I am me
I should be relaxing. I could be painting, but I have been overcome with a need to write. I do not hesitate when it is a need. -- I just write. So be prepared for a rambling post about the darker side of my nature and how it has inspired me.

The weekend has been amazing, full of laughing, talking, and one or two tears. Not tears born from hurt, but more tears from one who was moved by the emotion I was feeling. It's been an intense time and I will always react to intense emotion.

I met some wonderful magickal ladies, all touched by the goddess and moved by the power within them to reach out and seek others. I personally connected with one of those women on a level that leaves me feeling both delighted and a little awed. No matter how much I love the internet, there is nothing quite like a face to face, mind to mind understanding.

However, I sit here, delighting in the fact that I enjoyed the face to face communing with others this weekend, and yet another part of me is embracing and relishing the fact that that my personal space is now empty, my children in other parts of the house, and my partner sleeping our the bed with Tuatha. I am relishing my alone time. It is time for me to sift through all the thoughts, the memories, the emotions, the energies.

I realise just how much I am a creature of dualities. I am evolving, and learning to embrace a life outside of my safety zone, but if anything it serves to highlight the two halves of my 'self'.

For there within me, there are two very distinct personalities. I have always embraced them both, even though one is not particularly nice. At one time in my life, I even named this darker side of my nature and revelled in a role of witty cattiness. I have since embraced and absorded this other side of myself, but for the purposes of this post, I will use that name again. I called it 'Acid'. Acid is corrosive, stinging, cutting, cold and hard. Acid is cruel,competitive, vindictive, arrogant, controlling, aggressive. Acid is an abused child who in turn would become the abuser. Acid is the child born of a people who were separated and divided, who had their culture and heritage stolen from them by those who believed they could 'civilise' that child by forcing it to live as they do. It is the child who was told she could not. It is the child who wanted but was told no.

Acid is every hurt, every cut, every slight, every unhealed wound. Acid is intolerant and whiney, and negative -- the digger of deep dark potholes in a road that would possibly be smoother if Acid would just go away.

I used to laugh about keeping 'Acid' in a box in a dark corner of my subconscious. It was a dirty, nasty part of myself that I had to repress because it was dark and negative. It was not of love and of light, so therefore it must be wrong.

But Acid will not go away. Acid is part of me as much as my eyes are green, and my skin is fair. When that darker side is repressed or caged it can do even more harm.

The other side of my personality is kind, compassionate, empathic, and empathetic. It is shy, and yet gregarious, an eloquent writer, but sometime bubbling and stubbling speaker. It will cry during happy and sad moments in a book or movie. It is the scritcher of Kittybirds, the hugger children, and the one who will delight in play with her cats. It is generous to a fault, and often gives more of itself than is wise and healthy. It is creative, and expressive, and passionate, and honest. It is both loving and deserving of love.

The other side of my personality is nameless, yet just as distinct as Acid.

I have always said that I am a creature of fire and water, of night and day. I am by my very nature both a force of creation and destruction. Both sides are separate and distinct. You might not ever witness the Acid side of my nature, but that does not mean that it is not present. You may have been unfortunate enough to have witnessed one of those rare moments when Acid has been given free reign, and I have said or done something that has shocked you, but that does not mean that I am not also the sweet and caring soul I claim to be too.

I embrace both sides of my nature. I understand them intimately. That knowledge does not always prevent me from repeating negative patterns of behaviour over and over again, but there are times when it does. There are also times when Acid can give rise to the most powerful and beautiful creativity. There are times when I have been consumed by blind rage, and bitterness, and hurt over a percieved injustice and I have funnelled that emotion into creating an artwork of beauty. The very cruelness of which I know I am capable of is what inspires me to be gentle, and to create artworks that are both filled with peace and love.

I understand the depth of human cruelty, because I have been cruel, and I have been exposed to it. I have done some despicable things as a child and as a teenager (and on a lesser extent as an adult). If I was treated with disdain or contempt or cruelty, I would mirror it back to whomever it was. It was second nature. It was a defence mechanism and often instinctual.

But there are other times when I have been the instigator of cruelty.

I can only remember being deliberately cruel and acting in an unprovoked and thoroughly spiteful manner on a handful occassions and the consequences were soul-shattering. They were moments that terrified me and sickened me. Some of those acts, I will discuss freely, but others shame me so deeply that I will never utter to another soul what it is that I did. Instead, I hold the memory close, and draw upon the depth of emotion that was born of that experience to inspire me to be kind.

What I did I am not proud of, however ultimately they had no impact on anyone other than myself. I hurt myself far more than I did anyone else. Of this I am very sure. But these acts allowed me to understand cruelty, and to understand the depths that can be reached -- that I could reach. They were moments during the darkest days of my depression, and they were moments that scared me so deeply that I realised I needed help before I hurt someone other than myself.

Without those moments, I suspect my healing would have taken longer. Without those moments, I may have eventually harmed my children. I know I was capable of it. During my depression there were times when I had to walk away from my own child as that child stood screaming and crying, pleading for my love, but shattering my calm and pushing me closer to that point where I knew I could do harm all too easily. Even now, when one of my children say something that is unintentionally hurtful as children can do, I sometimes have to pause and breathe in order to prevent myself from saying something cruel or hurtful in retaliation. I know I could hurt them deeply. I have it in me to do so. It's there. Acid is there and acid will always be there. Just as the other side of me will always be there ... the same side that has learned how to be gentle because it has been exposed to Acid.

Sometimes it is not the outside influences -- the others who have hurt us or harmed us, abused us, raped us, controlled us and manipulated us -- who teach us the most important lessons. Sometimes the most determined and ruthless teacher is our own self. While I often credit those around me for providing me with the opportunity to learn, I often forget that I have taught myself a lot just by exploring the darker side of my nature.

The gentle me is the more dominant of my two natures, but it has learned from the darker side. It is the me that most see, but what some may not understand is that over the years I have learned to use Acid to fuel me. Every whine, every obstacle, every pothole Acid puts in front of me is a challenge that the gentler side of my nature overcomes. Acid is my harsh teacher, and I become more open to love, more willing to love, more determined to overcome and triumph with every lesson. Some of that darkness that is Acid is what pushes me onwards towards attaining my goals.

Yes, I am indeed a creature of duality and it is the knowledge and understanding of those two distinct halves that allows me to be whole, and to love, and to be loved, and to create, and to believe, and to motivate and inspire.

Again, I am not proud of all that I have done, and yes, I still do things that are often catty and petty ,and yes, cruel, but with age and awareness and understanding, those times become less. I am human, and I am going to make mistakes and in turn I will be beaten down by the remorse and guilt that I feel when I touch upon the hurt that I have created. Being empathic and feeling what others feel is ironically the rod with which I am often punished. I get back what I give, and if I hurt, I feel that hurt. It is a rather just punishment that keeps my darker nature in check ... most of the time.

While I am not proud of everything that I have done while I have lived, what I do take pride in the fact that I can embrace the darker side of my nature and have learned to use it productively. In that way, I do think I have found myself in a very 'yin yang' kind of place. Like the symbol itself, there is a real seed of beauty and magick that is born from my darker side, and while my lighter self, which can go to the other extreme of being too giving and too generous, is moderated by that little bit of dark.

I am not perfect. I am a creature of light and of dark, of love and of anger, of peace and of chaos, of creation and of destruction.

I am me.