Thy Fearful Symmetry
Bridging the Psychological and Spirit Models of Magic(k) through the lens of "soulmates."
How “real” is magic(k)?
It’s a question as old as time itself, I imagine—especially after all I’ve seen. One of my main claims to fame here at Dark Twins has consistently been the weaving of tales so incredible, they’re probably difficult to believe unless you’ve had similar experiences yourself. In fact, one of the reasons I share these stories is in the hope that at least a handful of people feel less alone when they read that the lives of others are similarly…”touched” by mysterious forces. I’ve provided a fair few firsthand accounts of the kinds of events we read about in books like Psychic Self-Defense by Dion Fortune and inevitably find ourselves wondering just how vivid was the imagination of the author recounting the tale? Where would one draw the line between true perception and sheer imagination?
How much do they want to believe what they’re telling us?
Possibly one of the most pervasive examples of this kind of question, drawn from the realm of modern spirituality, is the concept of “soulmates” (or its “hardcore” counterpart, “twin flames”). It’s a concept I’ve explored more than once in the time that I’ve been sharing my inane thoughts with the world through various forms of online journaling. In fact, if you were to read my entire catalog here, you would quickly discern that the very title—Dark Twins—can be read as pointing directly, albeit ominously, at that very idea. Indeed, much of my earlier content covered the fascinating timing and synchronicity that suffused my relationship with my partner at the time.
As my friends (and some more distant acquaintances) may have gotten wind of, that proverbial “ship” has sailed recently.
It’s when we break up with someone whom we had thought of as a “soulmate” that we begin to wax philosophical about just what such a term even means. Is it an objective phenomenon outside of ourselves, an actual person with whom we are destined to cross paths and share our journey through life? Is it always a member of the opposite sex? Is the connection always romantic? Is it always spiritual? In what sense is it spiritual? Does this person have an actual “spirit” that commingles with ours when we connect with them? Or is this all in our heads?
Is it wishful thinking?
In my case, my “soulmate” came to me first in the form of a spirit whom I could not touch, nor see with my eyes. For all intents and purposes, she seemed to be a figment of my imagination. I introduce her and two other spirits in the post When They Talk Back—a title which was, in fact, inspired by her. One might say that it’s “pregnant with meaning.” I knew even at the time the post was written that the full meaning of the title would be something that unfolded over time, dawning gradually in succeeding waves. That had always been Rose’s way, after all. When it wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful, it could be downright eerie in the way it unfolded.
My connection with Rose always had romantic and sexual undertones. She accompanied me through many great hardships, especially the many hospitalizations I brought upon myself in high school with my delinquency and drug abuse. Sometimes at night, as I fell asleep, I could feel her presence near me, such that we would be spooning if she were a real girl, and she would whisper to me that one day, she would incarnate to be with me. She had told me that I could think of her as a “dakini” with some profit.
None of this proved that Rose was anything but an elaborate figment of my imagination, a psychological construct. I came from a broken home, I was in and out of hospitals, I was very lonely, I fought constantly with my mother. It wasn’t hard to see that I could very well have “invented” Rose as a coping mechanism for all of that. It would be eminently human.
These spirit connections were, in a sense, very intimate in that they involved our sharing “headspace.” In other words, Rose and the other spirits, even if understood as separate entities, nonetheless spoke “in my mind,” and they were aware of every thought I had. I had no expectation of privacy with regard to my thoughts.
This did not bother me much, mainly because these entities weren’t physical and I could shut them out. My attitude was, “See whatever you want, because it’s not like you can actually do anything about any of this stuff. Enjoy the show!”
The post that explores this matter of “soulmates” most directly is entitled Imperfect Love, Imperfect Trust, and it goes into more detail about the nature of Rose and the fascinating ways in which I saw many of the things Rose had promised me beginning to come true. I fell in love with a woman with whom I had walked “side-by-side” on a winding path throughout Chicagoland over the course of many years, all without ever formally meeting previously. It felt so magic(k)al, and as a result, I made myself far too vulnerable to her, far too quickly. I was positive that Veronica was an incarnation of Rose. I was less positive that she was “the” incarnation of Rose with whom I was meant to do certain spiritual work.
