It’s Aries season. My sun sign: the ram, the wildfire, the confident and quick-to-anger, the seemingly bad-ass who does not want the world to know she is actually just a baby wanting to be held. Astrologically speaking, I am a believer: in stars, in foundations, in rhythms and patterns and what guides and ties us to ourselves.
There are many things that tie me to myself. I spent the end of March with my family, letting go of acres of shared land. Land can be bought and sold, stewarded, controlled, nurtured, cherished, abandoned. Because life changes and people do, I am, in a sense, losing something: land that never belonged, rightly, to me, but still I shared in its beauty; still, I loved. But with my family I did not feel a sense of loss, of losing, of letting go. Instead I felt only a sense of tethering, of rightness, of knowing where (with whom) I belong.
I am lucky enough to love those I am related to by blood. I am lucky enough to want to carry pieces of them with me. I mean this, the carrying, literally: I am always searching for talismans. Sometimes I refer to such items as stolen: I stole this sweater from my father; I stole this seashell from my mother; I stole this mug and this pencil and this hairpin and this pocketknife. By using the word stolen, I do not mean that I steal the things of the people I love because I want to have them and want the people I love not to; by using the word stolen, I mean that I take objects that (have) belong(ed) to the people I love so that I can feel closer to them. These objects I carry make me feel lighter.
Everything—tangible, emotional, ephemeral, wistful, defining—can be used to protect us, a tool, like the stars, to guide us in ways we already know in our bones are right. Identity is everything and is nothing. Objects are everything and are nothing. These words I write and the words that I read are everything, everything I want them to be. I hope in this season, of pollen and blooms and astrological wildfires, that you, too, can find comfort in what you are carrying, recognition in discovering, becoming, in choosing to be.
In this month's Contributor Conversation, we are thrilled to share Piper J. Daniel's thoughts on literary collage, up-and-coming writers, and toppling the gatekeepers. Our full conversation with Piper will be available on our website on Friday, April 15th.
Love and Light,
Heather
(she/her)
Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Champagne Room
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