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I have been doing a lot of work lately around listening–listening to my somatic clients at a deeper level; listening to friends with my whole self; listening to myself and my body and my needs; listening to the universe or god(s).

One way I learn to listen to those quiet guiding voices is through automatic writing. Letting the mind go very quiet, very innocent and reverent, perhaps setting the stage with a question, and then writing whatever comes, rapidly and without pausing for a single instant of doubt.

I am in India, and, when in Rome as they say. So I have developed a relationship with the goddess Lakshmi here. I didn’t have an image of her so I drew one. I got an oil lamp and incense. These prayers feel more like they reach something in me and connected to something in the universe than the anxious prayers of my childhood. But I have also asked her, what should I do? And, when I allowed myself to automatically write a response, here is roughly what came out:

I will write the story of the red thread and trust that the life I find will be there beneath me like a red carpet in the sky; I will talk about the red thread online in the ways I am afraid to do; I will have events where the red thread is featured; I will l*ve by the red thread code which I am learning now from you as I go; I will not be afraid to embody the red thread in all its meanings; it is not about avoiding religion; it is about embracing them all, fully embracing and worshiping in whatever way each person can understand it is about love love love love
thank you Lakshmi i bow to you in thanks
i will also worship at home and go out to a temple for you

I assume I meant to type an “I” where the star is, but the omission makes the word be either “live” or “love” and I like that. Love by the red thread code.

I have not yet been to a temple in her name. This part I am shy about, just like I am afraid to talk about this musical online. I am afraid to express interest in religions without fully “choosing” one, but I feel strongly that this is not the way for me. That I love pieces of them all. Can one be, not just polytheistic, but polyreligious? It seems to piss everyone off equally, and I mean everyone. Atheists and members of nearly every religion except perhaps Baha’i. But it is the only thing that makes sense to me. What if there is one truth like a brilliant cut stone and everyone is fighting over which facet of it is the real stone? All we see are edges of something much larger. The scientists too. I read chaos theory and quantum physics occasionally and there is beauty there as well.

And the musical. I am afraid to talk about it because it exposes things from my very young self, the stories I used to tell with my brother. The plushy animals I still have from back then. It feels so personal, so wild and strange. So vulnerable. But I will try to do both of these things. That is my pledge.

I could be talking about the musical, or the world, or my kitchen. We exist in overlapping circles. Currently I am in India, where I am most of the way through a six-month stay away from the U.S.

Soon I will return to Iowa to see family. I miss them. I miss friends. I miss my dog. But I will miss this place when I go, and all my dear friends and chosen family here. I will be back. The thing they don’t tell you about going to other places is the way they can start to feel like home. Suddenly your heart has more than one address. The world is tangly like that.

I am fast approaching the three-quarter mark on my creative writing MFA program and this show is my thesis project. There is still so much to do. I am writing both the musical libretto and a companion book, a piece of braided creative nonfiction combining personal story, mythology research, original mythology, and research on body-centered activism, social change, and belonging.

There is already far too much to tell, and far too much of it is still uncertain, but I have the red thread of it as Goëthe would say. There is a heart to the story now that is beginning to feel real. You know this is happening when the story has something to say that defies summary, where it is not you but the characters and events that have something to say. It is a frightening thing. I hear the voice of Andre whispering in my ear, “Tell it. Tell them the story of the red string…”