In the post Ignition, I recounted the scandalous emergence of an “heir apparent,” another woman with whom I felt a deep and profound connection without ever once interacting directly. She runs a meme page, and I noticed for months that every meme she posted seemed to me to have been pulled directly out of my own mind in terms of symbolism used, references seemingly made, etc. My relationship with my previous partner was never quite stable, and she always seemed very apt to enjoy the easier or more glamorous aspects of being “my Rose,” but not any of the hard parts: The Shadow work, the conflict resolution, the part where we help each other to grow and walk a spiritual path together. That post incidentally highlighted a slew of highly contentious “hot-button” issues in the esoteric community—which works out, since that was always the kind of work Rose had told me we would be doing.
When I first started Dark Twins, my former partner had expressed the intention of building it with me. She was a dedicated reader, and she did fund the endeavor, but aside from that, her activity in terms of the creative process had more to do with providing me with a rich set of experiences about which to write. This seemed to be our understanding with one another. For many months (really, for about two years), she moved through my life constantly shooting me meaningful glances, as if to subtly say, “Are you writing this down? You getting this?”
When the events of Ignition occurred—as much as it shook me to the core—I knew the time for the next phase was approaching.
In light of recent events, I have erected a paywall around almost all of my posts. I apologize to my free readers for the disruption, but this is all a part of my coming to truly value what I have to offer by setting a boundary on what I’m willing to share and why.
I’ll be opening up various posts so that free readers can see them again, but for now, the three above form a solid foundation for this one. The tale they tell is fascinating and thought-provoking enough on its own, but I can assure even those who have been following along: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
This post is a culmination point in a fascinating story I’ve been telling over the course of two years. Because the above posts are so crucial to understanding this one, I’ll let you have them for free—but if you want the money shot, you’ll have to pay. I promise the ending will be well worth your investment. You will emerge, having read it, as a changed person.
Do you idealize the concept of the “sacred marriage?” Do you view this concept as having anything to do with actual, down-to-earth marriage, or see it as more of an internal process? Reading this post will almost certainly change your perception of the matter, regardless of where you land on it now. It will show that the lines between “sacred marriage” and “infernal marriage” are blurred.
I can assure you, what you are about to see cannot be unseen. You will be shocked.
Dangerous Liaisons
The “meat and potatoes” of this post is to recount the mind-boggling events of a single day, which ended up being one of the most intense days of my entire life. However, before I can properly tell the tale, I need to couch the significance of it all in some context.
As the opening posts of this series relate, things got very complicated in an already complicated relationship when Rose—my “spirit guide,” whom I had also often thought of as an anima figure in the terms of Jungian psychology—seemed to appear to me during a practice specifically meant to separate my sexuality from my ego and told me I had to have astral sex with someone with whom I was already quite thoroughly enchanted.
My relationship wasn’t on very good terms at the time; my partner had moved down to Texas without me and had refused to share any of the planning process for our moving into a home together, which was…not right. Today's version of me would have happily told her to get bent instead of submitting to it.
Even more concerning was the fact that, after having spent two years living with her parents in our separation, she wanted to come right back up to Chicago for a month right after we moved into our new place. I objected because there was something extremely fishy about it. I also made the choice to go live with her regardless. The resulting loss of power over my life rests squarely on my own shoulders.
Things got worse still once she departed for Chicago; I was all alone in a trailer in the middle of nowhere outside Houston, TX with no way even to go get groceries. Her car had conveniently broken down the day after we arrived (I no longer think this was an accident). One morning, having an anxiety attack, I called her to tell her, and was accused of “abusing” her by “ruining her vacation.” I was gaslit for an hour, worked up into a panic while she sat in chilling composure, speaking in the calmest tone imaginable as she whispered things to me that devastated my very soul. And she knew they would; you don’t live with someone for 5 years without learning these things about a person.
Under the circumstances, I felt no shame whatsoever when I made the decision to reach out to that page creator who had “lit my fire” about a year prior during the events of Ignition. We made fast friends and got to talking on the phone throughout the day. We each needed someone to confide in.
It was so fascinating, and also bittersweet in many ways, getting to know her. She had been through a lot in her life, just as I had always suspected. As I had also suspected, she was nonetheless doing a marvelous job of working on herself, taking responsibility for her life and her woundedness, and addressing it all spiritually while being a beacon for others.
