Hey everyone, It’s Aaron here.

As I began reflecting on what to write today, I drew an oracle card for some inspiration after I meditated. Last Christmas, my husband gifted me The Literary Witches Oracle deck by Taisia Kitaiskaia, and it is my favorite! I pulled the “Belonging” card with the author/literary witch Janet Frame pictured on it. She is holding an electric eel in the middle of a dark pond with dark fairies, butterflies, and other woodland-winged creatures floating above her. 

The booklet goes on to describe a bit about her life and writing. The booklet states that the card represents: belonging, being a stranger, and knowing yourself. It continues: “Janet Frame (1924 – 2004) was born to a large, poor family on a New Zealand farm. Her brother had epilepsy, and two of her sisters drowned in adolescence. Misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, Frame spent most of her twenties in psychiatric wards, receiving 200 electroshock treatments and narrowly escaping a lobotomy. After her release, she pursued a solitary life and wrote autobiographical fiction about hospitalization and the displaced self.” 

What traumatic experiences Frame went through! This notion of the “displaced self” fascinated me though. What it must feel like, I thought to myself, to feel displaced within your own body – to be misdiagnosed and have someone else (or groups and institutions of someones) tell you who and what you are.

Then I thought, likely on a much smaller and less traumatic scale, we all, to some extent or another, feel displaced within our own bodies from time to time. 

We often don’t like our smiles or the bags under our eyes when we’re tired, the extra weight we’ve gained over certain periods of time or the weight that has fallen off, hairs growing in places we prefer to be hairless, the list can go on and on about why what we see in the mirror feels foreign or we’re filled with the desire to fix or correct some of it. However, those feelings of discomfort and displacement need to be explored. We need to feel, as the card suggests, a sense of belonging and knowing ourselves. That is certainly a huge theme for me this year – to deeply know and fall in love with myself. It is not an easy thing to do, but it is oh so necessary. 

I have received the message that this year I am to work on the relationship I have with myself (especially as it relates to my own self worth), and the relationship/ideas I have around money and scarcity. I have started writing a bit more often thanks to the amazing book by Rupi Kaur that I can’t recommend highly enough for those of you who like automatic writing or healing journal prompts, etc. It is called “Healing Through Words” and has been so eye-opening for me. 

She has an exercise in the book wherein you, the writer, create a “peach pit poem” – you start by writing a whole idea/concept (peach) and mine was 33 lines. By the end of the editing exercise, you narrow it down to just the (pit) 5 or so lines that really pack a punch. The following is the peach pit poem that I wrote addressing my shadow self that has always needed to be needed.

Talking at a party, no one listening

After not being invited for so many years

I’m a mirrorball and people just want to dance;

To shine. To shimmer. To sparkle. 

I am shifting my perspective on myself, day by day, to realize that I am created from the stars; I’m a light being my darlings and so are YOU! All of us are. We are all so abundant and always need to create from that space.

Until next time, cheers!
-Aaron