Red Thread Letter #804 from Shiloh Sophia : Badass in A Ball Gown + This One Thing Could Change Every Thing
Dear One,
I started this series, Muse at the Back Door, in January. It wakes me up at night with phrases demanding to be written down. It can take me several days to edit and get it ready enough to send you. A labour of love for sure. I did an audio this time. I hope you enjoy it.
The idea in the series that seems to be emerging is how we can have ecstatic experiences with creativity and then bring it into our lives and families. So often we seek both spirit and the wild side outside of our homes. This series invites you to visit the wild in your imagination and then bring it back into the mundane. Going within to find the wild.
I am also writing to share with you about our MUSEA Course – Dance of the Critic and the Muse – a very powerful offering and distillation of my work focused in healing the fragmentation in your inner and outer world, or the critic and the muse. This is my only major course right now and you can do it from home – every dollar goes to the Musea staff of artists. I hope you will consider coming along for my first course with pen and paper and let’s have a good time!
Blessings to each of you and your family,
Badass in a Ball Gown + This One Thing Could Change Every Thing
Muse at the Back Door Storytime with Shiloh Sophia
You are scraping meatloaf
off the plates
when it hits you
‘This could all be an illusion’
The gravity of the idea
is a punch in the gut
A plate falls from your hand
breaking in two
You stare at it
as if it is an omen
The world you knew
and the world unfolding
before your eyes
Is it possible?
That reality,
isn’t what is real?
You knew
the world had changed
that there will be no new normal
after this cycle of global warning
You told yourself
the changes were for the good
That your best interest
and that of all beings
is in the hands of those
calling the shots
You tried to tell your children this
This is your home
So why do you feel caged?
You have been feeling trapped
HERE
Where is here anyway?
‘Here’ is home, right?
This is where
the people you love live
the dog that licks your feet is
where your clothes hang
and the mailbox bears your name
Here,
this is where you wanted to live
gave every dollar you both ever had
to live somewhere safe, here
Where is here? Where is here?
You have been drinking too much
you know it,
oh well for now
You pour a dram of your
husband’s whiskey
and sit at the kitchen table
You wish for a cigarette
even though
you don’t smoke anymore
You turn the radio on low
the woman’s voice says harshly
“human beings are undergoing
a mass experiment with technology
We are the subjects,
but we don’t even know it!”
Her voice is annoying
You turn it off
You already knew that
but something is different
this time
This is when your heart leaps
at the sound of boots
stomping on the back steps
The Muse is at the backdoor
Huge sunglasses in the plate glass
Clicking with a fingertip
Tap, tap, tap!
You jump up to greet her!
In the past you resisted
but not now,
Now you know you need
her strange medicine
You throw open the door
Where is she?
You hear a car running,
You can see headlights
You wave
She waves back
Hot damn!
A date with the Muse!
You put on your husband’s flannel shirt
from the back of his chair
you pull on red cowgirl boots
You grab the whiskey,
and you are gone, gone, gone
Gone from here
The door is open
The top is down
The Muse is wearing sunglasses at night
and red roses in her hair
Her black dress
has white polka dots and red ribbons
her dress is so big
it takes up half the car
she smells like jasmine
Your flannel shirt feels pedestrian
but it smells like him
and feels good on your skin
He will wonder where you are
You were just eating meatloaf
with all of them
talking about the weather
and flattening the curve
and homework at home
and he was looking off
somewhere in the distance,
but where?
And you wonder
maybe he is feeling caged too
The Muse is driving fast
You put your seat back
and exhale
everything feels like shards
flying forth
broken plates
broken dreams
broken ideals
broken deals
fake news
sorry stories
statistics you can’t trust
You think
you can see the illusion
as a giant projector
telling stories
for consumers of stuff
not citizens of earth
Who can you trust?
The wind is in your eyes
and the tears squeeze out of your eyes
blowing back on your face
and you start to sob
The Muse turns up the radio
to drown you out
Chris Isaak moans
“What a wicked game
you played to make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do
make me dream of you
And I don’t want to fall in love”
But you are
The stars are so bright
in a sky with no other lights
In what seems like minutes
You are crossing the Golden Gate Bridge
The Muse is racing down empty streets
San Francisco, the Great Lady is sleeping
She is an orange Cheshire cat grinning
She is black lace stockings on the laundry line
She is twinkling lights and red doors
She is the smell of sourdough bread baking
Her backroom bars are shuttered
San Francisco is drinking alone tonight
But not you! You have the Muse!
And you feel giddy,
silly at the glee
The pleasure soaks you
feelings of reckless love
Driving through the city
You two sing at the top of your lungs
to the Rolling Stones
“I can get no
nonononnooooooo
can’t get no satisfaction
But I try, and I try, and I try”
So tired of trying
You are both laughing now
Your laugh releases trapped ghosts
frees them to go
to leave your lungs free for breathing
Her red roses petals
leave a trail behind you
on the empty streets
She drives to the beach,
crossing the do-not-enter sign
She turns the headlights off
She keeps the heater on
And you feel relaxed
for the first time in weeks
Or is it months? Years?
You can hear the seals barking
You offer her the whiskey
She toasts to the sea
Shouting SKOL!
“I don’t know what I am doing here,” You say
“Here?” She ventures
“Not here with you, but here in this life”
“Where is here?” She says
“That is what I want to know!”
Conversations with the Muse
are riddles and you know that
Part way through you can’t figure out
what you started with or why
She says
“Only you can define HERE, for you
It is a matter where you are looking at – out
out at – it is a matter of where you are looking out from.
Invite Your United Archetype To Access the Voice and Vision of your Soul
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