Revelations and Self-Responsibility

On mycelium, men and maturity.

Dear ones,

Eight weeks ago, I sent out a second set of submissions for the memoir I finished writing last September. Since then, I’ve received a couple of encouraging rejections but other than that it’s been radio silence. Thankfully, it stings a little less this time around. I always knew that this book could be difficult to break out in a way that would appeal to a mainstream audience so it’s not a surprise that a few agents have mentioned this as a concern.

Still, I haven’t lost faith. Something in me knows that this book will make its way into the world one way or another. Yesterday afternoon Mikaela de la Myco – one of the inspiring women I asked to read the first few chapters – sent over the most beautiful endorsement and I was reminded once again of the reason I write in the first place:

To make sense of this magical and mysterious life and the lessons it continually lays before me.

For a brief moment at the beginning of the year I forgot how precious the process of writing is in itself. The year I spent writing my memoir revealed the inner workings of my psyche: it showed me where I’d been selling myself short, it taught me that revelation and responsibility go hand in hand. The experience was invaluable to me, and that won’t change if I fail to find literary representation. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually led me to an even stronger sense of self-belief.

Right now, I’m almost at the climax of my cycle. Inner summer is the season when I am filled with a sense of appreciation for every facet of this existence. There’s an ease of being, a feeling of lightness in my body. The smoking embers of desire are spreading into wildfire. In truth, it’s taken me a long time to refrain from making reckless decisions when it comes to sex, but I’m finally starting to integrate the insights that I stumbled across last year. Things started to shift back in March when I returned to the narrative for another round of edits only to find that I’d gained a wider perspective of my own patterns of behaviour.

Below you’ll find the final part of one of my favourite chapters ‘Fine Lines’:

For miles and miles beneath the forest floor, the root systems of fungi and plant life inch towards one another to form mycorrhiza. Each organism has its own role in the relationship: separately they find ingenious and innovative ways to survive but when they come together, when the channels of communication are open and beneficial to both lifeforms, they thrive. That is most of the time. On occasion the fungi changes its modus operandi, shifting from mutualistic to parasitic. It starts to devour the same plant it has been sustaining.

I wonder whether the plant knows that its life force is being syphoned away. One moment it is flourishing, the tight bud of its flower begins to unfurl; its tendrils reach towards the light. The next it starts to shrivel and wilt as it succumbs to its untimely demise. Are its defences worn down and weakened over time or does it not even register the threat? Looking back, I can’t help but ask the same questions of myself.

Not one of my romantic relationships has truly nurtured me. I've never been involved with a boy or man who gave as much as he took. Still, I will not claim to be blameless. There is a part of me that is drawn to the kind of love that destroys and consumes. I have been known to devote myself to the kind of men that many would label as lost causes. Sometimes I am so blinded by the beauty of someone’s potential – even after I have seen them at their most grotesque – that I refuse to write them off, no matter what. But lately I’ve found myself fantasizing about a different man: one who is deeply rooted in himself, one who knows and owns his own desires, one who provides for and protects those he loves at all costs. These qualities feel almost mythic in comparison to the men I have known and loved.

Occasionally I think that the one snoring beside me – the man I came together with to create life – might be able to offer me some semblance of stability. But he has always been one to rip the rug out from under me in the most brutal of ways. I believe him when he says he cares for me, but I cannot shake the feeling that when it comes to my body, I am nothing more than a convenience. We don’t make love, we fuck. A woman can always feel the difference, whether she wants to or not.

I think back to my last ceremony, remembering that feeling of certainty that I was ready to move past our entanglement and wondering how I might bridge the gap between then and now. Try as I might, I cannot force myself to see this man in only one light. When I think I have him defined he surprises me, time after time I find that the words I have used to describe him no longer seem to fit. When I try to force him into the role of villain to make our story easier to tell he morphs from a monster into a man doing the best he can with the tools he’s been handed. And still, despite this understanding and empathy, I’m not sure if I will ever be able to love him without betraying myself.

Part of the magic of mushrooms is that they take us right down into the root of why we are the way we are; they reveal the pieces of ourselves we have yet to heal. I find it fitting that the word radical first sprang from the Latin for root, that it was used as an adjective to describe literal roots long before its meaning eventually evolved. It seems to me that they are still synonymous. What could be more radical than working from the root up to restore oneself to wholeness, piece by piece, and celebrating the triumphs and tribulations of being along the way? Still, inside the human brain, the line between a revolution and a riot can be one of the finest of all. Every bit of psychedelic wisdom I have ever received is part of a larger riddle that can only ever be deciphered fully over time. This fact offers me very little comfort as my mind grows loud with frustration and the fear that the only thing I am becoming is insufferable.

Reflecting on my trip back in January, I think again of insanity and how Einstein once described it as: “…doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. If he's right, it’s no wonder I’m driving myself crazy. Then I open my journal and my eyes are drawn to the final line I scrawled down last time: embrace the madness. These words are exactly the ones I needed to read. After days of berating myself, I finally find the self-compassion I’ve been searching for. Perhaps the answer lies in seeing life itself as a practice, in remembering to be a little kinder to ourselves every day.

I feel my entire body exhale as June’s supermoon arrives. That evening, after a late walk and bedtime with the kids, I unroll my yoga mat determined to strengthen both mind and body. As I begin to stretch, I watch an impossibly round fiery orange moon rise a little higher with every passing moment. Soon enough she is watching over me, paler now, casting a pool of liquid light which floods onto the living room floor whilst I sit and write a list of all that I am ready to release. I fold the paper and set it alight, watching as the smoke carries my worries out of the window and away onto the wind. Tonight, I am feeling it all: grief and gratitude, sorrow and serenity. But above all else there is love, alive inside of this beating heart of mine. A divine intelligence, illuminating the dark and forgotten parts that still lie within, showing me that although there are still pieces of self I must retrieve, I am already a work of art. It’s just that right now I am more mosaic than mural.

Most of these words were written in the aftermath of a particularly tumultuous time, but looking back now what I remember most is how vibrantly alive I felt. Yes, there was pain. But beyond that there was so much more to be explored. I’m incredibly grateful that since then I’ve matured in ways that have made it possible for me to do so. This chapter is a testament to the power of uncovering uncomfortable truths, but more than that it is about the potential that these truths hold to transform our sense of self. I hope you’ll find something of value in them too.

With Love,

Laura x