Fearing Fear + Invitation to Tea with Uncertainty 

The Muse is at the back door tonight.

I am waiting for her.  

I knew she would come,  

she can smell my fear.  

She does not knock,  

she just busts through  

with black feathers flying  

and a foul wind,  

Scattering leaves all over my floor.  

She straddles the chair as she does,  

green dragonflies circle her head.  

I am fairly certain I see a bat fly out  

of her blackened basket. Ugh.  

Her eyes have a look  

that makes my insides turn to liquid.  

Is that black eyeliner she is wearing?  

And red lipstick? She looks like  

death’s unruly daughter, Danger.  

Now, I wish I had gone to bed with the others,  

taken a whisky and some NyQuil  

to dull the ache rising in my gut.  

Or watched another episode of Outlander,  

eating too much popcorn. I love butter.  

I whimper a little, and this is her cue.  

She does not hiss, she levels her voice.

“Will you speak to your fear?”

I search my gut for answers.  

“I am afraid.  

Yet I feel ashamed of my fear,  

everyone tells me,  

not to be so afraid,  

to manage myself,  

not to panic, so I hide it instead.  

Then it bottles up, threatening to explode.  

It makes me feel sick  

to hide how I am feeling,  

to try to look normal in times like these."  

She nods, yawns and tells me,  

“Well, you don’t pass for normal anyway.  

Tell me, what happened today?”  

“So, I go to the store to stock up  

for the storm - it’s coming you know."  

She rolls her eyes. I clear my throat and go on.  

"A big storm, and we don’t know how long,  

how long...how long…  

Well anyway, instead of toilet paper,  

since there was none to be had,  

I stocked up on extra cake and champagne.  

And plenty of cheddar, salami and  

gluten-free crackers.”  

“Ah I see, logical apocalyptic choices!”  

She laughs and so do I, and it feels good.  

I take it as encouragement and keep going,  

my ironic tone of voice takes over.  

“No toilet paper,  

but the fancy napkin isle was full  

of chic designs…would that not  

work for toilet paper, even if you have  

to wipe your arse with a  

‘Happy 50th Birthday!’ napkin?"  

“I wonder what toilet paper represents?”  

She quips with a giggle.  

“Sh*t hitting the fan perhaps?” I return.  

“Keep going,” she says  

“I am afraid because the world  

may be coming to an end  

as we know it.”  

She hums the old R.E.M. tune  

It's the end of the world as we know it…  

“Truth,” she says, all cocky like. “And?”  

 “And because I might die.”  

 “Truth,” she says. “What else?”  

 “And because I don’t want innocent people to suffer.”  

 “Truth. And you will suffer, and so will many.  

No getting out of here alive you know...”  

I breathe, finally.  

How long had it been since I let my belly out?  

I am all knotted up, I begin to let go.  

What an f-ing relief.  

This all feels really strange,  

but so much better than whatever I was doing  

before the Muse busted through my back door.  

Out of her black basket, she pulls out a book,  

Things begin to fall out, scattering the table  

like a fortune teller spread.  

She organizes them into an odd assortment.  

Instead of reading tea leaves,  

the Muse’s journal is far more interesting.  

As if hearing my thoughts, she answers me.  

“I’m not into fortune telling, that’s so last century.  

What I am into, is what YOU see when you look.”  

“Look at what?”  

“Yes,” she replies. Oh her riddles!    

I examine all of it,  

wishing my purse was as exciting.  

A tattered red thread, a eucalyptus leaf  

a single rose petal, a sprig of lavender  

a postcard of the Black Madonna,  

a bookmark from Shakespeare and Company  

both from Paris, a very intact lizard skin,  

a teabag with licorice root  

and rolling papers.  

She hands me a little red velvet bag,  

filled with colored pens instead of pot.  

I choose the gold one, shaking it up.  

“Draw it,” she says.  

“Draw what?”  

“This fear of yours, draw it.”  

