A Glorious Gallery of Message Monsters
Once upon a time, a Superball and her Deer Friend got disillusioned.
This disillusionment was a good thing, because they’d been taught that the world worked in all sorts of terrible ways. That’s a good illusion to lose.
“I was told, don’t be angry, don’t be selfish, don’t be mean, don’t be greedy. ‘Don’t be’ was the message I internalized. I started to believe I was a bad person because sometimes I was mean and sometimes I got angry and sometimes I wanted all the cookies. I believed that to survive in my family and in the world I would have to get rid of these impulses. So I did. Slowly I shoved them so far back into my consciousness that I forgot they were there at all.
“. . . Along with the so-called bad qualities, I had also pushed back all their positive opposites. I could never experience myself as beautiful because I spent so much time trying to hide my ugliness. I could never feel good about my generosity because it was just a mask to cover my greed. . . .
“Because I had worked so hard to shut myself down, I had no patience for others who might be exposing their imperfections. I became intolerant and judgmental. As far as I was concerned, no one was good enough, the world was an awful place, and everyone in it was in trouble. . . .
“At this point many of you might be saying, ‘This is ridiculous. I don’t want to find out I’m disgusting or arrogant.’ You have to remember there’s a gift in each of these aspects.”
—Debbie Ford, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers
Of course, there were lots of terrible things going on, but Everyone Who Knew Anything promised that even terrible things—like a preponderance of plastic—held gifts in their hands.
In fact, Everyone Who Knew Anything hinted that the most terrible of things held the greatest of gifts.
How can I tell if someone Knows Something? you might ask. Excellent question! Anyone who has been through something terrible and found gifts in it Knows Something.
For every single terrible thing, there’s always someone who Knows Something. You are never alone in your terrible things.
As Superball and her Deer Friend began to test this idea out for themselves (because it’s good to test things out for yourself, as even Everyone Who Knows Anything doesn’t know everything), they found that it was true: every terrible thing they had done to others or experienced themselves had given them something valuable, or potentially could give them something valuable in the fullness of time.
“That is, we need monsters not only as stories but also as messengers from that larger reality. They bear with them not just warnings but also instructions and maps. They show us what we have become, and what we can also be.
“Thus, the monsters we’ll look at are not creatures to eradicate, nor are they symbols of what we do not like. They are not things to fear, but rather beings from which to learn.”
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “Realists of a Larger Reality”
What gifts, dear Friend, have the things you’ve been through delivered to you? It doesn’t matter if they come from the most terrible things ever or from things that are only slightly sucky: it’s not a terribleness contest; it’s a good-things gathering. We can put them all in a basket and take them back to camp.
Don’t Hesitate
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give into it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Below are some of the monsters I have encountered, with their gifts, to give you ideas. Don’t worry if you encounter the same monsters and don’t get the same gifts. Monsters’ gifts tend to be custom-tailored.
Also you have to get through the initial encounter—sometimes way, way through the initial encounter—before the gifts you’ve picked up become evident. If you’re facing a monster right now, it might not be a good time to look for the gift. First focus on looking after yourself and your loved ones as best you can.
If a monster won’t leave you alone, find someone who has gotten that monster’s treasure and wants to help you do the same. Reminder: there is always such a someone.
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Ready? Come through this In Tree to my garden gallery.
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Terrible thing: Getting bent out of shape
Another terrible thing: Feeling (like) too much
Gift: A spell for turning humans into trees
“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
“The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
—Ram Dass
Gift: Drawing attention to something important
“The retreat facilitator said something I will never forget.
