#139

It’s been said that God speaks to people on an individual basis, in ways that they will understand. To some that can be very literal. To others it can be something as small as gut feelings, gut morals and insticts that don’t seem to have any logical beginning or end. To others still it could be a bird, how they fly through the sky.

To me it is the natural things, the fundamental things that make up the world. God does not speak to me in a voice, he does not whisper in my ear. He never directly tells me to do anything. I just feel things, see things and I understand and I do.

I didn’t used to know this, let alone understand it. If you had told me I would have laughed in your face, told you to grow up and think a little. I didn’t understand that even then, even as an atheist, a stubborn hardass atheist, I still heard and I still listened to the call. It didn’t matter that I didn’t believe or that I disbelieved to such a strong extent. I still heard the call.

Back then, a good many years ago, my call was fire. Fire in the literal sense, how it crackled and burned, how it consumed and it empowered itself no matter what was around it. I feel that I needed it at the time. Without seeing the flames and being propped up by their example…I don’t know if I would’ve been able to spark myself and light myself into flame…I don’t know if I would have made it if I hadn’t sparked. There was so much to deal with…so much to endure and fight again. With my soul burning I made it through. I grew passionate, I grew arrogant, I grew strong, I grew whimsy and I grew angry. I overdid it…but in the end, it got me through. I learned much from it, too. Fire is at my core and it always has been…the flames were the first of the four and they shaped me into what I am today. It lasted almost 6 years.

I was burning up. I was burning up those around me and then, after some time, I started burning myself as well. I started to burn out…Then came earth. I started to control my passion, to put handles on it, to let it out as it should be rather than allowed to run rampant and free. As I cooled and realized how much damage I was doing to myself and to those around me…my next inspiration was the earth itself, in the rocks and dirt beneath my feet. It was in this time of my life that I started being able to close my eyes, reach out with my spirit and touch, feel the life around me. To feel the shape and the form of all the natural things around me…and I took inspiration from their stoicism. I started seeing that my doing whatever I felt at the moment was wrong, that it was damaging and it hurt those around me. I realized I needed to be strong and most of all, I needed to be stable to support the people I loved. I tried, I really did. It took a long, long time to overcome the habits and whims of my fiery core, the core that still lasts today…but I did. It took a long, long time but it happened. Not very long after I broke up with Jacinta, I finally succeded (for the most part). I look back now and I realize that all along the way, even before I decided mentally to try to mould myself into something better for Jacinta that I was doing just that. I did it for Lindsey and I did it for Jessica, too. I came a long way from those times, too…and I didn’t even realize I was building myself up then. But I was. Together, earth and fire are my core.

After that was Water. Water came to me as I was still torn up over Jacinta, still feeling like dying almost every night, still feeling so alone and so…empty. I remember it…first came the storm which spoke ages to me, just like my inspirations of fire and earth before it. I wrote about it, then. Then came the patterns in the rain, the music of the rain and the meaning. Both had mostly the same meaning. Mmm…

I’m going to go for a short while, I’ll finish this soon.