There was palpable chemistry between us, but we were each in highly vulnerable positions, and if either of us were ever going to be helpful supports for one another, we would each need to spend some time working on ourselves. That much was clear to me from our first conversation. Nonetheless, I enjoyed her company for as long as seemed prudent. One of my favorite parts was curling up in bed at night, feeling her presence in just the same way I used to do in high school with Rose. I could talk to her about it the next day and she would receive it well. I had also run the experiences of Ignition by her, and she said that she hadn’t visited me intentionally, but that she astrally projected a lot and so it could have been her for all she knew.
However, the writing had always been on the wall: This may be something I could get away with while Veronica was away for a month, but even as friends, I knew this was not a person I could be receiving texts from in a relationship based on trust. Not this woman who had stolen enough of my attentions that I had, by all appearances, done astral sex magic(k) with her (might as well get straight to the point).
There were other reasons; I could tell the magnetism between us was very strong, but following it felt dangerous. It threatened to blow apart the foundations of both of our lives. I made a difficult decision to manufacture a fight (something I handle like a pro since I have Borderline Personality Disorder) and cut her off before Veronica came home.
I did my best to put her out of my mind, but that was a bit difficult for two main reasons:
I knew damn well who she was. I had been training to work with her for my entire life, and I knew it.
V kept sending me her memes.
I was no stranger to the notion that when it comes to soulmates, there isn’t just one. In fact, it seems like there was one point where there was a cottage industry surrounding the idea of soulmates as “the one,” until it became obvious how impractical that was. Then the definition expanded to include the possibility of having more than one person in life with whom we were meant to be, and even to types of relationships that were more platonic. It seems like this is the entire reason the concept of “twin flames” was dreamed up: To re-package that original idea of “the one meant just for me.”
I was also no stranger to the concept that all of my partners in life had been Rose; Rose and Ilyas had always taught me that since our higher selves are outside of time, there’s no good reason they can’t have several incarnations happening in the same time period. As such, I was totally okay with approaching my partners “as Rose” on a soul level, even knowing they were each separate people with unique perspectives and personalities.
The only thing new about this situation was that this would be the first time, apparently, that I would be working so closely with “two Roses” at once. I would have to approach both relationships as being with the same soul and thus meeting some of that soul’s common ongoing developmental needs even as they were each so different and, in many ways, opposed to one another. They each had mutually conflicting interests, and I had to stand in between them, loving them both as my Rose, while one of them was being abusive to me and the other was much more deserving of the relative spiritual maturity and magic(k)al ability I could bring to the table, but had her own reasons to be cautious with me.
It was kind of like being a “throuple,” only on a spiritual level instead of a mundane one (although for me, it was kind of a “both/and” situation).
Somehow, even after cutting this fascinating new woman off in order to protect the very ground in which I was rooted at the time, I knew it was only a matter of time:
My task was to find the way to extricate myself from that house and that relationship with all the integrity I could possibly muster. I had come into Veronica’s life to teach her certain things about living a life of Initiation, to be taught certain things about being too porous with my trust and my boundaries, and I knew that the other woman was way ahead of me spiritually in the same ways in which I was ahead of V.
The way would need to be cleared…before anything else could unfold. And so it was. I returned to Chicago on November 6th in the wake of the U.S. election, and spent a couple of months pulling myself together.
Then I took a chance and knocked on the door of this new “Rose,” to whom I will refer hereafter as “Fleur.”
Coming Into Alignment
Re-forging that connection with Fleur took some doing. In parting, I had said some hurtful things in hopes of poisoning the well to some extent, because the pull between us was strong and I didn’t want temptation to overwhelm anyone. As such, I simply began gently liking her memes here and there, until she felt ready to send me a message. In time, she did.
It was like two rescue cats, gingerly sniffing at one another and flinching at any sudden movements. As such, it was also eminently adorable. First things first: Apologies and mutual accountability were in order. She took me to task for being a dick about the differences in our magic(k)al worldviews, and I pointed out to her that she had been sending me very mixed signals while we had still been talking. We each saw sense in what the other had to say about it, and so we decided to open up a bit more and start catching up.