“ ‘All of your so-called faults, all the things which you don’t like about yourself are your greatest assets,’ she said. ‘They are simply overamplified. The volume has been turned up a bit too much, that’s all. Just turn down the volume a little. Soon you—and everyone else—will see your weaknesses as your strengths, your “negatives” as your “positives.” They will become wonderful tools, ready to work for you rather than against you. All you have to do is learn to call on these personality traits in amounts that are appropriate to the moment. Judge how much of your wonderful qualities are needed, and don’t give any more that that.’ ”
—Neale Donald Walsh, in the forward to Debbie Ford’s The Dark Side of the Light Chasers
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Terrible thing: Not listening or not being heard
“I’ve always thought that the best way to truly know a person is to listen to them. Not just to what they say, but to what they don’t. All sorts of secrets are neatly tucked inside the silent gaps between words. The simple act of listening is a forgotten act in our loud world.”
—Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker
Gift: Discovery of unheard-of treasures
“I feel like a really dizzy—happy—pinball.
“. . . This is what it’s all about. The moments when we are faced with why we chose this strange job; the loud and joyful reminder of what happens when music pulls us out of ourselves and into one another.”
—Amanda Palmer, “Meeting Robert Smith . . .”
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Terrible thing: Being indoctrinated to indoctrinate others
“I was too young at that point to know this was ‘wrong,’ that I was doing something shameful and immoral by coming out of the womb showing my genitals. Fortunately, there were others to fix that for me, to make sure I was ‘decent’ and no longer offending anyone with who I was.”
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “Naked: The Body and the Eros of the Earth”
Gift: Escape to true sanctuary and bone-deep understanding of the value of freedom, physically and mentally, for myself and my loved ones
“I was nude in a sauna with twenty other people, only one of which I knew, and this didn’t seem like a strange thing at all. Of course we were all naked, because we were in a sauna and it makes no sense to have clothes on for that. Breasts and scrotums and bellies and other things were all dangling, unsupported by all the bindings we impose on them to be ‘polite,’ and that’s just how it is.
“The old women and the old men, the younger men and the younger women, and all of us in between were naked, and we were beautiful because we were bodies.”
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “Naked: The Body and the Eros of the Earth”
Another gift: Sole, alight
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Terrible thing: Spreading poison
Gift: A beauty unique to the magical soul who approaches with the proper care
Another gift: Protection
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Terrible thing: Being lost
Gift: Finding a matching place
“Home will find us just as much as we will find home.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
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Terrible thing: Slowing down
Gift: Seeing more
“Cancer patients don’t complain about aging. ‘I’d love to look like that someday,’ I whispered to Meg, when on our walk last week, we saw a woman with so many wrinkles her face looked like a road map to heaven.”
—Andrea Gibson, “Love Notes from the Chemo Room”
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Terrible thing: A predator lying in wait
Gift: The exquisite allure of danger or release
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Terrible thing: Death
“The old story has to die before the new one can be born.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
Gift: The gathering of a new story in the broken pieces
“We all need someone in our lives to tell us not to think. It seems especially a pernicious curse on writers, because we’re always thinking. The few hours it takes to actually write an essay is overshadowed by the hundred and maybe thousands of unguarded minutes in which thoughts are strung together, and then unstrung, and then restrung into other threads.
“Friends are a good cure for overthinking, and this one particularly.”
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “Naked: The Body and the Eros of the Earth”
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Terrible thing: A pile of shit
Gift: More of a gathering story
Another gift: Nutrients
Another gift: Bounty
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Terrible thing: Missing important parts
Gift: Regrowing important parts
Gift: Soaring even without important parts
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Terrible thing: Chemicals
Another terrible thing: Pollution
Gift: A magic cat’s rainbow sheen, in which to view a triumphant future
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Terrible thing: Having no means to fly at all
Gift: Firsthand knowledge of the secrets of the earth
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Terrible thing: Being thin-skinned
Gift: Molting
Another gift: Authenticity
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Terrible thing: A bridge collapsing
Gift: Better connection
Another terrible thing: The threat of getting squashed
Another gift: Yum, squash to come, buttered up and fried!
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Terrible thing: Being fried
Another gift: Heroin without I
Another gift: The wild coming through
“What is seeking you?
“You do not have to go the whole way on your own. You only have to take the first step. ‘It’ will meet you along the way, and you will recognize each other like old friends.”
