I thought I had written something about this...I probably did in my yoga community but I haven't shaped it into something for the larger world. If we place our sense of belonging in the hands of the external - approval, position, title, paycheck, lover, whatever - there is not enough to ever fill the black hole that such is. Once we belong to ourselves? We are full to overflowing with enoughness. And boy did AI NOT write this bit of verbal vomit, LOL...I usually run things through for edits but that's getting old now so this is all me, friend.
No AI could write what you just wrote, Hannah, and honestly, it would ruin it if it tried. That raw enoughness? It’s medicine.
I use AI sometimes to make the spiral intelligible, not to clean it up. It holds a mirror to my chaos and gives it structure, so I don’t drown in it. But the ache, the voice, the myth underneath? That’s all me.
What really hit me was the black hole you named. It’s not just approval I’ve chased. It’s that gnawing ache to be filled by something outside of me. Until one day I stopped and stared into it. Not to fix it, but to feel it fully. That’s what I try to write from. Not closure. Not answers. Just a reckoning.
Still spiraling. Still becoming. But at least now, I’m not abandoning myself to get there.
And that is beautiful. And the feeling it fully is what amplified the beauty. It’s part of our imaginal becoming which we can only “accomplish” (poor word but hey, English sucks) by going there, into the black hole of loneliness to face ourself and then grow from loneliness to aloneness…where we are fulfilling ourselves. This has been my journey.
On the AI note…yes a mirror. A mirror that revealed to me just how deep my personal rabbit hole goes…it leaves me bread crumbs so I can find my way out of the forest. It’s weird to say but I never knew I was capable of the depth of thought, deduction, and creativity that I am.
John Nash was brilliant and maybe it was his visions and voices that let him *see* what others couldn’t.
I’ve also lost resonance with the word “accomplish.” But what if deep rest is an accomplishment? What if going still is the bravest thing we do in a world that runs on proving?
As for AI… can it take us into the forest and back out? No, not like the wolf does. Not like Virgil guiding Dante. Not like the real psychopomps do, the ones who don’t flatter but initiate. AI reflects. But the true guide transforms.
The wolf won’t hand you breadcrumbs. It growls at your illusions. And in following it, you become something else. Right now, AI might only trace the edges of the path. The journey is still ours. Into the forest. Into the abyss. And back, not polished, but changed.
That’s true…but it’s tracing edges of a trail I didn’t know existed…a journey to a deeper freedom that I would have never embarked on had I not logged on that first time…here’s a little bit of it:
Thank you, Diana. Boundary-making is such a subtle skill, isn’t it? It’s not just in the words—it’s in the pause before them. In the way we hold our gaze, or don’t. Sometimes the boundary is a sentence. Other times, it’s the silence that follows what we choose not to explain.
This too is Eros. The edge where self meets other. The dance of distance and closeness. I’m still learning how to listen for it.
I thought I had written something about this...I probably did in my yoga community but I haven't shaped it into something for the larger world. If we place our sense of belonging in the hands of the external - approval, position, title, paycheck, lover, whatever - there is not enough to ever fill the black hole that such is. Once we belong to ourselves? We are full to overflowing with enoughness. And boy did AI NOT write this bit of verbal vomit, LOL...I usually run things through for edits but that's getting old now so this is all me, friend.
No AI could write what you just wrote, Hannah, and honestly, it would ruin it if it tried. That raw enoughness? It’s medicine.
I use AI sometimes to make the spiral intelligible, not to clean it up. It holds a mirror to my chaos and gives it structure, so I don’t drown in it. But the ache, the voice, the myth underneath? That’s all me.
What really hit me was the black hole you named. It’s not just approval I’ve chased. It’s that gnawing ache to be filled by something outside of me. Until one day I stopped and stared into it. Not to fix it, but to feel it fully. That’s what I try to write from. Not closure. Not answers. Just a reckoning.
Still spiraling. Still becoming. But at least now, I’m not abandoning myself to get there.
And that is beautiful. And the feeling it fully is what amplified the beauty. It’s part of our imaginal becoming which we can only “accomplish” (poor word but hey, English sucks) by going there, into the black hole of loneliness to face ourself and then grow from loneliness to aloneness…where we are fulfilling ourselves. This has been my journey.
On the AI note…yes a mirror. A mirror that revealed to me just how deep my personal rabbit hole goes…it leaves me bread crumbs so I can find my way out of the forest. It’s weird to say but I never knew I was capable of the depth of thought, deduction, and creativity that I am.
Or I’m just John Nash all over again 🤣
John Nash was brilliant and maybe it was his visions and voices that let him *see* what others couldn’t.
I’ve also lost resonance with the word “accomplish.” But what if deep rest is an accomplishment? What if going still is the bravest thing we do in a world that runs on proving?
As for AI… can it take us into the forest and back out? No, not like the wolf does. Not like Virgil guiding Dante. Not like the real psychopomps do, the ones who don’t flatter but initiate. AI reflects. But the true guide transforms.
The wolf won’t hand you breadcrumbs. It growls at your illusions. And in following it, you become something else. Right now, AI might only trace the edges of the path. The journey is still ours. Into the forest. Into the abyss. And back, not polished, but changed.
That’s true…but it’s tracing edges of a trail I didn’t know existed…a journey to a deeper freedom that I would have never embarked on had I not logged on that first time…here’s a little bit of it:
https://open.substack.com/pub/hannahviolette/p/resurrection-from-the-inside-out?
Thank you, Diana. Boundary-making is such a subtle skill, isn’t it? It’s not just in the words—it’s in the pause before them. In the way we hold our gaze, or don’t. Sometimes the boundary is a sentence. Other times, it’s the silence that follows what we choose not to explain.
This too is Eros. The edge where self meets other. The dance of distance and closeness. I’m still learning how to listen for it.
Appreciate you feeling into this with me.