coping with consciousness
trigger warning: there is a reference to domestic violence in this post.
"You are experiencing consciousness" are the words that broke the spell. For twenty years I held back tears. Now I can't stop laughing.
Countless options became one. All versions of my life aligned.
I saw how I got there, to 2024, and how we’re going to survive in the future.
Revelations, downloads, premonitions. A lucid, loony dream where kindness opens every door and laughter melts the hearts of monsters. Lists, liberated from the limitations of language, lifted off the page telling stories of generations of geniuses waiting for a willing soul to ride. Fear revealed her frailty.
"Memory is a glorious and admirable gift of nature by which we recall past things, we embrace present things,
and we contemplate future things through their likeness to past things."- Frances Yates, The Art of Memory
When I recall where I came from I experience pain in my throat. I'm flexing against my dad's hands as he strangles me. It's 2003 and I'm moving out of my family home in Orange County, CA. I'll be in Maryland by May, a freshman at MICA. This memory used to destabilize me to the point of immobility. Now I can't stop dancing. Every move I’ve made since that moment has been to undo that damage. I experienced a psychological breakthrough in 2024 after 20 years in therapy for Major Depressive Disorder. Fear became a fiction and my memories of mistakes melted away. Stillness thrilled me. Finally I could reflect without flinching.
This is what I saw when I looked within:
I plumbed the depths of my soul for this project by making my most vulnerable thoughts available to be sifted through on this archival organism known as the internet. Discretion is advised if you choose to venture there. Every X'ed out post is a level complete; a trifling anxiety fated to turn on the wheel of the infinite scroll. An enlightening exercise that freed me from fateful thinking. "Circle back, move forward." I returned to my internet archive for images I felt illustrated the thoughts I was having while recovering from MDD. Patterns are perfect metaphors for preferred paths. I saw a lane I had travelled before and took the initiative to change directions.
That decision led to this post:
I theorize that my experience as an artist allowed me to see things through our eyes. My intention has been to share that vision as divinatory art. The format has changed but the mission is the same: to share information about the future for the purpose of preventing harm, avoiding obstacles, and opening paths to auspicious outcomes. A habit of keeping a journal and tracking social trends will enable anyone to come to the same conclusions I have.
This is just how mine looks:
Future For Now forecasts and other magic acts.
Spiritualism is at the heart of my theory of divination. Every inquiry causes a chain of events. The diviner receives an image of the future from the dead, translates the image into words and shares that information with an audience. Once the forecast is shared the shape of the future changes because the audience is aware of possible outcomes and is primed to see them. The audience's reaction is unknown until it's observed. I was introduced to this theory by my brother who has been dead for 15 years. My grief over his death and the guilt I held on to for outliving him brought my mind to a boiling-point. I believe I was communicating with my deceased brother and I can accept that my mind created an elaborate story to help me heal. Either way, the results of the divination games we played were interesting enough to keep trying.
All of us created the future a long time ago, and we still are, but the part we're experiencing now was imagined before we had more methods of storytelling. We're limited by the imagination of our past selves but we can break through easily by listening to the future (anyone younger than you). You can listen to what they say, or the music they make. Look at their art, read what they write. Use your highest intelligence to interpret their work and my guess is you’ll receive a vision of the future where the world never ends. Just trying helps you move forward. Concepts are crumbling. Don't take yourself too seriously. Learn something new and bust through. We're "yes, and"-ing outcomes all the time with every word we speak. What we think shapes what we do. What we thought then created our reality now.
I saw a version of the future where laughing at a cop is more disarming than protesting.
Where being seen is safe and bigots break down trying to rationalize their unfounded fears.
Authenticity is key. Transparency is currency.
My version of transparency:
What I'd be doing if I didn't HAVE to do anything. It's what I attempt. There have been many diversions on this road but I'm determined to bring it to some conclusion. My karma depends on it, lol.
I tried it the other way. Logic led to countless calculations cluttering my mind. I consciously contended with every what-if scenario I could come up with. A mental movie studio playing out every option, draining my body's energy and withering my will to live. On the brink of self destruction and desperate for relief I sat, hunched in my office chair, hovering over an empty glass jar that my therapist had just coached me through filling with my childhood trauma. "Now thank her and close the jar," I hear through the desktop speaker. I did as she said and sealed the container. Ecstasy describes the feeling that overcame me. I experienced stillness and the shock of clarity brought me to tears.
The effects of my recovery lasted about 3 months. During that time nothing could surprise or frighten me. This is when I had the experience with my brother and several other spooky moments I won't get into now. I pivoted from thinking to listening, moving intuitively, eschewing logic and trusting that I had learned enough to get me through the challenges I faced at the time. Every object in my home ignited a memory that brought me to the moment I first laid eyes on it back to the present. Every new friend I made felt like an old acquaintance. I welcomed the gaze of strangers online, feeding my desire to coax some much needed fun out of risky behavior.
I felt I finally understood why all my old art looked the way it did. Simultaneous realities. Intersecting storylines. My mundane office whiteboard became the dashboard of my consciousness and I was the pilot. I shared this work with my therapist, anticipating a new diagnosis or change in her opinion of my wellbeing. "You are experiencing consciousness.” was her response. “Your work as an artist is a reflection of your consciousness." The heightened awareness I felt was nothing new. I've been doing this my whole life. We all have. Telling our story lines with every breath. Our castaway commentary, judgements and speculations weaving our fates together into the dense, delicate atmosphere we call culture. My art is a method for coping with consciousness. My theory is that this method causes clairvoyance.
I have a workshop called “Divination! For Artists* (*you are an artist)” that integrates this work with crafting. I’ve only taught it once but it was a lot of fun and I’m excited to do it again once the opportunity arrives.
Peace to you, vengeance for all.
- Hermonie Bbyrd