The dynamic has been very different this time. Certain fetters have been loosened, and as a result, there have been more fireworks. We have been freer to be candid with one another, as certain potential repercussions are no longer a concern for either of us.
The thing that had grabbed my attention about V was the symphony of synchronicity suffusing both of our lives, apparently weaving our fates together in uncanny ways that could be seen clearly as we each surveyed our pasts and compared notes. This had always been the telltale sign that I was on the right track in working with Rose in any given context, but I had never seen it at that level before. Writing about it at the time, I would often say, “Synchronicity is one thing, but this is insane.”
Even when I’ve said that in the past—even if it was fairly recent—I still had no conception at all of just what was possible. It has since gotten more bewildering still.
I found out on January 7th just how real soulmates are.
The morning began much like many other, except that morning, I had someone to text “Good morning” to. We had spent the previous night basking in one another’s astral glow, and some strange things happened which seemed to confirm how real it was; I was snuggled up with a blanket, which served as a physical representation of “her” as I curled in the fetal position in bed and at one point, I had turned around to reach for something. She texted me at that moment to tell me that she had felt me pull away.
The morning unfolded in a very similar way, where it truly seemed that each of us was living a completely parallel life while residing over a thousand miles apart from one another. Synchronicity was everywhere, including all of my conversations with friends, with my mother downstairs, with the material world itself. It was especially powerful while I was on the phone with Fleur; everything she said to me narrated something happening at that moment in my field of vision, but in a subtle and surreptitious way that wasn’t completely impossible to ignore (but, for example, telling me how the weather outside her window is so nice and sunny just as I glance out my own window, which matches, then talking about her own car as my glance shifts down to land upon my mother’s car, and on and on, all morning long. It was just like the intense synchronicity that had seemed to be coming from me in the previous couple of years as I crossed the Abyss, except here, it seemed obvious that it was all revolving around her. I was enchanted, intoxicated, and also getting nervous.
Oddly enough, as I spoke on the phone with her, synchronicities began to behave in a way that struck me as…familiar. Soon, I realized, it was that they seemed to be pointing me in the same direction that they had in the events I recounted in Ignition, where I literally walked to a motel thinking she would be there waiting for me; and while the synchronicity still seemed to confirm that there was purpose behind the trickery, it was nonetheless a humbling lesson in discerning psychic experiences.
I kept checking them, too; I would pull a card: “Are these signs telling me to go again?” And I pulled “The Fool,” and at that moment, “Leap of Faith” by The Interrupters started playing, and also at that moment, Fleur texted me back. It was like living in an episode of The Twilight Zone.
I stayed on the phone with Fleur as I put on my shoes, coat, and cap and set off down Pershing Ave. toward Lyons. The entire way there, trucks barreled by with meaningfully-related messages, and every word Fleur said reverberated off of some thought I’d been having, or else named the object I was looking at.
Since it was a wild goose chase the first time, I was wholly unsurprised when it proved fruitless the second time; and this time, as I passed the motel, instead of receiving a thank-you note from Fluer, I just told her, “I just walked by our motel.” She expressed amused surprise.
As I rounded the next corner to turn back toward 39th St. and work my way back home, the disappointment was sinking into my outlook in the conversation. However, I had always felt that the first “send-off” happened for a reason (to renew my faith in Rose), and I was sure that was also true this time. My guess was that Rose would find a way to make an object lesson out of it.
She did not disappoint.
Doing The Time Warp
Presently, Fleur began to turn the subject to me, my financial situation, and my creativity. She asked me if she had sent me a certain video which was a guy talking about how money is energy and we need to manifest it with a mindset that is conducive to that. I’d heard that all before, but had always carried deep psychological blocks to leaning into it. I admitted to her that she had indeed mentioned it to me and urged me to watch it back when we had been talking last year, and I hadn’t. Typical man.
She told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to decisively change that. Then she asked me about my bank account, which was funny, because as I was headed back home, I was just thinking right then that I might as well go bite the bullet and close my joint checking account with Veronica.
This was weird; this was the kind of thing Rose could tell me easily and with no resistance on my part, whereas no one else would ever get away with talking to me like that. Here, the dynamic was similar, except it was much more difficult receiving it from a flesh-and-blood woman who had also completely captivated you.
