Conventionality belongs to yesterday...

This is the life of illusion, Wrapped up in trouble, Laced with confusion, What are we doing here? As I went on my run this morning, I had this song, Grease, written by Barry Gibb and recorded by Frankie Valli in 1977/8 playing albeit an EDM version which is perfect to run and get lost to simultaneously amongst the trees.

Yesterday's new moon in Pisces, where I left conventionality in the dust during a writing with the ancestors ceremony. It wasn't what they wanted to say - it's what they wanted ME to say for ME - for if I heal me, then I heal them simultaneously. And thus, I wrote with a heat I felt that began in my throat traveling up into my ears - and then the scene opened from my childhood.

Almost every winter from my childhood that I can remember, I was sick - sore throats mostly. Both my mother and grandfather were chain smokers - indoors. Our home was an old mill house that had its fireplaces removed (yet that's what the chimneys were designed for) and replaced with a wood stove in the kitchen and a fuel-oil stove in the center of the home. We could not operate either of these at any real efficiency to warm our (non-existent insulted) home for the chimneys would - you guessed it - catch fire. In fact, one night in particular I remember, the warmest I had ever been in that home, the chimney of the fuel-oil stove caught fire. I remember being dazed with sleep with the firemen came in checking the heat of the chimney inside the home -the fuel-oil stove was turned down and off and the home returned to how it was before that night - so cold you could see your breath inside.

On one occasion, my mother had taken my sister and I to our Uncle's home to catch the school bus with our cousins. It was cold and raining - and my Aunt made a fuss over covering my head in some old-lady style way for insulation. My cousins and sister teased me incessantly it seemed over my frailty and my sore throats. "You should have your tonsils removed!" my cousins kept teasing me. I was terrified. I hated doctors, hospitals, and most of all people prodding me like I was something foreign that needed to be understood. I cried - that of course brought it own source of mockery. I think I was in 2nd grade, I was never really the same after that year with my grandmother's death, my grandfather's near death, and the inability of my mother to handle it all. I grew silent in what seemed to be the winter of my very soul.

That year I had received two things that were symbolic and looking back, life lines, if you will. The first was a coat that looked like something out of a Christmas card or straight from Skadi's closet - I think they're both correct. It was long, grey fur with red gold and green accents with gold buttons. I felt like I ruled winter in that coat - and the snowflakes brought me joy like I'd never felt before. If I was to be in the cold, soft stillness of existence I might as well look fucking fabulous whilst doing it. Then there was another item, not terribly practical for a second grader, but I loved it. A superman book bag - it was more like a bowling bag to be honest. It was white with a flying superman on the side. I felt like I could be anything carrying that bag - I loved staring at the Superman on it. There was something incredibly pure and honest about that image and his mythos that I connected with and how funnily enough - he would seclude himself in winter on this planet despite being fueled by our sun.

The image of superman in the writing prompts helped me uncover something I'd long packed away - I had horrific anxiety around the entire school experience. It was my responsibility to get myself on and off the bus and I had a knowing that if I didn't do that then there was no one coming to rescue me. I didn't have parents who could sit in their cars and drop off and pick up their children like they do now. As a little child, you rushed to the parking lot, found your bus number (don't get on the wrong one!) and off you went. As I grew older, that anxiety lessened probably more so as it was the routine at that point - or I had so abated the anxiety of my younger years, I'd grown past it instead of resolving it ( what child in the '80s had that luxury?).

But there was always the image of Superman supporting me it seems - he always spoke the truth and had the strength to rescue anyone including himself. He wasn't delusional about his abilities in a broader sense; however, the mantra "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" was the over-arching illusion, but like Superman, many of us, truth seekers née truth tellers, sacred rebels see things differently now in 2025 - this the winter of our discontent?

The initial story of Superman; however, is quite different than what we know today. In January 1933, Siegel published a short story in his magazine titled "The Reign of the Superman". The titular character is a homeless man named Bill Dunn who is tricked by an evil scientist into consuming an experimental drug. The drug gives Dunn the powers of mind-reading, mind-control, and clairvoyance. He uses these powers maliciously for profit and amusement, but then the drug wears off, leaving him a powerless vagrant again. Much like the film scene I chose as the header of this piece, The Firm, an insidious organization that chews up and spits out innocent people for crime and profit, the story of Bill Dunn is similar. Dunn's life, like so many in the machine that trickles down (funny that) into the very foundations of our lives - our families - our homes distorts everything.

Those of us who are Gen X experienced this first hand - seeing the obliteration of social safety nets under the Reagan administration thinly veiled in some "superman" like strength whilst committing crimes and heinous acts. Reagan was a B rate actor who starred with a chimpanzee for fuck's sake - what on earth was anyone thinking he'd be anything other than a stooge to the more insidious actors at the deepest levels. Not unlike the original Superman, Bill Dunn. Bill, as we saw above, becomes utterly corrupted with his new-found superpowers, just like everyone else who gains such abilities without being put through initiations, tests, and trials. Now, I'm not talking about initiations at strange, secret fraternities and societies, rather those initiations and trials brought to you by life via your ancestors for you to walk through - trials that cause you to grow not shrink. That's what the winter of the soul does - you find the warmth of that gift of a winter coat and the gratitude that fills you like you are your own sun - your own source of warmth and strength.

In The Firm, Mitch (played by Tom Cruise) is willing to sacrifice his life to expose the Firm and assist his brother in prison. Mitch finds allies along the way in his quest - mostly women if one were to pay any attention - and these women pull out all the stops to make it happen. That's what I encourage you to do too, dear reader. You have an inner Superman that is ready, willing, and able to be a voice of truth in an era that will need it now more than ever. The first ally you have in all of this, is yourself - cultivate the best of you - embrace and heal the worst of you.

I leave you with Mary Oliver -

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any
language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?