ARTIST. GRIOT. ACTIVIST

I have been battling with sleepless nights, my heart hurting for a variety of reasons. Every day seems to bring with it, one more feather to this hat of sorrows. The senseless killings. My psyche failing to understand what can damage a soul so badly that you can be brutal towards another without remorse? And what should be the recompense here? How do we mete a just reward without becoming as disgusting?

I love pillows. For as long as I can recall I have always had a bed full of pillows. I currently have 6 pillows and each pillow has a name. Pillows do a lot more for me than hold my head and support my neck. It is in a weird way symbolical. It’s that soft comforting fortress that adds to my calm and comfort and protects me from the hardness that lingers within.

I am an insomniac. I have always been. Through the years, I have learned so many things about myself and interestingly most of it has been revealed during my sleepless states. Intuition has always been my strong suit, literally.

I woke up this morning, exhausted after sleeping rather poorly, again. I was clutching a pillow and my head buried underneath another. There was a lingering feeling of impending doom that I could not place a finger on, but deep in the core of that was also a flickering flame waiting to be fed. I woke up feeling dread and ecstatic at the same time, it felt like a rumbling in my belly, almost like a shiver. It was a slightly chilling morning and I wanted to ascribe it to that, but I knew better, so I trusted my intuition to reveal it all, by and by.

I was trusting my ability to crisscross senses and experience emotions physically. In some circles, it is called witchcraft, science calls it synaesthesia, I call it being spiritually attuned. I have always been able to read people’s energy, I sometimes see and feel people’s aura and I have even on occasion ‘tasted’ people’s essence. I won’t go into details regarding what this means, however, I mention this because lately I have ‘tasted’ something (someone) intriguing. It left a ‘taste’ in my mouth that I can only describe as electric. For weeks now, this taste comes and goes, and I still have not been able to pinpoint what exactly it is telling me.

Shortly after stumbling out of bed, the first excitement was a sorting out of human biology – the pain and the mystery of it. I sat and stared at the sun while the modern-day shamans sorted through it. I tried to distract my mind with thoughts of food, and pillows and bedfellows.

As I ponder about the hunger in my soul, my body was reminded of hot meals, I reached out to ask a friend for the recipe that was promised me a week ago only to find out she has left this dimension yesterday!

I faced the sun again, with my eyes closed this time. I let the thermal energy wash over me. This quiver in my belly has got to mean something positive, surely? So far nothings seemed or felt so. Killings from across the Atlantic, ill health from the next room, demise from the neighboring state. Surely there must be one good thing I can point to and be positive about (?)

I could only think of pillows and bedfellows. Something about the positivity of human touch that doesn’t happen through destruction…

I know that I love a bed big enough to do the butterfly freely, and still leave enough room to share a pillow with someone.

I know that I love a bed better if it has more pillows than if it was big enough to do the butterfly.

I know that I can sleep well with one good pillow if I have a bed fellow that I feel safe with; now that is a tricky thing to do since feeling safe around people for me has a lot to do with what vibes (energy) I am getting from them, rather than how they behave towards me.

I know that the most decent sleeps I have had were in a bed full of pillows rather than with a decent bed fellow.

I know never to blame my sleeplessness on a pillow-less bed or on a bad bed fellow… None of this was easing the rumbling within me so I walked back in to get the verdict from the shamans and there was none, for now.

We had a moment for grounding, to recycle energy for healing, and for ease from all the hurt and pain…

Right now, it feels like I have had my hands over my eyes, trying not to see what is right before me…and I am about to take my hands away and take a proper look at the aura behind this blue flamed, soul and the aura that surrounds… it’s time to go to sleep now. Hopefully tomorrow will usher in grace to wade through the murk that today is.

Peace begins with me.

©Naan Pocen