Angry Medicine, Peaceful Winter

Having had a very intentional, health and clarity supporting week last week, I now find myself experiencing anger.

Because this week, although there have been so many beautiful moments, I’ve also let the “jump” creep back in—scrolling, skipping preparation that would have allowed me to cook nourishing meals slowly and with presence, spending more time on the computer than was ever really necessary.

All of this signifies something deeply problematic: a lack of integrity, a misalignment between body and psyche.

I won’t justify or excuse it; it is simply the truth. Loosening up has not made me feel better, but it has made me feel worse. Sloppy. My creative capacity clogged with bullshit I neither like nor care about. When you’re addicted to numbing, as I’ve been, in ways only visible now that I’m reaching deeper levels of inner harmony, “just a little” must be watched like a hawk.

Because quickly, it morphs into “just a lot.” Every time I give those little copes my approval, I enable my own slow demise.

So yes, I am angry today, and gladly. Angry because I am more aware now—experiencing the accumulated friction that I turned away from in previous days. Angry, because a new agency and craving is growing in me. Not for more sugar or sex, scrolling or fleeting pleasures but for further cultivation of clarity. For sobriety, truth and presence which tends toward nourishment and expansion, rather than depletion.

It all might sound strict or harsh, I know. Decluttering thoroughly often feels this way at first.

But from the raw edges of “I’ve had enough” comes a deeper self-compassion. Compassion that does not mean lowering standards, but rather a gentle honesty with myself. To see the conflict, to feel the dissonance fully, and not turn away—but to bear witness. Because love is accountability, not abandonment.

My body is my platform. It is the garden bed of my consciousness.

This matrix of flesh and bone is not fixed; the past has etched pathways into the blueprint I was born with.

The soil needs tending, rewilding, regeneration.

It has been poisoned by pollutants of the environment, by viruses of the cultural psyche that enable stagnation and suicidality instead of dying away to make space for a new harmony to be lived and breathed.

I don’t want the drunken chant. I want the spirited song—the shout, even. The anger itself is not the problem. Even the inner conflict is not the problem. It’s a symptom.

The real problem is resistance. Willful ignorance. Voluntary blindness. Lying to oneself should necessarily feel like an emotionally neutral thing. It’s toxic. So I’m thankful I can still feel. Thankful my body shows me so clearly when I’m out of alignment.

The world has tried to teach me to take a pill and check out. I refused as often as I could, even when I didn’t know what else to do. The world offered me ways to adjust to its insanity so I could fit in with people I never wanted to be like. At times I accepted, but thank God I never adjusted.

Thank God I’m forced to recalibrate daily, moment by moment, back to the only path I can walk without suffocating on my own lies.

The system and its convenience is great, to the degree we still require comforting and parenting — physically and psychologically. I did. And I still do enjoy the padding. I’m not a totally self-sufficient wild-man or a completely fearless, paradigm-shredding philosopher king (though that’s an exciting ideal).

But every year that passes, I feel the modern western culture smothering more than it cradles.

I am called not to fight it, nor acquiesce, but to say thanks for what it offers, then forget it. To free my attention. To make art that offers an alternative. To grow things. To saturate bodies with light. Mine and others. To be intimate with the real, the living, and those things in the world that when whispered to, whisper quietly back.

Yes, I still drift. I get sleepy, complacent. Then—thank God—I get pissed off. This time, I am welcoming the anger. For most of my life, I feared it. Thought it meant something was wrong with me. I buried my own compass in the name of being “well” or “sociable.”

But pacification, repression, rejection—these are among the primary roots of illness. Immunosuppressants that pave the road to early death. The self fights against the self, fragmentation feeds falsehood, and falsehood breeds further fragmentation.

The tension is okay. So is the rage. I’m here for the full spectrum of my inner calibration, so the karmic binds can dissolve and the world no longer needs to mirror what I refuse to feel.

I now embody and enjoy the rough edge in ways I have long missed.

I am blessed with friends who are unaffected, understanding, even encouraging. I wouldn’t tolerate any less, for what else is a friendship?

I say no to being well adjusted to what I already know is lifeless. I am here to live. We are here to live.

God’s plan — the unseen order of the all — is not ours to manage, but our conduct is. It doesn’t matter what they are doing. It doesn’t matter who they are. Friends, foes, followers, heroes. Their way is their way. Not my business. Of course, they are us. We are all connected. But us will never be me.

Whether the algorithm shapes behavior or behavior shapes the algorithm—it just doesn’t matter because my task remains the same.

My preoccupation is with the sensing and listening process right here, at home, in my belly.

This is the foundation for my life’s work.

There is plenty to immerse in, and profound commitment to that immersion seems to be the only way.

If a way of being doesn’t sit right with my cells, I will transition away from it and towards what is. This is my responsibility. Pretending otherwise will kill me slowly. I see it so clearly.

The impulse to move must come naturally, from within, as life’s geometry harmonises with my own. But forcefulness is the anti-self. Force is not power, for it always leaches more than it gives. In my world, force exists only to show me what works better. It is a barriers. An edges. A reminder not to become dogmatic or over-exert the personal will.

Because “forward with momentum” is not always the way. Sometimes, it is a cliff edge and hesitation is my wise teacher, asking me what exactly I am striving and struggling to achieve.

The base level unsatisfactoriness of being in the world, is suffering enough. Mundanity is actually totally fine and restful. A gift, even. To seek satisfaction in excess is hardly necessary and the price is usually self-betrayal. So I say, drink in the steadiness. Play with the ambitious ordinary.

I am literally and metaphorically learning to embrace the flavour of bitterness on my tongue—it keeps me grounded. I won’t chase the sweet promise of arriving later or being saved from the tedium once and for all, because I’ve seen that hidden within that wishful, gilded avoidance is a shadowy brute, waiting to devour my soul.

The return to truth often feels like passing through hell, but only because we stumbled into hell in the first place. My tendency was to fear the return more than the departure. I was afraid to wake up.

In The Aenid, Virgil wrote:

“The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth is the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies”.

Stay close to truth, and a steady, vibrant life will unfold in alignment with the soul’s natural trajectory. There is challenge in this already. The struggle will come on its own. I don’t need to chase it. I can cultivate vitality instead, and water the grass I stand upon.

I can let the demons meet me where I sit, at home on my throne. Their offers, dressed as demands, I meet with questions. Their march, no matter how obnoxious, is not my rhythm. My rhythm is my own heart and breath.

But truthfully, the demons don’t come to those who are peaceful and live with the purest intentions — even if pain visits now and then.

So, inside, I am comfortable.

I let the storms be storms while the kettle simmers.