Katy Chickels

“At Gayhead point, I wondered what it would feel like to fall.
If you raised your arms above your head like you were diving and you aimed true for the waves, wouldn’t you experience perfect freedom? That the body would land broken on the rocks below didn’t matter, because you wouldn’t be there for the landing. So you would experience only that single moment of clean, pure freedom and grace.

But then, that would be it. There would be no chance to remember that feeling and strive, for the rest of your life, to feel it again. Or to surpass it. Or to pull somebody aside and tell them what it had felt like.
There would be nothing. It reminded me of when I wanted to find out about the universe and I’d asked my father, “What was there before there was everything?”
He said, “There was nothing.”
“But what is nothing?”
“Nothing is nothing,” he said.

It was so difficult to picture. Because wasn’t nothing something too? Wasn’t the thick silence and blackness of nothing actually a place you could be?
Son, I’m tired. Please just go outside and play.
Is that what death was like?
But no, it wouldn’t be “like” anything.
I was desperate to discover what nothing felt like. It was the absence of something that attracted me. It was the start. Everything important originated with nothingness.
At Christmas, the floor could be spread with gifts, but I would be concerned only with what I didn’t get. Not pouting because I didn’t get a sweater vest, but wondering, What would have been in the box that isn’t here?
My brother inspired awe in me because he wasn’t there anymore.
I loved my mother most when she was locked behind her door, writing. Because I couldn’t have her. And because I never hugged my father, it was his embrace I sought most of all.
Where there is nothing, absolutely anything is possible. And this thrilled me. It gave me hope.
In a way, if I wasn’t having a happy childhood right now, I could have one later.”
― Augusten Burroughs, A Wolf at the Table

“The fountain that sprang with mingled blood and life in the Dark World, flows here with life only. We have passed the first cataracts, and from here onward the stream flows deep and turns in the direction of the sea. This is the Morning Star which He promised to those who conquer; this is the center of worlds. Till now, all has waited. But now the trumpet has sounded and the army is on the move. Blessed be He!”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

“Do not confuse the 'subconscious' with the 'unconscious', whose attributes include courage as well as true knowledge. A great deal of confusion has resulted from the use of these two terms as synonymous. I am using the term 'subconscious' here to stand for material -desires, anxieties, fears, hopes - repressed by the conscious mind as it deals with the outer realities of life. 'Unconscious' means the absic energy of life, that area of being beyond the ego. The subconscious, despite its hidden qualities, is really an extension of the ego. In a sense, it embodies the ego's absolute domain, that realm where it makes no compromises with reality. Because it does not concern itself with consequences the subconscious will walk you in front of a truck to avoid an unpleasant conversation. The unconscious on the other hand, balances and supports us by joining us to the great surge of life beyond our individual selves. The Hanged Man in the Major Arcana gives us a powerful image of this vital connection.”
― Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot

“I like the comfort in knowing that the Afro American invented rock and roll yet has only been rewarded or awarded for their accomplishments when conforming to the white man's standards. I like the comfort in knowing that the Afro American has once again been the only race that has brought a new form of original music to this decade: hip-hop/rap.”
― Kurt Cobain, Journals