West Virginia has been the biggest grace of my life. This place has been my solitary confinement. The biggest fear of every human being: no community, no friends, no distractions, no job, nowhere to turn, nowhere to hide from myself. All my crutches pulled out from under me. No possibility of avoidance. Life forcing my eyes open and not letting me look away. Something I've spent my whole life running from. Avoiding. Fearing. And I've done "work" in the past. Years of therapy, years of shadow work, years of psychedelic ceremonies, years of "inner work", years of "healing", years of spiritual pursuit. And with all of it, I simply got better at hiding.
But West Virginia, this has been altogether different. My solitary confinement. My liberation. A discovery of the darkest hiding places within myself, ones I had told myself I had looked for and found. Ones I convinced myself I saw clearly. Ones I intellectually knew and convinced myself was enough. But even that was just more hiding. Better hiding.
The strangest part, is that what was hiding was already known. The discovery has been of what was always already here. A discovery of reality. A seeing clearly. But "knowing" that, and feeling it, grieving it, sensing it in every cell. Those are entirely and wholly different.
I hung this "gateless gate" sign when I moved here. On a gate which is not a gate, which has no fence attached, which you can easily walk around on either side. It's a Zen koan that spoke to me, but which I did not — could not — fully understand until living it.
This place holds a deep magic. An unspeakable wisdom. This is my burial ground. My inferno. The fire that burned me to ash and left nothing in its wake.