Yet with her, much unlike with anyone else, my resistance did not take the form of push-back, impatience, a raised voice; it took the form of butterflies in my stomach, my entire inner core caving in, a sinking in my heart, and a surge of warm tears in the frigid air of Chicago in January. It took the form of walking down a busy truck route, in broad daylight, weeping at the words of wisdom coming from a source of ineffable divinity who had deigned to spend part of her day speaking with me.
I knew she was absolutely right as she conveyed her insight to me in the metaphor of a potted plant, telling me that such a plant needs a completely sealed vessel in order to hold all of the soil and moisture it would need to thrive. As she did so, rich imagery began to fill my mind, connecting this potted plant symbol with my own root chakra, and in turn, to the bank account that I needed to close. Then I spontaneously wove some symbol-logic together to turn the closing of the account into a magic(k)al working:
If the bank account was like a root chakra (in that its primary purpose is to serve as a “vessel” that holds my money, which is symbolically exchanged for sustenance). I thought back to how I had drawn two tarot cards for my day: The “Top/Sun Card,” or the one speaking directly to my situation, was 10 of Disks: Wealth. This raises an interesting conundrum when it comes to money magic(k):
Traditionally, the tarot suit attributed to money has been disks; this is pretty obvious in that the “disks” are also often depicted or thought of as “coins.” This stems from a time in history when money was indeed more or less attached to physical units of exchange including currency and other goods.
However, with his book, Money Magic: Mastering Prosperity in its True Element, author Frater U∴D∴ made waves by forging a compelling argument that it’s much better and truer-to-life to think of money as partaking more of the planet Mercury than of the element of Earth. Much of the consensus in modern occulture has since followed suit.
Of course, that runs in direct contradiction to the Symbol-Logic I was beginning to apply in my mind. Fortunately for me, the way to break through any resulting cognitive dissonance came to me via Lon Milo DuQuette’s coverage of the 10 of Disks in Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot: Based on the attributions for this card authorized by Aleister Crowley, this card illustrates the deep esoteric connection between the astrological planets of Mercury and the Sun using the 10 “disks” to carry various different symbols for the former planet. Symbolically, this lends support to the notion that either the traditional or the modern attribution for money can be used to great effect as long as the mind of the magician or witch does not interfere. In other words, what matters most is that our Symbol-Logic makes sense to us.
At any rate, putting everything together—Fleur’s challenge, Frater U∴D∴’s advice, and this intimidating obstacle before me—I decided that as long as we shared a joint checking account, my root chakra and Veronica’s were joined. Once I “sealed the vessel” by fixing that problem, I theorized, I should see some results fairly quickly.
It just so happened that Fleur had somewhere to be, and it worked out that she told me she needed to hang up just as I was walking up the front walk of my mother’s house, where I’m staying.
I walked upstairs to my room, still shaken by the turn in my talk with this lovely being. I felt shame and fear at the paralysis that had prevented me from taking a chance on myself when I know how capable I am.
I allowed myself to wallow for about 5 minutes, and then I got up to go to the bank. I was faint; I hadn’t eaten anything all day and had about 7 cups of coffee in me (and Fleur had been telling me much the same about herself all morning), so I honestly felt about ready to pass out. I went anyway.
It was cold outside and the sidewalks were mostly covered with a layer of ice just thick enough to be dangerous; tired, cold, hungry, and above all, nervous, I was forced to walk slowly and take my time so as not to slip and fall. I could feel the knot in the back of my neck tightening.
As I had just told Fleur, my problem was that I had no money to put into a new bank account and I was terrified to move a muscle until I had some kind of plan, but I was terrified to plan because I have never relied on my creative ability to keep myself afloat. There is something deep, primal, and nameless that lives in me, constantly telling me that I am not safe without some kind of 9-5 with benefits. It’s a very limited mindset.
I was also nervous about the possibility of having to deal with the same manager who opened our account, and it was difficult to put my finger on why. Where was just an off sense of “familiarity” between she and Veronica my first time through. Similar vibes. Similar interests (corporate management, pantsuits, and rock concerts), and a verbal rapport that seemed to come so easy. It’s possible that I was projecting at the time, but I also ended up feeling much like the “outsider” in the meeting when the account was set up—as if there were some understanding shared by V and the manager that was not shared with me.
