Darkness and Alchemy

By Christina Kramer

The darkness saved me. Saved me from life, saved me from death, from feeling, from myself, from others, from the past, from the future, from the world, from CONTAMINATION.

But then it turns, like Jekyll and Hyde, life a werewolf, like a butterfly, and the darkness started killing me. The losses began piling up like mountains, the darkness infiltrating, inculcating, stabbing me with venomous knives tearing me away piece by piece like a starving vulture picking apart a carcass until nothing was left.

Oh! The losses are great, so great…. The loss of love. The loss of innocence. The loss of hope. The loss of people, of dreams, of opportunities, of beliefs, of values, of tears and of smiles. The loss of dandelions and Mary Janes and Eloise and baby dolls and coloring books—rainbows and fairies and angels and magic and hope and safety. When you ate pizza and cake and ice cream at your fifth birthday party and it was just food. When exercise meant playing tee-ball or catching fire flies.

So here I am.

Bereft. Without. Damaged. Lacking. Missing. Hurt. And what is the answer, the herb, the medicine?

It is unnamed—unknown.

But that I could give it to you?

Here is the tricky part: one can only gift the cure to oneself. It is not a quick cure, nor an easy cure, rather it is a complex potion with hundreds of difficult ingredients added in complicated formulas brewed over and over.

You are the alchemist. You are also the map-maker, the architect, the designer, the healer, the author, the composer of your life.

LIVE IT!