When the Fireworks Are Loud and the Serotonin Is Gone
A New Year meditation on presence, resilience, and staying with your life
Here on the eve of the New Year, I’m seated at my workstation with quiet dedication, scanning my whole body over for any and all bleak little pulses of serotonin that might be still left over from the day, the week previous... It’s honestly not looking so good I think as I absent-mindedly hand my daughter her millionth-and-first pasteurized fruit punch inside of a box within this same hour.
The cats are being spooked by an abundance of fireworks popping and crackling too closely outside of our window, and I pause briefly to consider the collection of my own traumas that I would like to leave behind and not carry into this upcoming year.
When there are so many things, such as I have, that threaten to take over any semblance of stability or tranquility that your day may assume, there must be a very intentional effort made towards instilling the life-giving and healing effects that we all desire to feel into our experience. It is not a false appearance. This is the very real result of our own efforts directed towards augmenting what benefits us, instead of passively “going with the flow” or drowning underneath the killing currents.
I consider it a shame that more people do not take the opportunity to indulge in the act of visualization… It’s as pleasant as daydreaming and it’s fueled by the infinite charms that our delights might manifest themselves as. And it certainly feels a lot better than ruminating on our suffering and misery, even if not based in reality.
Establishing your life as the artist’s canvas on which you either consciously or unconsciously direct your focus, your intentions, and your efforts is perhaps some of the most important work that we can do for ourselves while taking control of how we perceive and experience our lives… Nothing can substantially change for us until this is firmly set as a foundation.
And once you have felt the very first tendrils of magick, freedom, and possibility infuse your human ecosystem, you’ll never fully lose the ability to activate this again within yourself. Once you’ve danced with your Universe in an aware state of receiving and giving in the flow of pursuing your desires, you’ll notice a clarity that abounds to keep you “in tune” to the symphony playing in your ears, to the steps of your own authentic life.
This is truly your one “job” to do. And it is alchemy.
The magic of alchemy lies in its power of transmutation. This means that there will be nights full of fireworks to spook our cats in the future, and that we will again fight to find any signs of serotonin that might exist inside. But, we as Masters of our authentic lives have the ability to show up with presence rather than with denial or resignation.
This work does not ask you to deny your grief, your fatigue, your anger, or the very real constraints of your life. It asks you to refuse to let them become the only authors of your inner world. It asks you to remember that even here, especially here, you retain authorship over where you place your attention, what you nourish, and what you allow to take root.
You become a magician when you choose to assume softness instead of hardening with the day’s blows and when you opt to find meaning amidst a life of clinical routines. You take up your magic staff or wand the same moment that your honestly decide that your current life, just as it is currently, is still worthy of all of life’s beauty, joy, and care.
I hope that you also choose this path of quiet rebellion and continue to travel with me.
As I close my laptop at the start of this New Year, I now carry with me the intentions of continuing this work, this ritual, of keeping myself well.
The cats and I wish you a year filled with all of the best magick that you can tolerate.
Happy New Year,
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