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i have a sore throat fml

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my husband cannot cook at all but he is cute

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this my lawyer im going to jail dawg

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Non est ad astra mollis e terris via

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fog at the cemetery

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täna sõin hommikuks lihtsalt natuke puuvilju, apelsini ja õuna. lõunaks tegin kerge salati tomati, kurgi ja salatilehtedega, veidi oliiviõli peale. õhtuks keetsin pastat brokoli ja paprikaga. suht lihtne, aga täitsa maitsev.

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i’ve been thinking a lot about how we tend to separate the sacred from the everyday, and how that split between “spirit” and “matter” can get us into trouble. marion woodman talked about it in one of her lectures—this idea that western culture especially has elevated spirit as something pure and holy, while treating the body (and everything “earthy”) like a second-class citizen. we see it in the myth of eve and the serpent, where matter—literally “mother”—got shoved into the realm of sin and darkness, and spirit got to float off into the realm of light.

thing is, this attitude isn’t just about a bible story. it’s also about how we view ourselves. whenever we shove down our anger or jealousy or lust or grief, telling ourselves we should “rise above” all that, we’re basically saying our human messiness isn’t acceptable. and that, i think, is where addiction often steps in. if you’re stuck in a world that doesn’t want you to feel what you feel, it’s easy to see why so many people look for ways to escape—from booze, from food, from shopping, from endless doom-scrolling.

one of the coolest parts of woodman’s talk is her emphasis on honoring the feminine as embodied in this figure she calls the “black madonna.” it’s a symbol of the divine that’s fully down here with us on earth, not hanging out on some cloud. the black madonna is strong, messy, rooted in the body and the soil, and she’s not afraid of darkness—she sees it as the place where new things are born. that’s such a radical shift from traditions that say you have to follow strict rules and keep your “bad” impulses in a box if you want to stay spiritually clean.

that brings me to organized religion and why i think it’s so often part of the problem. don’t get me wrong—there’s value in having a community and a shared set of values, especially if it gives you comfort and a sense of purpose. but in many cases, these institutions have historically doubled down on the spirit vs. matter split. they push heaven or some transcendent realm as the “real” goal while treating the earth, the body, and especially women’s bodies as corrupt or lesser. and that has huge consequences, because if you think your body (and by extension the entire physical world) is just a testing ground for your soul, you might not care about it as much. you might ignore its signals, blame it for your problems, or see it as a temptation that has to be beaten into submission.

all of this can lead to a lot of shame, fear, and guilt—sometimes to the point where people give up on themselves or adopt a hyper-judgmental attitude toward everyone else. nobody wins in that scenario. personally, i think the best way forward is to reclaim our wholeness. we can still be spiritual beings, but let’s do it in a way that doesn’t make us hate our humanness. there’s something magical about realizing that the “divine” might be right here in the sweat and tears and mud of our everyday lives, not off in some perfect sphere.

when we start to pay attention to our own bodies—listening to that inner voice that says, “hey, i’m hurting, can we slow down?” or “i’m craving sweetness, but maybe it’s not actually chocolate i want, it’s emotional warmth”—we build a bridge between spirit and matter. we learn to hold tension between higher ideals and lower impulses, and in that tension, something new arises, something that actually respects both parts of who we are. that’s what woodman calls the emergence of a “third thing” or a new consciousness. it’s that moment when you’re no longer killing off half of yourself just to stay “good.”

honestly, i believe if people stopped treating this planet (and our own physical forms) like some moral prison we’re trying to escape from, we might actually solve a lot of global problems. we’d probably treat each other with more compassion, too, because once you accept you’ve got your own messy darkness, it’s harder to judge someone else’s.

anyway, that’s what’s been on my mind lately: that maybe if we can end the war between spirit and matter—if we can embrace our bodies, our emotional depths, and the earth as sacred—we might finally find a little more peace within ourselves and with each other. it’s not an easy road, especially when so many people keep telling us we have to choose between our souls and our bodies. but i think it’s worth trying to prove them wrong.