When I was writing my first book, The Bipolar Bodhisattva, and adding all of the art, I kept thinking about how I really wanted to add interpretation to the art.  However, the book was already at the bursting point, coming in at nearly 158,000 words, well over double what most publishers will accept, and that’s for an established author.  That’s a huge reason why I self-published: I wasn’t willing (or able) to sacrifice a single word without also sacrificing the heart of my story.  I just had to accept that it’s a really long book.

After I published BPBS, I still had the art on my mind, and I needed something to busy myself.  I went through my archive of writing projects, of which there is no shortage, and found an art book I tried to write about three years ago, entitled Imagery of the Subconscious.  It was inspired by three blog posts I made in the spring of 2020 that detailed some of my art since my awakening.  By the time I got around to trying to write a book about it all, I had a great deal more art to work with.  After ignoring it for three years, I had even more.

And so my second self-published book has hatched from its egg: 

It tells part of the same story that BPBS tells, but in the language of archetypal symbology and alchemy, rather than descriptive and narrative prose.  It is also chronological in the same way my other book is, but the story is told more through imagery rather than words.  It’s also much shorter than BPBS, coming in at 100 pages and less than 11K words.  However, it’s been said that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, and in that sense, this is no less dense of a book than BPBS.

I understand why I left the project sitting for three years: I wasn’t done living the story I was trying to tell, so I didn’t understand huge parts of it.  I had to be patient and wait for this part of the individuation process to come to a close as another is beginning.  This and my other book tell the story of shedding my old, inauthentic self, but they do not yet tell the full story of who my new, authentic real Self is, because that is the new story I am living now.

Consequently, I am somewhat suspended between the person I no longer am, and the person I am becoming, who I don’t know very well yet.  I know she likes purple and doing her hair and makeup, which is very new.  I am not 100% different from my old self, of course, but I’ve spent the last eight years in therapy cherry-picking what I’d like to keep of that old self, which included some surprises, and ditching the rest to the best of my abilities.

That leaves me with a puzzle with a number of missing pieces I need to find.  I realize as I’m typing that I have a huge opportunity that most people don’t get, which is a life reboot that enables me to go out and re-experience the world essentially for the first time.  I need to do some personal examination to find out why I’m not doing this and continue to hermit away on my back porch day after day.

The obvious answer is, “the world has been unkind to me and I’ve had quite enough of it, thank you very goddamned much”.  I love the Earth in all of Her majestic variety: it’s Her dominant species I have a problem with, and yes, I know I’m included in that group.  There have been times that I’ve gone somewhere with the intention to commune with Nature or enjoy something artistic, only to leave in disappointment due to the environment and the behavior of those around me.

Not all outdoor ventures into the so-called “real world” are like that, but there have been enough of them that I now have a natural resistance to the suggestion of getting out somewhere.  My only outings consist of long drives in the countryside, which I find both stimulating and soothing in an oddly comforting way.  I think the easiest way to expand on something I’m already doing is to actually go somewhere that forces me to get out of the car and walk around.

I feel silly having to baby myself back to the ordinary world, but I can’t deny everything I’ve been though in my life, especially the last eight years, and everything I’ve had to do to effect at least some level of recovery, though I’m far from thriving yet.  I’m in the perfect place to just go exploring in my own time, in my own way.  Perhaps one day on a forest trail, I’ll find myself, who will of course have been with me the whole time.  Awareness is everything sometimes.

You can buy my book direct from my website, which puts the entire cover price in my pocket, or you can buy it through Apple Books.