Shadows & Light: A NeoBohemian Story

We don't have a say in Divine Time, and we only grow in shadows & light.

This piece was originally published April 19, 2021 on private Patreon, and is now re-published here as a historical marker.

Image: Self Portrait, 2021

I decided this week instead of doing a flashback, that I'd bring you some of my recent self-photography work, because I just love them so much (aka I'm proud of my skills). I am taking the photographs of myself that I've wanted taken of me by others for quite some time, AND I actually feel beautiful and sexy and whole just how I am...and I worked my gotdang ass off to make it this far. We only grow in both Shadows & Light. 

Sighhhhhh.........

Last week was a fuckin' weeeeek. More like a month, or a lifetime actually, smashed into one week's journey to the Underworld and back again, thanks to our dear friend, authoritarianism. (Eyeroll.) BUT, the good news is.... I came back with even more knowledge... like I do. More lessons. More strength. More resiliency. More solutions to figure out of course, but whew... I chose all of me, and put my own health and boundaries first.

Good Goddess this is a long fuckin' journey to stability, lol.

Look, I was actually 'prepared' for 2020. I knew some shit was coming, because I read ALL the signs. I didn't know it was gonna be to the extent that it was, and still is here in 2021. No one could have predicted all of that...not even if Nostradamus came back from the dead and linked up with Elon Musk and the lizard pizzagate cult and had a kiki with 45 and Biden (I kid). But seriously...I knew shit was coming, and I prepared myself.

I can look back to hundreds of threads I unraveled since shit truly hit the fan in my personal life in 2012. And I can look back to the threads of thousands of years of programming embedded in my DNA, and NOW, I can look at all these threads bare, and although it's an extremely tender place... I can at least see it all.

And hold it. And hold me. All of me. All of it. All of the World. Without drowning. Ok, almost without drowning... PTSD doesn't give a shit what your mind thinks, even with all the meditation training I'm undergoing. Sometimes body goes staaaaaahhhhhpppp!

Boy am I glad Spirit kicked my ass right on time. Divine Time. We don't have a say in Divine Time.

Good thing I've learned over the last few weeks that in addition to being a Media Witch, I'm also a Time Witch. The last year in pandemic life has brought me refinement and knowledge of this spiritual gift (in addition to my clairaudience).

Now, I realize I can also see timelines. Of myself, of others, of events. And it's attached to fight, flight, freeze, fawn trauma response. Lol FUN!

I have maternal lineage to Watchmakers. The early 20th century Czech / Irish immigrant side settled in Elgin, IL (which is northern Chicago) & Danville, IL (which is south of Chicago a ways, along the Indiana border). Elgin, being the home of Elgin Watches, and the settling place of my Czech lineage (maternal Grandfather) that passed through Ellis Island, escaping Prague and Eastern Europe in the 1890s, making their exit from Eastern Europe before fascism took hold with WWI.

In Prague, is the "Orloj" or the Prague Astronomical Clock. Built in 1410, it's the oldest (still) running astronomical clock in the world and it's got a fucking fascinating history tied to astrology, Catholicism, ritual eye-blinding of it's maker (so as never to be able to repeat it), and a period of inactivity due to the Nazi's firing upon it's building on May 8, 1945 during the Prague Uprising.

Doing a bit more doubling back on my genealogy research, I also realized my Irish lineage, hailing from County Clare and Newcastle West Ireland (maternal Grandmother)...settled in fucking Missouri y'all. Fulton to be exact. LOL, like WTF.

So when I *thought* burlesque was bringing me to St. Louis...turns out it's just been my ancestors all along, urging me to leave the toxicity of the place I literally just landed & built a life by default with my Eye closed (Richmond, VA). 

Richmond nearly destroyed me. It did in many ways. 

And I'm grateful for the lessons within it. Without the utter and complete ego death my Soul went through, I might not have had the impetuous to get the fuck off my ass and fucking change.

I had a timeline here that was pulling me... 9 years ago...

Never had I visited a place that gave me the vibe that St. Louis did. The vibe that... I belonged here. Somehow.

2020 sure didn't have me feeling like I belonged here, to the point I would have been ready set to move anywhere if the resources and right opportunity provided. But somehow... I'm still here.

And I'm still ticking...

And I don't know what all it's going to unfold to next, but I've been presented with a timeline that feels more like me than what I ever felt before living by default under the many generations of programming established from my English / French (supposedly) colonizer born-names-and-blood.

But I can say with every single bit of Fire that burns through the Matrix facade of a life that was not mine...born of the catalyzation of dominance and control blood meeting that of pure revolution and upheaval.... 

Well... let's just say I'm really glad I have the meditative, self care, and FRIENDSHIP (love y'all) resources I have because this Fire's just gettin' started.

I see only one timeline for me now. The present one. And I get to weave a new Web forward that supports the unraveling of timelines of many others that don't serve any of us anymore.

I don't know how all I'm going to achieve it, but I show up to do the work. 

Every day.

I'd love some comments on this one y'all...if you've got the energy to spare. Last week was a doozy... and I'm still ticking.... ;

-Deanna Sophia-