—Kim Krans, The Wild Unknown Journal
“There comes a point, a transition point, a phase transition, where you’re no longer trying to hold or contain the wildness or the emergence. ‘Okay, now we’re going to do open space for two hours. And then we’re going to get back to the program.’ But when the wildness takes over, you lose control. . . .
“It comes in spite of your efforts to do it well. It’s not something that we can do. It’s something that happens to us. And the only doing for us is that moment of realization and surrender. I surrender into not knowing.
“. . . We don’t have to know how.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
Another gift: Catching that fish
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Terrible thing: Falling
“In fact, it is necessary that it seem dangerous before you take the step into the unknown. And in a sense, it is dangerous. Because the unfamiliar world corresponds to unfamiliar parts of yourself. In other words, you will change. Change is a form of death. There’s a letting go. You get to decide when you’re ready to let go. And you will not be punished for holding on longer or shorter than somebody might believe you should.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
Gift: Getting picked up
“If I pay attention to you right now, something of you enters me. And forever after my navigation of the world, my response to the world includes something of you that has entered into me. . . . If you pay attention to the right thing, it can enter your body as medicine.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
Another Gift: Serendipity
“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would come his way. Whatever you can do, or you can dream, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
—W. H. Murray
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Terrible thing: Falling for someone disquieting
“When you love someone, you can’t just turn it off, there isn’t a switch.”
—Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker
Other terrible things: Jealousy and clinginess
Gifts: Boundaries, protection, and the titillation of admiration from an introspective distance
“What I really wanted to say is that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.”
—Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Another gift: Seeing through a veneer of threat to a whole person
“There’s always more to the story. . . . So instead of asking ourselves, Why don’t I have that?
“We should instead ask, What does it realistically take to get what they have? And do I want that?
“Because the answer might be no. . . .
“So, what kind of life do you want? . . .
“When you think this way, you create something good. Something yours.”
—Jason Feifer, “How to Stop Envying What Other People Have”
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Terrible thing: A trespasser
Another terrible thing: A thief
Another terrible thing: A big spider who, upon being discovered in my hair, skitters, panicked, into my ear and back out, leaving us both, after the ensuing chaos, frozen in shock
Another terrible thing: A feeling of being followed
Gift: A new friend, weirdly familiar, to share treasures with
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Terrible thing: Love withheld
“One friend in particular became really close. We hung out a lot—regular dinner or drinks, a lot of texting through the week.
“Then she started to disappear. She’d cancel on me last-minute or take longer to reply. Soon we’d gone from hanging every week to every month. Then longer.
“What was happening? Oh, I had theories. She found me annoying? Exhausting? Needy? Whatever it was, I believed she was pushing me away. I didn’t want to ask why, because that would only make things worse, right?”
—Jason Feifer, “Anxiously Waiting for Someone? Here’s How to Feel Calmer”
More terrible things: Loneliness and neediness
In any moment
on any given day
I can measure my wellness
by this question alone—
Is my attention on loving
or is my attention on
who isn’t loving me?
—Andrea Gibson, “On Being Colorado’s New Poet Laureate”
Another terrible thing: The way obscured
Another terrible thing: Dimming wearily
Gift: Beeing lit within
“The story is: You reached out to someone. You sent them something or asked for something. They haven’t replied.
“But the story is also: That person has a lot going on. You’re one of many things they must think about or respond to.
“. . . And although they have other priorities, that doesn’t mean you’re unimportant.
“You are simply not part of their story. Not right now.
“And that’s OK.
“Because while you wait for them, you can do other things. Because they’re not the only person with other things to do! And one day, as you’re doing these other things, they will finally make a damn decision—at which point, they will re-enter your story.
“And in this way, your story was never on pause.
“You are always living it.”