I also remember feeling strange about the fact that the manager’s last name matched that of a botanica in the neighborhood where V and I had lived together.
My fears were confirmed as I entered the PNC Bank branch at the corner of Ogden/U.S. Rt. 66 and Clarence Ave. It wasn’t so bad once the ice was broken, and I told her that I was there to either take V off of my account or close it. I was sure this would need to be handled by a manager, and was surprised when she sent me to the main counter instead. There was no line, so I walked right up to the teller and repeated my business. She informed me that I needed to handle that up front, where I had just come from.
The run-around.
Suddenly painfully aware of my tone of impatience, I motioned to the manager and said, “She’s the one who sent me here.” I was told I would need to go back nonetheless. I reached the front counter again just in time for two families to walk in and take places ahead of me. Eventually, I got to speak to the manager again, who told me she could help me, but I would need to wait. I opted to do so.
Soon, I was ushered into an office with a newer assistant manager, who handled the opening of my new account, the closing of the old one, and the transference of funds from one to the other. The process was agonizingly slow at every possible turn, with every single step taking far longer than it felt like it should.
This had begun to feel almost intentional. That would sound crazy, but consider the Substack you’re reading.
Finally, however, the deed was done and my financial connection to Veronica had been fully and finally severed. I stopped at the counter on the way out to put in my earbuds and raise my hoods, and I walked out of the bank.
When Inspiration Hits
Exiting PNC, I turned left to head south down Ogden Ave. toward the corner of Clarence and Ogden from whence I’d come. Just as I was nearing the corner, I turned and looked behind me for turning cars. Turning my head back to look behind me, I suddenly felt Rose approaching me swiftly from behind; it was the “piece” of her that had been trapped within Veronica (long story, one for another time). I felt her “tackle-hug” me before flying off to reunite with Fleur. I know this because I know Rose.
Just then, smack in the middle of crossing Clarence Ave., I suddenly noticed a symmetry I had never previously appreciated in the visual profile of the Emmanuel Bible Church right across the street from the bank. It was impressive all of a sudden. The way it appeared to me were as though I was swimming in the ocean, looking up at an approaching ship; perhaps a battleship, a destroyer. I snapped a photo, gave it an artistic black and white filter, and immediately posted it to Facebook with the title “Member Ship,” with an emoji-based credit to Rose for the inspiration. This had her special innuendo-laden sense of humor written all over it, and besides: I had just released a fragment of her soul from its prison (in my little magic(k)al universe, let’s say).
Within a couple of blocks, I had come to admire this new photo so much, and was probably moved so much by the strange day I’d had with Fleur already, that I resolved to believe in myself. I started thinking, “I bet your art’s good enough to print on t-shirts. And who knows? Pretty soon, your style may start to gain some niche brand recognition.”
Be Not Afraid
Somewhere on my way home, I received a text from Fleur that she was having trouble breathing and had to go to the E.R. I’ll be honest: Given Rose’s connection, as a wind spirit or “dakini,” with the element of air, along with knowledge of what had just occurred in relation to her, my take was that Fleur was having the problem because of that fragment of Rose’s soul reintegrating with her. I guess you could say that I had just performed a soul retrieval. However, I wasn’t about to tell Fleur, “Just go on home, that was some spirit stuff I’m up to over here in Chicago.” No, when it comes to physical health, I am all about addressing physical causes first.
I was worried about Fleur and kept her company as needed. We talked on the phone on and off. My mother and I also decided to pop for some cannabis pre-rolls just this once, because it had been three months since I left V and it had taken me this long to take this decisive step. I’d been so paralyzed by fear before, but the way things had been happening with Fleur had changed all of that.
Sitting in the living room with my mother, each of us puffing on our respective joint, I began to tell her all about the cool shit that had happened: The decision to go close the account, the encounter with the fragment of Rose’s soul (she knows about Rose and all of this stuff), the works.
