Last night I attempted to tell a Samhain story that was very painful for me, and I imagine it would have been pretty damn painful for you to read.  It was honest, it was necessary…but it wasn’t time.  One day, maybe, I’ll be ready for everyone to read it, but not now.

Instead, I decided to take my holiday musings in another direction.  I had a slight emotional meltdown this past weekend…okay, it was more than slight, but at least it does not seem to have done any long-term damage other than to my reliability since it caused me to miss out on several commitments.  Still, I think my friends prefer me sane, and I certainly was not sane this weekend.

Some people have anxiety attacks.  I have what I call despair attacks.  They can be triggered by a great many seemingly minor things, but they unleash a wave of intense depression that hits me so suddenly I have almost no warning for the sobbing, self-loathing, and near-suicidal sadness that hits me.  They tend to happen over the course of a night, and the day after is hellish – at some point during the attack I essentially shut down, and spend the whole next day in something of a mild fugue state that I never remember in its entirety.

It’s rather like what would happen if you took a year of regular depression and threw it in the dryer.  It shrinks and wrinkles and is impossible to do anything with.

These attacks don’t come along often, maybe two or three in a whole year.  They almost always happen when I’m a) far past my personal inebriation limit b) alone after a perfectly pleasant evening of socializing or c) already feeling lonely and therefore vulnerable.  I have my theories as to why they happen then, but let’s just say they reflect a set of events that happened in the story I was going to tell, and leave it at that.

Now, given that I’ve experienced them before and I know they have a lifespan of about two days from onset to recovery, you might think I have coping skills in place for them, but you’d be wrong.  They are *so* very unexpected and so rare.  We’re not talking a couple of bad days here – we’re talking the kind of downward spiral that happens so fast you’ve got the gun in your hand before you even realize it.

(No, I don’t own a gun; I hate guns. That’s just a metaphor.)

However, as the current attack has waned and the world has started to regain its color and texture (I was doing really well for quite a while before the end of October raised its PTSD-addled head), I found myself reflecting not just on the weekend but on this entire year.

Samhain is a holiday of accounting, after all.  We take stock.  We bring in our harvest and we stack it up and consider if it’s going to get us through the winter.  Of course in modern society that’s almost entirely metaphoric as well; for us, harvest means going to the megamart, and even the most meager grocery store will have produce year round so we don’t have to live off tubers for six months like our ancestors did.  But even metaphorically, the year is winding down.  Everyone can feel the change of energy that swirls in uncertain clouds around the Halloween season.  And while I do hate Halloween itself, the truth is, I LOVE AUTUMN.  I love its watery energy, the chill in the air; the feeling of time slowing as it reaches the end of its yearly cycle, just before it’s about to tip over into the new year.  While I find myself very active, because living in Texas we try to move as little as possible from May through September and have to cram a lot of adventure in those few tolerable months, I can still feel the shift in the air.  If you’re watching me when I think I’m alone, you might see me sniff the air.  There’s an undefinable scent:   leaves, dead and alive; smoke; hay bales; pumpkin spice everything wafting from coffee houses.  The air itself feels heavier but at the same time sound travels through it more easily.  So many luscious contradictions, and at the heart of it, we Scorpios, lounging saturnine in our own impossibility, a whip in one hand and a chocolate covered strawberry in the other, as if to ask, “Are you willing to get this…to get this?”

This time of year I hear the Snake Mother calling me.  I have not served her in years, but She still knows my name.  And if I were to go to her, She would do exactly as She promises:  burn it all out of me, leave me clean and pure…but that purification by fire has always been too much for my poor heart.  No, I say…No, I say…and She goes, shrugging, knowing one day I won’t be able to resist that knowledge that lies beyond fear, and I’ll find her crawling through my skin again, only this time…I don’t know who might come out.

But this year, this 2011, started out so sweetly:  I had a few sacred intentions, which I could break down into goals, into projects, into actionable items, and work my way through them .  It was sensible, it could even be fun.

Life happens.

I got laid off, and my whole world did an abrupt 180.  Suddenly I went from a reliable, well-paying source of income from a job I hated and dreaded, although I loved and adored my boss; to a paltry unemployment income that might, if I was lucky, get me through five months.  The job market brought the word “vivisection” to mind.

And something in me decided…just…not to.

I decided to finish my book and see what happened.  I didn’t do anything dumb with my money, I cut back on spending, I worked on my novel, and I waited.

And money just sort of showed up when I needed it.  Ideas, connections, windfalls, they just sort of appeared–nothing extravagant, but enough to keep me going as long as I kept up my end of the bargain and wrote.  And even when it was hard, part of me knew, created a mantra, held it close:  It’s all going to work out somehow, babygirl.  Because if it doesn’t…so what?  It’s all going to work out somehow.  God will not let your kitties starve.   God will not let you starve.

And here we are, and my writing earnings have managed to keep me afloat – even paid for my new computer.  I’ve had to learn to trust the universe:  God wants me to write.  God wants me to write for a living.  This much I am clear on when I consider both my path to publication and the timing of all of this.  I just have to trust that God  isn’t going to steer me into a bog; if I ask myself, “How do I feel about this decision” and my body constricts as with fear or avoidance, the answer is NO.  If my body feels relaxed, like I’ve been untethered and am free to speak, the answer is YES.  Simple as that.

Anyway, the point I was eventually going to try to make here was that 2011 was the Dreaded Learning Experience.  In the last year I have learned so very much about myself:  what I will and won’t put up with, what I will and won’t accept in work, in love, in friendship, in religion.  It’s shown me the best ways to approach my puppy mind for lasting change, and I’ve done a lot of experimenting to find new ways to accomplish the things I never thought I’d get good at, like meditating.  I have learned so much about my strengths and limitations, and I am grateful for every moment.

Therefore, 2012 is going to be my Year of Practice – of creating the Sylvan Method for Compassionate Living, Mostly Awesome Health, and Spiritual Badassery.  In many ways I’m starting from scratch, rebuilding the daily life I want from the ground up.

My hope is to have the Spiritual Nomad course finished by the end of November to roll out on December 1; that way anyone who wants to use it to start off the year can do so, or follow along on my own adventures with the Sylvan Method and see where we all end up.  *laugh*  I’ll let you know what the plan is once there’s a plan.

For right now, however, I’m going to go to bed, because it’s 5am and though this is the first time in 72 hours I’ve been excited to write something (I started writing Shadow World Book 4 last night, just FYI), I’m having trouble focusing on the screen.

So.  More to come!  I’m about to tear the Nomad materials apart and fix them, and soon you’ll be seeing some previews of what’s to come.  Enjoy your November, my darlings!  I plan to celebrate my impending 34^th birthday with a good deal of cake and copious offerings to the Holy Booze Weasel.*

* – Me.