“Until then, you have to live with yourself”

The line above is from ‘Hell is round the corner’ a Tricky song from 1995. It popped into my mind today, an ear worm, the warning bell that the remainder of my September is going to be…well…hell.

I didn’t think I’d have to write about this again. The month in 2012 when my skull was drilled into and my brain was drained and my Self was drained and my energy was drained. But Tricky blasting on repeat on my internal jukebox and the fact I’m crying at the birds singing or at me dropping stuff on the floor or the adverts being too long on the tv means I’m currently in the territory of anniversary effect.

I used to write about this on an old blog I had, which focused on my recovery from near death and brain injury and really thought that this year I’d gotten away with it.

Not likely, the body remembers, the brain remembers, the essence remembers. Being an old hand at this makes it slightly easier, I’m aware of what is going on and know I have to buckle in and ride out the storm but that doesn’t stop it being painful and sad and exhausting.

This time of year is double edged for me, I love the early Autumn, the heavy, lazy sunshine, the slowing down yet aliveness of everything as it dies ready to lie fallow for the Winter to come. This metaphor is not lost on me, the Autumn also represents my heaviness and my time to die. I spent some of Autumn 2012 in a coma, in hospital – a liminal state you could say. This was also whilst I was moving countries, moving lives and starting again – a self imposed liminal state.

To wake up in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes with no idea of how you got there, whilst worried loved ones pace around is a surreal experience. To think about what I endured whilst unconscious is also a surreal experience. A film that played out, that starred me but I have no knowledge of what transpired during it.

September, a time of delicacy, being made of gossamer, feeling so sensitive to my own pain and everyone else’s. A time to move slowly, to honour my feelings and to become part of the earth once more. The Shadow beckons, the dark goddess, an old friend but one who will hold my toes to the fire once more.

I will emerge eventually, hair askew, face pale, forever changed, in ways I yet still don’t fully grasp but as sure as the leaves will wither and drop, I too become compost for the new growth to come.

The cave calls the hermit again and it’s time to enter.