Interesting metaphors with the statue of St. Dymphna in Asylum Squad...

I have this strong opinion that Asylum Squad is a better read the second time around, not the first - because, knowing what's coming, every symbol reads better, and means more.  One symbol I like to contemplate when I think about what I wrote and what I liked, what I might have changed, certainly one I wouldn't change, was the statue of St. Dymphna, which became an elegant runner because of how I chose to end the series.  Here are my observations:

The statue is mentioned when Liz Madder first arrives at the hospital, discussed briefly as the patron saint of the facility.  It stands in the courtyard, where patients often go on passes to be outdoors.  After meeting her clique, Liz, Henry, Cath and Sarah, the group often congregated at the statue, and once, Liz defaced it with a marker, to declare the name of their quartet, the Asylum Squad.  When Liz returns years later, she observes that the writing is still there, which inspires her to reconnect with the other three, as though their relationships were important in some deeper sense.  It's almost like St. Dymphna herself approves of the idea.

The statue is flashed when she prays to St. Dymphna after a suicide attempt in the library, which suggests an inspired divine presence that might have been invoked, but mostly, the statue is a runner for Liz's holiness, when she becomes inspired to seek her deeper self, that she too might one day be revered.  Wild as the chances of that are for most people, this is a mad comic, and I wanted a twist that was outrageous, but still within the realm of worldly possibility.  I am not sure who liked it, who hated it, but I expect many felt strongly one way or another.  (Again, this comic is a nod to mysticism, NOT religion - it just makes heavy use of religious imagery.)

Tensions in me have relaxed a lot since the summer, I feel less vengeful about certain things, I no longer jump to lighting "angry candles" when outraged at people.  (Really, I am no worse than Sophia from The Golden Girls with her "Sicilian Curse", I'm all talk - I don't buy my gods would allow me to do that sort of thing.) Everything spiritual has been quite positive lately, and I'm much better off psychologically, too.  Whatever I'm doing, it's working, and I'm not even stressed about going into the cold, dark season.

I started penciling my next painting - "Gothic Lolita St. Therese of Lisieux" - I hope it turns out well!

-Saraƒin

Sekhmet...

My relationship with Sekhmet continues to strengthen, as I feel "Mother Lion" traits come forward in me, which began shortly after my 41st birthday.  I chalk it up to all the rituals I have been doing with Her, now I light a large candle to Her when I'm at home, and ask that She continue to build my power.  

In spirit drawings, I often receive a sketch depicting Her at Her throne, and the suggestion that She has become a building presence of rulership in the world, especially since recently - interesting.  I get downloads like this here and there, in between all the personal stuff I get to help me solve my day - some of it looks amazing, some of it is daunting, like that mushroom cloud I began receiving years ago.  I am getting that one once again, and am hoping it really is just a tree I am misinterpreting, like a Tree of Life related thing, or a piece of broccoli, as in: "Sarah, please remember to eat more broccoli in your diet" being the message.  

I think there's always room for attunement, then maybe the messages will get stronger.  Sekhmet now feels as strong an influence in my life as Christ - I also call to Hathor and Bastet in prayers, to see what that welcomes.  I still receive Her as an astral skin, often when working with Her, it feels very rich, like occult power done right, and Her building power soothes the soreness in my soul, feeling my strength build.  At 41, I shouldn't feel this tired all the time, yet I am believing it's not going to last - I will get my second wind!

2023, though up and down, was a year about making better choices, and feeling healthier overall.  Can't say I was let down.

-Saraƒin

My culinary recipe...

After getting more into cooking, I began experimenting with the frying pan, and invented a pretty decent dish that passes as a keto meal, is quite satisfying and tasty, and probably won't make you put on much weight if you eat it often.  Here it is, if you want to try it out:

Ingredients:

-Chicken breast

-Chick peas

-Diced (or canned) tomatoes

-Spinach (or arugula)

-Cashews (or pecans, or another nut that works well with cooking)

-Chicken stock

-Curry powder

-Garlic powder

-Onion powder

-Cream

-Sour cream

-Chives

Once you have prepared and diced your chicken breast, sautee the chick peas and tomatoes in your frying pan with the chicken stock, curry powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and cream.  Add the cashews and the chicken breast and stir until cooked evenly.  (I tend to heat up the pan to medium heat, and turn it down a bit more once I have things cooking.)  Once everything feels evenly cooked, add the spinach and stir until slightly cooked in, but not overcooked.  (I also add a bit of basil and seasonings into the mix.)

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and chives on top (I don't always do this, but it adds to it).  The chicken stock really makes the flavours punch, and I really recommend this ingredient's involvement to make the recipe shine.