—Jason Feifer, “Anxiously Waiting for Someone? Here’s How to Feel Calmer”
Another gift: Having the whole place to myself
Another gift: The ineffable potential of the Moon, filling an empty chair, the more profound for lack of chatter
Another gift: Scintillating songs of stars, uncomplicated by baser dramas
“There was a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke, and I wondered if the nice man was secretly made of stars. His chair was covered in them after all, and Nana was right about most things.”
—Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker
Another gift: Secluded shelter among wise elders
“When we reconnect with our whole selves, it’s virtually impossible to feel lonely, isolated, or left out.”
—Debbie Ford, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers
Another gift: Love expressed after long hesitation
“Something happened that day. It wasn’t something you could see or explain, but it was there. You could feel it. . . . We learn to love regardless of whether there is anyone in our lives to teach us how. Love is as instinctive as breathing, but we don’t have to give it away. Like our breath, we can hold on to it if we choose to. But not forever. Because then it starts to hurt.”
—Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker
Another gift: A destination brimming with mystery
“And there’s always a place of latency, the space between stories. . . .
“Imagine you’re a baby being born. ‘Okay, what do I have to do?’ A tremendous process is underway, you’re being ejected from the womb, your whole world is falling apart, you’re getting pushed and stretched and squeezed.
“. . . But if you were a stillbirth, the birth would be a lot harder. The aliveness of the baby being born is actually helpful to the birth process. And the same is true of our aliveness.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
Another gift: A new lease on life
It was here that my arms
Found the you
That was for me
—Amanda Palmer, from “The You”
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Terrible thing: Being adrift
Gift: A dock
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Terrible thing: The way becoming rocky
“I’ve worked with so many good people who suffer from various dis-eases . . . addiction, depression, insomnia, and dysfunctional relationships. They are people who never get angry, never put themselves first, never even pray for themselves. Some of their bodies are riddled with cancer and they don’t know why. Buried in their bodies, stuffed far back in their minds, are all their dreams, anger, sadness, and desires. They were raised to put themselves last because that is what good people do.”
—Debbie Ford, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers
Another terrible thing: A rocky way becoming altogether hazardous
Gift: Rock rising
“Life knows what to do. . . . The mistakes are not mistakes. They won’t achieve what they intend to achieve, but they are part of the process of that thing that we yearn for, that we call for, coming to us, moving through us, that we do not know how to achieve.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
Another gift: Surprise guidance
“When the mind is puzzled, a wonderful thing happens—it seeks answers in a new and unknown space. This is the essence of creativity.”
—Kim Krans, The Wild Unknown Journal
Another gift: Genuine appreciation
“Try to remember the last time someone you know messed up in a similar way.
“For example, did you say something awkward in a conversation, and now you’re beating yourself up over it? Try to remember the last time someone else said something awkward in a conversation.
“My bet: you can’t. Because you don’t care about someone else’s screw-up. And if you don’t care, then you don’t remember it. Which almost certainly means they don’t care about or remember yours. . . .
“So what do they remember? They remember how you help them. How you care for them. How you show up for them. They remember what you usually do, not the outliers. Which is to say—they remember what happens when you stop obsessing over worst-case scenarios and put that energy towards doing the things that are truly worth remembering.”
Jason Feifer, “How to Stop Obsessing Over Your Mistakes”
Another gift: Similar-spirited friends of an island all our own
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Terrible thing: Things not working at all
Gift: A dream persevering, presiding over new endeavors
“Sometimes we have to let go of what we had in order to hold on to what we’ve got.”
—Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker
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Terrible thing: A bad day at work
Another terrible thing: Financial problems
Another terrible thing: A cheating partner
Gift: A good cup of tea (or coffee)
“My mother has always been of the belief that a cup of tea can solve almost anything. Bad day at the office? Have a cup of tea. Struggling to pay the bills? Have a cup of tea. Find out that your husband is cheating on you with a twenty-year-old harpist? Cup. Of. Tea.”
—Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker
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Terrible thing: The hot seat
Gift: Adaptation to heat
Another gift: A hole to crawl into
Another gift: Salt of the earth (or sea)
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Terrible thing: Feeling like an empty hole surrounded by bright and vibrant things
Another terrible thing: Being a shell or shadow of one’s former self
Gift: Room for a flood of gold
Another gift: Room for a flood of the very essence of life
Another gift: Being someone’s home
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Terrible thing: Drowning in darkness
Gift: A point of light
A lonely drowsing cabin catches and holds a glint,
For one how endless moment,
—D’Arcy McNickle, from “Man Hesitates but Life Urges”
Another gift: Another point of light
Another gift: Light intoxication
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Terrible thing: Overwhelming intoxication
Gift: Fertilization
Another gift: A soft blanket of darkness
Another gift: A moonshadow gateway
Another gift: Shadow friends
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Terrible thing: Being brutally cut down
Another terrible thing: Pain
Another terrible thing: Being broken and twisted
Gift: Dancing like no one has ever danced before
Another gift: Self-trust
“. . . I have to learn to trust my body. I have to listen to it, to understand it, to speak its language and hear its voice.
“But this is a funny thing, because while I write about my body as something external or different from me, I’m really just talking about myself in the third person. I am my body, but decades of being estranged from it makes it still difficult to speak of this in other ways.
“So . . . I have to learn to trust myself.”
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “Naked: The Body and the Eros of the Earth”
Another gift: Healing
Another gift: An ability to understand
“If it would be cathartic for you to write about the bad thing that happened to you, chances are it will make someone feel less alone to read it.”
—Me, in response to a friend who was wondering whether to share a story publicly
Another gift: A blank slate from which to say, You are not alone.
Another gift: Rebellious regrowth
“And I’ve been waking up to so many parts of myself that have been artificially asleep, comatose, paralyzed for years without my quite noticing what was getting cut off.
“Pins and needles again. Waking.
“Waking and walking to the lighthouses.
“I’ve been coming to the dawning and disorienting realization that I was under quietening blankets and muffles I didn’t know had come in to cover the experience of my heart.
“It feels like breathing sweet, fresh air after being in a locked car for years. To be able to freely laugh, to sing without fear, to dance uninhibitedly, to express joy among friends without the weight of crackling fear.”
—Amanda Palmer, “Meeting Robert Smith . . .”
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Terrible thing: Fearing that something is always about to blindside me if I drop my guard
Gift (dialed back a notch): Cautious, measured inquiry leading to safety and/or experience of rare phenomena
“To be a ‘realist of a larger reality’ is thus not only to dream of something different from what is, nor is it to be lost in the spectacle of the world of representations. Instead, it’s to see the scene presented to you as well as what created the scene. It’s to see not just the Instagram picture but also the camera with which it was taken, the person holding the camera, the staging and posing beforehand, and all the discarded shots afterwards. It’s also to see the social media network itself, the influence of ‘influencers’ and the algorithms that determine which images you see and which ones you never do.”
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “Realists of a Larger Reality”
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Terrible thing: Feeling blue
Gift: Going a new (or very old) way
“And you won’t have to have some Lakota guy come and tell you that there’s nature spirits all around you, and you pretend to believe it to make yourself look good in his eyes. You won’t need to do that. And you’ll know exactly what to do, over time, as you become more friendly with the spirits, more attuned to them.”
—Charles Eisenstein, “On ‘Creating’ Culture”
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Terrible thing: Feeling exposed
Gift: Eliciting admiration
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Terrible thing: Being shut out, the way blocked
Gift: Persistent, respectful inquiry
Another gift: New friends
Another gift: A rare view
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Terrible thing: Drought
Gift: A secret spring guarded by a stingy friend
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Terrible thing: Mosquitoes
Gift: Bloodsucker-eaters
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Terrible thing: Feeling diminished
Gift: Opening to something new
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This brings us to the end of my monstrous gifts (for now). See you again for our next adventure, coming soon.
This post has been for everyone. Paid subscribers can access an audio version—me reading it, with unscripted descriptions, visitors, and interjections—below this line.