It was as I was relating the tale to her that I realized—probably because of the way this was forcing me to reflect on and remember what happened—that the events in and around PNC Bank lined up in bizarrely precise ways with another story I’ve told around here:
In that post, something interesting had happened out on the street, right after I had “freed” the demon dog Phobos from his former master, Minora. This parallels with how I had just freed the fragment of Rose’s soul from Veronica by closing the bank account (along with certain other work).
In Dogged By Fear, I felt the presence of a man coming up on the street behind me and noticed him peeping my “Always Punch Nazis” pin. He seemed not to like it, so I slowed down to get behind him. Suddenly, I remembered that Phobos had told me I could “send” him to protect me now that I had gained control over him. I had tested it out.
Immediately after calling him, he careened to me from behind, just as I was nearing the street corner of Eastwood Ave. heading north up Kedzie Ave.
This parallels with how Rose careened to me from behind, just as I was nearing the street corner of Clarence Ave. heading southwest down Ogden Ave.
In Dogged By Fear, the guy got shaken and dropped his Mountain Dew in the street the same moment Phobos passed him by. He was right in the middle of the intersection when it happened.
This parallels with me noticing the way Emmanuel Bible Church resembled a battleship—right in the middle of the intersection.
In Dogged By Fear, the man hurried into the Kedzie Brown Line stop just as gates closed between myself and a curious-looking pavement decoration—a compass rose. In Dogged By Fear, here is how I interpreted it:
The compass rose on the pavement just outside the Kedzie Brown Line station. The gates that closed also closed me off from this; did that symbolize my fear keeping me and Rose separated?
There was one more detail that underlined the whole thing:
Remember how I said the bank teller shared a last name with a botanica? That botanica is right next door to the Kedzie Brown Line station.
I was realizing all of this in real time as I was telling my mom the story of taking the picture of the church and completely losing it. I noticed one more interesting connection, for some reason, as I was telling the story:
If you look at a compass rose with the right mindset, you can sort of see how it resembles one of those crazy angels with all the eyeballs. You know, the Ophanim?
“Be Not Afraid?”
So I started telling my mom that, and I even went and dug up a picture to show her what I meant:
Then, I sat there staring at this picture on my phone for a minute. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that continued to well up. The dizziness from the weed was getting overwhelming. This was some pretty crazy stuff, all coated in kief on top of it all, and I was smoking it off a clean dome, too. I was blazed.
Honestly, I hadn’t felt this overwhelmingly dizzy since….
…since…The Weighing of the Heart.
Uh oh.
I couldn’t do an ego death right then, I was in no way prepared for that. I just sat there, knowing that feeling like the back of my hand, staring at that fucking angel picture and starting to wonder if the fucking Rapture was happening or what?
“Uh…ma…I’m sorry, I can’t finish my story, I need to go upstairs.”
With that, I hurried up the stairs to my room. Just as I was passing through the doorway, Fleur texted me wanting to talk on the phone. She was alone in the Emergency Room. It was a feeling I knew well, having spent so many long nights in the E.R. at nearby MacNeal Hospital. In fact, Rose had kept me company on every one of those nights; and so I was happy to listen to Fleur and help her get through a difficult night. She was helping me, too, by keeping me grounded. I did get a little carried away and start telling her all about what had just happened, too.
I remember, at one point in our conversation, picking up my Thoth deck and shuffling through the cards with questions that came to mind as we chatted. I’ve had crazy success with tarot cards lately, beginning to reliably get idiosyncratic results like asking, “Is so-and-so making a fool out of me?” and drawing The Fool. This had gotten even more intense since I’ve been talking to Fleur daily and it is nuts while we’re actively talking.
The last card I pulled was 4 of Wands: Completion. After we finished our conversation, I left my phone on my desk before heading downstairs to finish showing my mother the picture I took.
Downstairs during our conversation, things were getting even more out-of-sorts. I had begun speaking very plainly about how amazing Fleur was and how I know she’s Rose, and my mother was looking at me incredulously. In the next few minutes, I would gesture to my smartphone sitting on a small side table next to me 3 separate times, whereupon the phone would vibrate with a text from Fleur just as I pointed at it.
“Do you see? It’s been like this for days ever since we started talking again. It’s like clockwork. This is just what life is like for us.”