I open to a page, and it is black.  

Who has journals with black pages?  

As I draw the shape of it,  

jagged and sharp,  

My body responds.  

Soon my hand's motion dissolves  

into making spirals and dots.  

Gold confetti fills the black void.  

After what seems like a long time  

and not so long at all...  

I look up, surprised, feeling...different.  

She has my attention.  

She is always talking about this creative stuff,  

I am beginning to see what she likes about it.  

I feel changed in just that short time.  

I pour the tea,  

the smell of licorice root  

fills the kitchen.  

The dog comes in to listen,  

licking my feet.  

She begins to speak  

in a storytelling voice.  

“The problem is not fear,  

the problem is fearing fear.  

Then staying stuck in fear  

when it is time to move on.  

We do have a choice  

how long we stay in fear.  

But at first, learn to respect fear.  

Otherwise, how can you trust  

what your gut is telling you?  

Don’t shut down your intuition  

when it tells you danger is here.  

Don’t prefer instead some idealized  

spiritual-litany-dimestore-bypassing  

and call it positive thinking.  

Positive thinking can happen in the midst  

of chaos. It does all the time,  

just don’t miss the chaos,  

instead hang out in the eye of the storm.  

Look around awhile.  

So. I am here to honor your fear.  

And to give you a warning:  

Respect your fear.  

There is a place for fear in our lives.  

Be kind to yourself if you feel fear.  

Fear is not just a foe,  

fear is a friend of wisdom.  

Be mindful of telling others not to fear.  

Fear can show you where to look.  

If you avoid fear, you will miss the message.  

Some say there is only fear OR love,  

not both together. This is not so.  

We have all known fear and love  

and we shall, again and again,  

just like we are today, yet see,  

we are navigating it, now aren’t we?  

We have lived side by side  

with pain and pleasure.  

With hope and despair. Faith and loss.  

God is like this. Sex is like this. Birth is like this.  

Love is like this. Creativity is like this,  

‘both/and’ with a little ‘now what’  

and ‘how so’ thrown in, but it is not  

‘either/or’ or this or that.  

Cause and effect is so yesterday  

and so is needing it to be one way or the other.  

The seeming paradox only cancels itself  

if you invalidate one and praise the other.”  

My stomach relaxes into her telling.  

I am becoming present and my panic  

is moving away from me at a rapid pace.  

I feel trapped birds within me flying free.  

I look more closely at her and see,  

she is not in black, but dark purple,  

with tiny stars embroidered on her garment  

and a planet here and there across her shoulders.  

I had not seen them before, but now,  

they glow in my eyes. I was only looking at  

the black, not what is held within the black.  

I was not seeing what black is the context for.  

Black is the context for stars...for light.  

I get her a piece of lemon cake,  

she likes extra frosting like me.  

It tastes good with licorice root.  

We eat our cake communion in silence.  

I feel we are getting ready,  

but for what, I don’t know.  

Eventually she asks me to speak  

to how and when fear COULD be damaging.  

She wants me to get this. I speak my heart.  

“How fear can damage our life ongoingly  

is to make DECISIONS driven by fear  

over and over without seeing the messages.  

Fear itself can be a healthy response  

to cycles….like this. Ones that change everything.  

We can sit with our fear and let it inform our love.”  

She smiles, looking victorious that  

her message had gotten through. Phew.  

I am captivated by the twinkle in her eyes.  

She sips her tea and begins to speak.  

“Have tea with uncertainty  

instead of trying to tie down your plans.  

The storm is at the door already.  

Trying to be certain has never worked well.  

Tell me, the next time someone you love  

tells you they are afraid, what will you say?”  

I knew the answer, I could feel it.  

“I might say, ‘Let us plan together...  

to work through how you feel…  

Let us honor your fear...  

Instead of making how they feel wrong!  

I am their witness!!! Not their judge.”  

This is a revelation.  

Maybe I could help others  

who are afraid like me.  

