Ceremony, 8.11.17:

"I am trying to navigate the duality between:
- my experience + everyone else's experience
- being gentle with myself + learning my difficult lessons so I can become better
- where my needs are gifts + where my needs are burdens
- how much gentleness can I allow myself without becoming complacent"

I have a very deep fear of being inconvenient to people, and so I really need people to handle their own boundaries. And the more I step into my own power, the more aware I am of how I affect other people. And I want above all else for my personal power to be a source of good in the world – a source of inspiration, delight, joy, and love. And I am terrified of the opposite.

So if anything I say or do makes you feel bad? Tune me out. I don't override your sovereignty. I don't know you better than you.

If we have a personal relationship, I invite you to speak up about how I can show up for you in a way that promotes positivity. If we don't have a personal relationship, then guess what, we don't have a personal relationship, and the shit I'm doing really shouldn't affect you. Unless you're into it, in which case, rock on. If not, switch the channel.

I'm done taking responsibility for other people's personal boundaries. I try really hard to be a good person and frankly it's exhausting. We live in shitty times and I'm trying to do my best to make them better and also take care of myself at the same time. I'm navigating very challenging shifts in my Ascension process that take up a lot of my bandwidth. I can't always process the requests I get from people I don't know. It's exhausting just trying to discern how much energy I have to give. It's exhausting trying to constantly balance my own needs with the needs of others and with the needs of the world.

I wish we lived in a time where we were all more supported. It's frustrating to me because I see where we as a society are choosing the wars that we're in and it sucks so hard to be able to see how simple it would be if we all decided, at once, collectively, to stop choosing pain and acting out of fear. I'm trying to do my part by showing my own internal process, and it is not easy, and I feel so much responsibility not to fail you, and more importantly not to fail myself, and most importantly not to fail God.

So I'm going to need everyone to be super clear about their needs, ok? I no longer have the luxury of reading everyone in the room, because my little matrix grid of green falling numbers is currently full of my own stuff. I am learning how to have needs. I am terrified of my needs costing me love, because somewhere along the line I adopted the programming that every need I choose to have is a subtraction from my worthiness, as sure as a mathematical equation.

So do me a favor and own your shit. Tell me no when you me no. I'm a reasonable person with good communication skills. But I need to be met halfway, because playing small to be convenient for everyone is holding me back from my potential.

Thank you.
I'm sorry.
You're welcome.

Peace Talks episode 8 featuring Michael Hrostoski

Peace Talks Episode 8 features top-ranking men's coach Michael Hrostoski on happiness, spirituality, goals, and bettering gender relations.

 

Captain's Log, 8.9.17

So here's a thing that happened:

After my car accident, I was sent by my lawyer for chiropractic treatment. The place they sent me was horrible. In five appointments I received only one adjustment by a human person. The rest was machine treatment. They didn't even have parking. They didn't even SHARE THEIR WIFI PASSWORD. And their office hours were practically part-time, mornings only. I received better care and results in 15min with my shaman than I did in five appointments with these assclowns.

So finally I contacted my lawyer and complained. I asked if there was anywhere else I could be sent. They said yes, and found a place near me with better hours and validated parking. So I went.

The doctor was immediately more personable, empathized with my story of the other place, promised me an adjustment by a human person on each visit. He's a good chiropractor but more to the point, he treats me like a human. I have a few appointments with him and I'm happy with it.

Then one day I go back and I see a second doctor at the same firm. Based on his name I think he's Persian or Armenian (first doc is a white guy). OH MY GOD I have never had a better chiropractic treatment. It's like a spiritual experience. This guy knows exactly where and how to position or touch my body, knows when I am or am not fully relaxed, holy shit it's like he sees my soul. Like, it's ALMOST uncomfortable how intimate it is. I have met a chiropractor who makes me feel shy. I'm pretty sure he can read my thoughts.

I go back for another appointment and see the second doctor again. This time I ask him, "You have a really intuitive touch, do you... work with energy?"

He says "Well sure, I have to be able to sense my patients' energy to know when they're relaxing or where they're holding tension."

I'm like nah homes. "No I mean... did you study a modality other than western medicine?"

And he goes "...yeah I'm pretty into pranic healing."

And I'm like "Yup I thought so. Well, great job. I'm super impressed."

I go back for another treatment today and when I get off the elevator I smell something familiar in the hallway. Before I even recognize it, I know this sensation doesn't belong on the 10th floor of a commercial building in DTLA. I'm like, wtf? It reminds me of times I've spent with my spiritual friends, in ritual or in ceremony, or... what the hell, is that palo santo?

I walk into the office and there's a stick of it burning on the reception desk. I ask whose idea it was. Sure enough, it's the miracle doc.