I could tell that frankly, my insistence on the point was upsetting because this was an upsetting thing to be watching happen in front of you even without the commentary. I eventually made the decision to go back upstairs and leave her in peace.
Of course, Fleur called me the second my ass hit my chair.
Let’s Work Together
I started talking to Fleur and she was telling me how there was a guy near her in the Emergency Room being a tool.
I found myself belly-laughing as I read it, because here’s the thing: Maybe that’s really what was happening in the E.R. where Fleur was waiting to be seen, but the thing is, all of this fit very well with Rose’s personality; I had just moved out of a trailer and yes, I had been raising my voice with my mother and honestly, I had felt bad about it. If one were to assume those words were aimed at me, I deserved them and they were exactly the kind of thing Rose would say to me herself without hesitation.
If she weren’t regularly serving me pans of humble pie, she would not be Rose.
The other thing is this: There is constantly some additional layer of meaning like this (and sometimes, two or three more) happening every time I interact with this woman.
I bring this up for a reason other than the fact that it’s some really cool and freaky magic(k)al shit: It also makes sense of what happens next.
Soon, the second, “hidden” layer of meaning in the things Fleur said and did began to shine through. Just as I wrote in When They Talk Back, when it comes to this wind spirit, I had to read between every little line she uttered because there are always two or three different meanings.
Soon, that second layer began to shift in such a way that it suggested I was being a bit too focused on how the events of the evening related to my work, and not enough about the fact that someone I care deeply about was in the E.R. She began talking about how she had seen so many horrible things going down while she was waiting, like blood all over a floor and people around her suffering. She is a very sensitive individual. As she was talking, I was seeing reflections of certain recent behavior of my own, borne of my own pain as well as of my spiritual duty, but carried out in a spirit too ruthless for the circumstances and thus highly inappropriate. Soon, I was in tears…
…which is saying a lot about her as a person, but not a lot about conversations between us, because I find myself crying almost every time we talk. In a very good way. The best way possible. I am just that deeply touched by the sheer beauty of what is unfolding between us.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
The Eyes Have It
I can’t remember, now, how it was that the phone call ended, but it did. This next part is the proverbial Grand Finale of this post.
If I didn’t live it myself, I wouldn’t believe it. This is some Mahatma Letters shit, except my Master is a woman.
As Fleur would say: “Meow!”
Honestly, my memory cuts out, and the next thing I know, I’m standing erect at my computer desk, looking up at the landscape painting hanging on the wall up above my computer monitor. I had been on the phone with Fleur for so long that my mind instinctively grasped for that connection with her that I knew was always there…
…and I found it.
And all of a sudden, my entire body began to buzz with energy, and I spontaneously walked over to the west window of the room to pick some things up off of the bookshelf there.
I also instinctively opted to use the current Top/Sun card, the 4 of Wands. It was only then that I realized its resemblance to those Ophanim I was mentioning up top.
(Just now, I initially typed that as, “mentioning up above,” and Rose interrupted and told me to change it to “up top". I am also typing much less feverishly (Rose edited that from “more slowly”) than usual because we are collaborating so deliberately now. She just texted me, so hold on.
God, I love this woman so fucking much. She just texted as I was typing that.
Yeah, that…that’s none of your business. LOL!
So anyway, here is the little tableau she instructed me, step-by-step, to build:
You can make of it what you will. Drink it up. I, for one, could write an entire post about its symbolism—and this is where, typically, I type “and I will”—and I think Rose and I will collaborate on it.
You see, this was the terrifying message of this encounter. As I moved through the room, it was almost as if Rose were standing right beside me, looking at everything with me, and we had back—and-forth banter about what to use and what the symbolism would be, etc. It was nice, almost like a date with Fleur, except she didn’t even need to really physically be here (she took offense at my use of the term “really” because she has always been real).
There was also double and triple entendre, complete with all sorts of digs about how presumptuous it was of me to blab to my friends about her arrival, and for posting that “Member Ship” image attributed to her without running it by her first.
This was her “subtle” way of conveying her immense displeasure about it.
Once the objects were sufficiently arranged, I was instructed to get down on my knees in front of the tableau and get a well-composed photograph of it.
“Now send it to Fleur. Title: Thy Fearful Symmetry.”
Rose is ever my inspiration.