She invites me outside into the dark night.  

We bring our tea, and we walk,  

for what seems like a very long time,  

up, up, up, up a hill. I have no idea where,  

and I don’t care, I am following  

a voice of reason, held within  

the great mystery of uncertainty.  

When she stops, we are atop a hill,  

looking down at our twinkling village.  

She speaks, as if speaking to all of them.  

“Does the child afraid of the dark  

call the darkness?  

Does the woman afraid of violence  

call violence?  

Does the person afraid of getting sick  

call the sickness?  

Does the devil come, because you fear him?  

Nah. That ancient trickster only shows up when  

you don’t fear him enough.  

He can be hard to spot in a crowd. Keep watch!”  

I am surprised,  

I had never heard her speak of him before.  

“Do you…. know him?” I ask, stammering,  

my fear rising up again about what she might say.  

“Ah my dear.  

I have wrestled with him a time or two,  

I have the scars to prove it.  

We all have wrestled with his ilk,  

though we call this work by different names.  

No Muse worthy of the task  

of inspiring the likes of you,  

has not faced the impossible accusations.  

She pauses then, squats low  

to the ground, feels the earth with her hands, 

scoops up something she finds and plops it into her basket with a kerplunk. She whispers now and I draw near. “No true teacher will tell you not to feel what you feel. They will instead nudge you if you revel too long in shadows. Let your choices be in love, not in fear.” “How do you get from fear to love?” I ask, concerned that I do not know the way, The sky begins to lighten. “This,” she says, putting her arm around my shoulders “is what humans are good at. Loving. Unreasonable loving. You think fear blocks unreasonable loving? It doesn’t. You just have to remember you have a choice.” “I think I forget that I have a choice.” I say. “You do, and so that is where I come in. I am here as an instigator of your creative life force, when you create, you remember who you are. When you remember who you are, and the badass ancestors you came from, you won’t stay in fear. You will move into love, because you cannot help but help. Compassion does not ask the other to agree. Compassion sees what there is, as it is. The problem with fearing fear, is you miss the message when it first arrives. And if there is something worth fearing, it will be back to warn you again. Fear will ask you to pay attention, again.” I am walking home in the morning light, carrying two empty cups. My heart is filled with the light only the shadows reveal. The rain begins to fall softly on my face and feels like love from heaven. I send love to every doorway I pass, and hope they may be so lucky as to have the Muse one day darken their doorway with bright foreboding. She comes bringing respect for fear, and an invitation to tea with uncertainty. ~ Shiloh Sophia From Muse at the Backdoor series 2020

Shiloh Sophia in front of her Anthropas painting, 2020

Note: I am reading a lot of content that is speaking against experiencing fear. As I often do, I thought I might provide a different view. I am not concerned if it is popular - I believe it is important that we do not invalidate other people’s experiences. Be mindful of the invisible frameworks, of how your spiritual beliefs about energy and existence impact your view of others and our sweet unfolding world. Not all fear impacts the nervous system the same way - we must steer away from the temptation to lump all fear responses together. False fear is not the same as valid fear. And at this time, many are experiencing a mix of both as we try to understand what is going on. The challenge arises when we become trapped in a cycle of fear, and all of our choices become fear-based instead of love-based. It’s our response to fear, not the fear itself. Our full attention is being requested. This will come with acknowledging and feeling fear, but also, a lot of love. And this is where you come in - you being the presence of love, once you have sat with your own fear and not turned your face away from it. Spend less time fearing fear and more time practicing love. This experience is entirely different than trying not to be afraid - a fool’s errand. I have fear. I also have love. We must hold the paradox. The result is deeper peace and wisdom that can inform our actions. The collective fear will also be felt by those of us who feel such things - and I do. Through creativity, my peace is the medicine I offer, informed by respecting fear, loving beyond fear, and even beyond love. I cannot find peace if I do not first have tea with uncertainty. Sending love along the Red Thread,