This has a lot of protein and other good stuff in it, and no carbs.  Not sure what to call the dish, but I have made it for my mother and stepfather and they liked it.  (Mom is a keto person.)

I have a neurosis with cooking that I think is a PTSD thing - I can't cut into raw meat without feeling like I am self injuring with blades again, so I am forced to buy skewers and cook the chicken that way.  Something about cutting into cooked meat doesn't freak me out, but cutting raw meat gives me the willies.  

I hope to conquer this phobia one day, it's a bit of a challenge for me in the kitchen.

-Saraƒin

UPDATE: I have been informed that this is not exactly keto cuisine, but it's still a pretty decent dish if you're trying to eat a bit lighter.

Experimenting with white sage for anti-anxiety...

I don't tend to use white sage as much as other plants in my practice, but it looks like I found a new use for it: calming anxiety I feel in my gut that seems hard to solve with more conventional medicines, like benzodiazepines.

I have wondered if my gut might be the "brain" that is most troubled at this point, because when anxiety hits, it doesn't feel within the head, it feels about the navel.  Over the past year, tackling this with practice has led to greater stillness in me, and I was able to feel better, and return to work.  I am still a little spacey sometimes, but I feel stronger throughout my body, so I suspect my Solar Plexus must be a little more relaxed.

When using white sage, it seems to only be effective if I pray over it, in my case I call to the 7 Directions, asking for any medicine the sage can provide.  It feels good to pace while I use it as a smudge, this helps to calm me.  There have been mild anxiety attacks I have conquered quickly just by lighting sage and bathing in its smoke.  Although I am certain some would claim they have tried this and it did nothing, I am also sure that those who engage the spirit world enough might find medicine in the simplest of things, this being an example.

Again, I find arguments against white sage usage in non-natives tiresome, considering all the elders I have talked to who have suggested it as a medicine I should turn to.  I work with this plant not for its bouquet, but for what it brings my soul, and I have felt less strain after using it.

At this point, I've found that my best spiritual medicine breakthroughs have come from experimentation with prayer, common magickal plants, and alcohol.  Apart from marijuana and alcohol (which I often check myself with), I shy away from entheogens and substances that could be abused, I have put down psilocybin for now, to avoid psychedelic states.

I have avoided the ayahuasca thing, too - unsure as to what to expect, I'm not comfortable doing it, even if it helps me in some way.

-Saraƒin

On humiliation...

With respect to my pulling content from the web the other day, I want to briefly touch on the subject of humiliation, and how it has affected my life:

Although physical and sexual trauma are two things I have endured here and there, from the abusive dentist as a little girl, to the various assaults, humiliation is what I am mostly accustomed to, when it comes to suffering.  As mentioned many times, I was bullied throughout school because I didn't fit in, there are awful events I won't discuss to protect the vulnerable, but they happened, and of course I have endured the humiliation of spiritual emergency that is not recognized as anything more than regular mental illness, instead of something that is similar, but not literally the same thing.  Something has come of me, where these patterns of humiliation throughout life have been so powerful, that I have read perhaps a bit too far into them, and now I simply don't trust most human hearts anymore.  I am convinced a psychiatrist would want to call me "paranoid" because of this, instead of just on edge and incredibly cautious due to a hard life, this is the kind of gaslighting I am accustomed to with local mental health services, because I was not allowed my truth, and I was basically pushed into feeling that I was wrong to believe in what I felt was going on.  When the meds at the therapeutic dosage still didn't shut it all down, it was jacked up to the highest dosage, and I developed tachycardia, because my lunatic doctor insisted we "try".  Then, I had to go on beta blockers to counteract that side effect, because she refused to lower it while I was in long term care.  It's things like this that make me question everything my society is about, and I truly feel like an irrelevant citizen, when I can't even have a say in my own recovery plan.  It was humiliating, and it caused me temporary medical problems.  I am convinced, whether I am right or wrong to feel it, that conventional psychiatry is nothing more than social control, masquerading as western medicine, and I refuse to believe in its credibility anymore.  My brain chemistry, wherever it is now, does not react the same way to psychoactives and psychopharmaceuticals as it used to, that's arguably a transformative thing, but I can't have that medical conversation with anyone, so if I tell a doctor this, they won't pay attention to it, because they will think I'm a fool, and the ones who care about these ideas have to answer to the ones who disagree with them altogether.  I now see many of them as cunning tricksters, often good actors, and nothing more.  A cop in a lab coat, that's a psychiatrist to me.

It's true that I can't vouch for myself as an evolving soul, which is my cross to bear (among others), but it's just so frustrating there's nothing to turn to for counsel in this case, unless it's niche, and I don't even feel I can do that right now.  I briefly considered Christian mental health services, but I am not sure what they'd make of my eclecticism, and I might even get that I am not doing the Jesus thing the right way.  Toronto is an abyss for the soul, and I honestly have no idea where to turn.  