I'm like, holy shit, I'm home. I walked into a "normal" place and I'm not a total weirdo. There's a little bit of my world in the mundane.

All of this is to say the following:

If your emotional body is a hell no to something (as mine was to the first joint), LISTEN. It means you're not getting what you need/deserve. I was angry about everything in that place, even down to the hours and lack of wifi. And I chose to listen, speak up, and request a change. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. Ok? This is what I'm talking about. Your body knows what it needs. If you're mad even about the parking, there's probably a reason, and it's probably not the parking. (It's also what I mean when I say western medicine isn't the problem, the way it's practiced is - cuz technically this guy is still practicing western medicine, he's just practicing it better.)

So I'm gonna look at this as an important lesson from the universe in trusting my body and asking to have my needs met.

The end.

Captain's Log, 8.5.17

I've noticed myself within the past year feeling called to tell people at times, "Please let me know if I'm ever being an asshole to you. If I'm being an asshole please let me know, or if I'm not showing up for you in a way you want please just make a request."

As you've probably noticed if you've been following me, I've been waist-deep in my own process this year, and I have, at times, felt self-focused in ways that I'm not always entirely comfortable with. I am putting so much energy into analyzing and alchemizing my own experience for the sake of healing and improving that I'm not always as present with friends as I feel I used to be able to be (although I suppose it's possible that in my growth I'm just more conscious of it now when I'm not), and there are times I feel guilty about that. And so when I remember, I remind my friends to clearly voice their needs so that I can do my best to meet them. With some people this has worked really well, and with others it seems less so.

And then I wonder if maybe it's not that I'm being self-focused - maybe it's just that I've stopped focusing on others as a means of bypassing myself. Maybe it's that I've finally stopped anticipating everyone's needs all the time as a means of escaping myself. And maybe some people are reacting better to that than others.

I feel as if I've gone through a lot of close connections in the last couple years. I've had instantaneous where-have-you-been-all-my-life bonds with people that seem to have faded or drifted just as quickly and then been replaced with new ones. On a vibrational level, it makes sense that if I'm consciously growing and changing my core self, then the kind of people I attract will change as well - a sort of conscious reversal of "you become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with" to "you attract spending time with the 5 people you are most becoming."

But I can't help examining the shakiness of this, the feeling of being ungrounded even if for the sake of evolving, and wondering if I'm secretly culpable of losing people out of neglect. Part of me feels that maybe this growth process itself is addictive, constantly pulling me away from connection and into self-care (as well as a shit-ton of study and creatorship that can often leave me burned out), and I wonder how much longer this is going to be a viable way to exist. I'm not planning on stopping before I feel I've reached the finish line but I think I'm ready to start calling in a landing on solid ground.

In the meantime, I have decided not to blame myself for ceasing to be a mindreader. And I'm choosing to look at the situation from this perspective in order to give myself permission to also articulate my own needs to others, and to see that as helpful to them rather than burdensome - to call into question all the times I expected others to be mindreaders because I was afraid to ask for what I wanted.

Spindles

You guys remember how Sleeping Beauty was supposed to prick her finger on a spindle at age 16 so they banned all spindles from the kingdom? Same how Oedipus was predicted to kill his dad and marry his mom so they exiled him only for him to return and do both because he didn't recognize that they were his parents?

Right, well. Learn this much: you can't take the obvious solution out of your destiny.

"Oh, we'll just get rid of all the spindles, problem solved" LOL NOPE. Y'all thought you could outsmart the evil fairy by banning spindles. Like she wouldn't find a way to get one in.

photo by Steve Diet Goedde

I hid my demons in places no one would recognize them: achievements, sex positivity, modeling gigs, athleticism, book deals, smart rhetoric, being "brave." No one was going to call me out on any of that shit. Even though I was doing it because I didn't think I was good enough without it.

No one said "stop doing parkour Arden, it's clearly a means of attempting to transcend your humanity in response to your own self-loathing."

No one said "your being submissive is enabling your inability to set personal boundaries," and if they had I would've cried KINKSHAMING.

No one said "your devastating need for self-improvement is just a way of avoiding emotional intimacy by holding yourself to perfectionism."

No one said "your self-sufficiency is just the byproduct of a culture that taught you that women who have needs are desperate embarrassing burdens no one loves."

I got rid of all the spindles. There was no obvious problem. I stopped self-harming, never got addicted to drugs or alcohol, always paid my rent on time. Published a book, wrote a screenplay, and put out some albums in the process. I thought I could cope with my core wound forever.

Nope. You cannot lawyer your way out of your fate.

True love is always a fairytale. We just forget how much courage, how much transformation, and how many battles fairytales actually involve.