This post is for all my fellow ladies who have ever feared their own voice, desires, and ambition. If you have ever kept silent, or endured for fear of scorching the Earth with the power of your hunger—this post is for you. 

When I came to the woods, tucked in and wrapped myself in the work it was an instinctual, desperate, almost animalistic move. Very few people understood it at the time, but it felt primal to me. It was sequester and build—or be devoured by the machinery of conformity.

My books, my writing style, my personality, my very dreams were contrary to the way the industry, the corporate world, and mainstream programming work. It was bend to the expectations of fitting into the matrix, quiet my voice, and be less--or leave.

So I left.

But I wasn’t idle for three years, I was creating. I closed down all unnecessary energy expenditures, let go of all corporate support, ditched relationships that were feeding toxins and contributing to the lag. I grew more fierce, protective, and feral as time went by.

And I wrote. I wrote like my fingers were burning, because my spirit was on fire.   

The Pillars of Dawn, The Life Erotic, and The Creative Revolution, all grew exponentially in purpose while I was in hermitage. The meanings behind them, the purpose of why I was creating them, the lightning to be drawn down and channeled into the fuel of words all began to take shape and develop into a heartbeat with an even stronger sense of mission. Message was birthing into story, and it was a painful, sweaty, exhaustive process.
It’s funny when I go back through twenty-five years of work and re-discover old stories and books, manuscripts, film scripts and so on that were learning modules for my development as a storyteller. I unboxed three books I wrote ages ago. Two of the books were the beginning of a fantasy series I wrote when I was 16-21. Then, there was one other book I wrote at about age 23-26ish, The Alchemy of Blood.

I had completely forgotten about it. When I opened the box it was still labeled by the work-in-progress name and it took me a moment to remember what it was about. In the first days when I really began to own that I would be a writer, and that my life would take the course dictated by the pathway upon which that dream would be mapped—I was struggling with what voice meant. My mentor at the time, Jessica Morrell, was teaching me about voice—but I still didn’t know what it meant to me on a personal level. There’s writing voice, personal voice, and then there’s me, right?

Or was that right? I wasn’t sure at the time. I was also in a marriage at that point that made me feel trapped, cornered. There was no way out. My voice as a woman was insignificant, my needs and dreams secondary or treated as nonsensical (humored, at best). I was pretty sure that marriage would be my death. I was angry, tired, lonely, and aching to be allowed to be strong, but terrified that I would destroy everything and everyone if I reached for my power. The power of voice.

So, I wrote a book: The Alchemy of Blood, as a practice run to try and connect with my voice. My author voice, and my personal feminine voice. I needed a safe place to explore the consequences of self hood as designed by me, rather than imposed by my world. It was a fictional obstacle course to work through my fear, my dis-empowerment, and my terror of owning my own rage and channeling it into discipline and purpose. I had a secret fear that if I spoke my true words—I’d accidentally burn the world down. That’s how afraid of my own voice I really was. So, I borrowed my namesake and leaned into her mythology as a support to produce a book exploring the individual sovereignty and powerful journey of being a woman in a world built for men. A world built from the blood of women…for men.

The most interesting part of The Alchemy of Blood was that I forgot about it. Then some twenty years later, I no longer fear my own voice. I no longer fear accidentally causing harm. I no longer fear the conflicts that arise when my true nature rubs up against the system. Writing it took the clamps off my brakes.

The book did exactly what it was meant to do. It gave me a place to practice, explore, rethink, reconfigure. It lanced my rage, gave direction to my meanings, and offered an outlet for creativity and craft. It’s probably safe to say that manuscript was the basis for the tone and purpose I carried onto my storyteller path. It might also be the manuscript that kept me alive when my whole world tipped ass over teakettle shortly after I started writing it. There was even a brief moment when I wondered if my world had imploded because I’d started writing it. But when I realized those comforts, patterns, and relationships were contributing to keeping me stuck and in fear. I let go of them, and embraced the voice even tighter and held on for the ride.

I also discovered during the last two decades of writing, that I was not the only woman who feared her own voice. Who lived in terror of what they might feel or say. Who lost sleep trying to keep silent. Or slept alone for having spoken and scorched the Earth with her desires. It was during those years, discovering all these other women with the same fear that I had resolved to own mine, control it, then express it for others who may need path to safety.

As far as names go, my parents could have done much worse. My dad still calls me the wise-ass goddess, but that’s another story, I suppose.

All this is to explain, as I’m going through all the archives and sifting material for the coming rebrand and launch—it seems fitting to post the prologue to The Alchemy of Blood since it pretty much underscores the nature of my work in female empowerment and literature for the last twenty years. The trick to finding a voice and brand that will present well, and be able to be inspire and empower without repulsing or causing fear, well, I’ll need some help and direction with that. But, you know, all in due time and with the right collaboration.

​In the meantime: Prologue: The Alchemy of Blood

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RE-POST from TBQ July 2017 > Re-posting this because it seems relevant as I prepare to step back into the fray of the human world...I'm fighting the suction to tuck back in. this discomfort and fear will pass. It's not real--but I do want to keep this old post handy as a reminder. 
 
 
There are things I forgot while living in the city; things I’m only just now remembering after a year and a half in the woods.

The sound the stars make when the moon is dark.

The music of running water along the rocks.

The burnished gold light of noon through the canopy, and the subtle stretch of foxglove toward the sky.

Cotton puffs from seeding fireweed.

The slow lumbering wisdom of the herd passing through territory.

Blossoms on a newly fruiting tree, delighted to check out the wonder of this world.

Moon song.

Stillness when a predator has entered the clearing.

I forgot these things, though I knew them in my childhood in Alaska. It seemed back then that it would be impossible to forget the sound of wolf song, or lichen creep. It seemed impossible I’d be out of synch with the tides, the snoring mountains, or glacial tones. But somehow, I lost touch.

Somewhere in the crush of bodies on the sidewalk, angry car horns, the stink of asphalt and harried, stressed out people on their phones to either side of me at a crowded market…somewhere in that window of decade I forgot to notice the sound of a predator entering the clearing.

I forgot to look up at the full moon and sing back.

I forgot to smell new blossoms.

I forgot to acknowledge wisdom as it lumbered by.

I forgot to wish upon puffs of fireweed cotton.

Somewhere in that decade I learned only the breathless rush of survival. The elbowing jostle to get by, stay above the water. The ceaseless spinning to go nowhere.

Somewhere in that decade I forgot the sound of my own voice, the syllables of my own name. Over time it all became a constant, droning tone-deaf buzz.

But tonight, the stars are singing. Ancient lights from across time space glow in my wooded Skybowl. The river dances, and the scent of damp earthen forest soaks my skin. There is no city glow, no electric noise.

Only the soft crooning of the Elder Glade’s lullabies and promises of sweet dreams.

​It’s good to be home.