There is a powerful emotional strain in me at all times, from the life I have been exposed to, an intense feeling in my head, about the brow, and in my gut.  There is a deep, prominent line down my forehead, which I believe developed because of psychological agony from the entity, and I feel rather elder in quality for my age.  I am trying to get my second wind, but without validation, I don't feel I can trust the mental health system anymore.

One of the greatest humiliations I face now is not knowing my ultimate truth, and fearing that I'm mad no matter what, taking the meds, still experiencing my differences at any dosage, being told it's wrong to feel them by professionals.  If only it was okay to be me... that feels robbed from me now, because of what I've been through.

-Saraƒin

PS: In other charming news, I chipped a tooth again, or an old filling fell out or something.  I offered prayers to Sekhmet for help in healing the tooth as a joke, I have a dental appointment coming up, but not soon enough.

I took my YouTube videos down...

A note on why I took my YouTube videos down, now I am starting to contemplate if it was the best idea, but here's why I did it:

I am at a stage where some of the older videos looked rather crude, both in presentation and sometimes in content, and I wanted to clear everything out and maybe go over them and see which are worth holding onto.  Something happened in consciousness and this gift got stronger, and now I am just not sure about some of the older ones, or what I even have here as a talent. I still have the data, I have left most files up on Instagram, but people were harassing me a bit on YouTube, and it unnerved me.  

I have been a bullied person throughout my life, and I have a funny reaction to this kind of thing, so I began to worry about being vulnerable, if someone really doesn't like what I'm doing.  My defences are heightened from trauma and abuse, so I made a spontaneous decision to take my content down, and contemplate what I want to do with it.  Now that I am no longer looking to do psychic readings, I want to do something with my insights talent, but I also feel it's time to contemplate further what it actually is, and be cautious as to how I promote it, and how I promote myself.  

(People really seemed drawn to the latex nun ones for obvious reasons - they were the first to go, when I realized few got the irony, but many did watch for all the wrong reasons.  Others were removed because my place was just a fucking mess, and the lighting was bad.)

Update on the psychic palm readings sign - the colours now have this funky habit of switching from bleeding into each other again, back to the original, crisp colouring - I am not sure if this is such a mighty "miracle" anymore, but at least it's fighting to try and stay restored!  

It would be interesting to see what other customers have said about this product in the online comments, but that sign was pretty screwed for a while.

-Saraƒin

Reflecting on animal archetypes...

Lately, I have been contemplating ideas and labels I have personally taken on to work through my spiritual transformation.  Here's what I feel, as of late, about some of the animals I have encountered in the soul:

The cobra was an animal I got excited about for a while, when I began to feel its form present through my spirit like an astral skin - today, I reflect a bit more on that time, and wonder if it was merely suggestive of the kundalini ("serpent power"), as it does not seem as prominent a symbol at this stage.  I have decided to take this, and other symbols like it that I have encountered with astral skin assumption, as suggestions that I must not obsess over, but perhaps I choose to delight in them as an artist.  The cobra might mean something, but chances are it was just a phenomenon at an interesting stage.

One other that I would like to mention is the lioness, which feels interesting at this point because of Sekhmet, and I had two people with psychic sight suggest on separate occasions that the lioness relates to my life.  This archetype seemed to come out in me in the spring as an empowerment piece, after my 41st birthday, as I got my health back, conquering anemia and getting out of psychological crisis.  I think the lioness mostly is suggestive of Sekhmet's influence, in my case, but it feels important as something to at least contemplate further.

Another animal, but perhaps only suggested as a specific quality of mine, is the bee, which, when I contemplated, suggests the obsessive worker, dedicated to a task, which is a quality I have taken on in my pursuit of optimum spiritual and mental well being.  I never stop with my routine, and am consistent with my dedication, so the bee makes sense, as a comparison.  (I was getting a bee in spirit drawings, and my eye was drawn to bees in art, rather like I was being asked to contemplate them.)

At this point, I have decided to interpret this animal symbolism as a series of personal archetypes coming forward, and I am going to treat them as food for thought in contemplation, to see where they take me as a soul.  One of my concerns, as a mind, is the worry of latching onto ideas that have no meaning, hence why I am so serious about what I put into my mind from day to day, what media I observe, what DSM V diagnosis I agree is necessary for psychological reflection and self awareness, what is relevant, what I could do without.  I get that perhaps less definition is best, I seek to do away with all unnecessary labeling.  (An elder at circle suggested this about whites one time, and I thought it was brilliant.  We caucasians love our titles, labels, definitions, and sometimes we can get a bit carried away with them.)

I am concerned about overanalysis and how it affects our world, especially with the internet age and what could unfold because of it, so I seek to get better at personal analysis when contemplating myself.  Just one wrong idea about the self could derail progress.  I long for a finer, more thorough medical interpretation than I am accustomed to.

-Saraƒin

Exam results...

Very good news!  My endoscopy results were completely normal, so this means the problem was always just the result of acid reflux, and now all I have to do is tackle reducing acidity to avoid the choking.  The experience wasn't as bad as I worried it might be, I didn't even stay out of it for long, coming down from the anaesthesia.  I don't like medical stuff like needles and procedures - it all creeps me right out, but I felt my angels comfort me when I started getting anxious.  I am so glad nothing is terribly serious, I was really worried about this, on and off, for a long time.  It's over... next up, dental cleaning!

I am feeling a bit more grateful for everything working in my life, right now.  I see how God must have been the subtle hand to usher in this level of stability, for things were so painful and strange at one point, I lived in fear of becoming a tragic person.  It now seems inevitable I will get my groove back with art, it's already starting, I'm just not sure of any future comics projects yet.  I make these Big Phoney strips with the Toronto Comic Jam, to feel my love for cartooning again.  What we might do one day is collect all the Big Phoney comics, put out a trade paperback on yellow paper, and call it The Big Phoney Yellow Pages.  (I am sorry again about being slow to produce the Asylum Squad Omnibus - as mentioned before, that's one of my goals for 2024.)

Sometimes, when I worry I have veered too far into Paganism that isn't appropriate for me, I call to Jesus, Mary, and other Christian only sources, as a way of checking myself when I am just not sure if I am going about my spirituality correctly.  It's not that I am terribly worried, but my path became its own thing, perhaps best described as eclecticism at this point.  There was a time frame where I had to be strictly Christian to defeat the difficult spirit, but later, I felt something calling me to play around with my own techniques in magick with Sekhmet, to experiment with prayers to other sources as I contemplate them, and it seemed that Jesus allowed this, in my case.  Some people of faith have talked to me about this and seem fine with it, or at least they don't criticize it too much, but I'm not exactly sure who to consult when I'm questioning my situation.  I can say I feel safer in it, and I do mostly pray like a Christian, but the Pagan side is also very powerful.  It seems the two worlds marry beautifully, if you can get certain principles right, and folk religion suggests this kind of thing is entirely possible.  

I long to travel again to see more folk religion.

-Saraƒin

Endoscopy tomorrow...

Tomorrow, I am finally going in for an endoscopy.  Maybe I'm a bit anxious, my phobia from childhood dental abuse makes me wary of professionals in other areas of medicine, too - also, thanks to the incompetence of local psychiatrists, I'm just not as trusting of doctors doing a good job in general, so I have anxieties about western medicine.  (It's not like I protest needing it, or have gone absolutely woo, I just don't like what I've seen in my life.) I have started taking Pantoprazole again, which thankfully might be all I need to curb the choking, if it really is just acid reflux causing problems.  Also, slowing down when I chew is something I am learning, my Dad and I were both bad when it comes to eating fast.

I think Mary might have helped me out again with refinement - the anger piece in my heart is missing, I am a bit more relaxed about everything now.  One thing I aim for with Mary is to dissociate from my own traumas and sufferings, while still trying to empathize with the suffering of others, so that I don't become completely robotic when letting go of holding onto pain and anger.  I just feel like, if I could let go of feeling frustration with situations that haven't been just in my life (for example, the nonsense that is on my mental health profile, and how that might affect my relationship to western medicine), that alone could bring about better health, it might even curb stress related diseases that could come with age.  It sounds harsh, but it's free, and it seems to be working.  There's always returning again to tackle how I present on my profile, if someone with medical authority, who knows what I'm actually dealing with, were to pay attention and lend a hand.  Someone really needs to teach Toronto mental health professionals that the DSM 5 isn't the end all and be all of psychology, there are other ways of seeing beyond it, but I'm not holding my breath, this isn't a city for cutting edge ideas... if only I knew Dr. Stanislav Grof.  It's almost like, the message with this line of thinking is - if you aren't an atheist, or your experiences with God are too rich, you are probably mentally ill.  (My injustices are not the worst, they're just incredibly boring, and could become a problem later.)

St. Anthony to the rescue, again!  I lost my crucifix at work, at the end of a shift, for I saw its chain on the booth floor, so I knew the crucifix was nearby.  Worried that it was lost when I went on break somewhere, I sensed to go straight over to the exit, and there it was!  St. Anthony often works, it's interesting how quickly items have been recovered after praying to him.

BTW, if you yourself pray, pray for me that my endoscopy goes well, and that my condition is treatable.

-Saraƒin