The In Between Journal, Fall 2023

The In Between A JOURNAL BY VISIONARY BABELORD

REFLECTIONS OF THE FALL A series of personal journal entries about spiritual and otherworldly encounters

A Woman’s Allegory

Dreams & nightmares

Art and other works to get you thru hell

FALL 2023 ISSUE 1

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Contents

1

5

REFLECTIONS OF THE FALL

15

A FAIRYTALE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

11

AN ALLEGORY FOR WOMEN: SEEK & YE SHALL FIND

16

BOOKS THAT HEAR YOU

13

DREAM LANGUAGE

17

A FILM THAT SEES YOU

14

SONGS TO GET YOU THROUGH HELL

18

PODCASTS FOR LISTENING

On Art and Revolution: A Renaissance “The role of the artist is the role of the lover: if I love you I have to make you aware of the things you do not see.” - James Baldwin

I write as I receive.

Over the past year and a half, I was deeply immersed in an experience that challenged everything I knew about God, love, and my Self. It brought up old beliefs, and a version of God that I long thought was dead. Through the depths of this experience and through shadows of myself, I found an intimate love revealed through conversation and poetry.

This is not the art or revolution I intended.

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“The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a true revolutionary lacking in this quality.” - Che Guevara

That main body of work, called “Poems About God” is large, and is still to come. This work is the in between.

It is the transition period that serves as a reflection of what has just passed, and stands in an anticipation of what is forthcoming.

The bulk of this collection is simply an amalgamation of entries from my personal journal. All of the writing featured in this issue was written in October. It is the first of at least two journal collections I intend to release.

Some housekeeping: When I hear words spoken to me or through me that seem to originate from some Other, I write them in italics.

When God speaks, he speaks in bold italics centered to the page.

When Jesus speaks, he speaks in red italics centered to the page.

Mercedez WRITER & ARTIST

The In Between I gasp.

“I can hear God.” I exclaim. ...But are you discerning?

I am going backwards now, as a final attempt to move forward. I am trying to locate myself in history, in myth, in the collective evolution of our psyches and the roles we play within the Gods we serve.

It is too heavy - the invisible force that reckons with me. It holds my body down as I sleep.

Traps the air in my chest at my wake. I want to scream.

What beliefs have brought me here, now? What must I be rid of? Who owns my body? Who commands my submission? What battles for my soul?

Who tells me to rise, and take a stand.

On what do I stand?

SPEAK.

I summon my deep courage. I am a woman on the run - no, I am a woman on the hunt. On her way back to herself.

I am coming back with the fire, the elixir of knowledge for which I descended. This is not the journey I expected.

Why did you ask? Why did you have to know? What did you see? What was left unseen? My limbs shake. I have been broken. I fall again. What can I possibly do right?

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Noah was in the belly of the whale, running from God. I am reminded as I turn over, restless, half awake, half asleep, sleeping without peace. I mutter to myself.

And unconsciously something mutters through me, He tried to hold back the word of God.

Do not attempt to keep the word of God to yourself.

Speak, and be at peace.

I want to throw away my vision, I want to close off my hearing. What world did you dip me in? How may I be brought out!

Jesus appears again. My body has been marked with the stripes of Christ. He has anointed me with his own hand. But it is not his blood that I have been anointed by, but rather his light. A silver, powdery, glowing light.

And when I attempted to bow, he told me to rise: There is a time to surrender, and a time to take a stand.

I have been pushed to full submission. I was bound, and left writhing by my own hand. Fine. I gasped. How can I outrun you? What will do I have left on my own? Have all of me: heart, body, and soul. Take it. Make it your own. Do what you will. What do I know? Do what you will.

SPEAK.

REFLECTIONS OF THE FALL A SERIES OF JOURNAL ENTRIES

October 14, 2023

You are not allowed.

I sit at the cafe, trying to regurgitate, summoning any capability of detachment I can muster. How do I detach and tell the story as an observer? Every memory I call out of myself brings with it the taste of its emotion, of its burning desire to be - to take its fullest form. I want to scream. I want to shout.

Don’t you see what I’ve found!? I don’t want pity. I want celebration. I want to be proud. I want to dance in a field of orange, red, vibrant pink. I want to wear a flower crown. That love that I lost, that love that I found! Beyond the fields of right and wrong… I want to put it on display. I want to dance in the street; I want to sing!

Some voice tells me.

But I bite my tongue, I clog my throat. My hips stay still.

My mind whirls.

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You are not right.

In no one’s eyes can you be right.

You are not just forbidden, You are the worst of its kind.

You are disgusted.

You are a traitor.

What of love do you know?

Only love for yourself, truly.

To be so happy about a sinful thing.

To love is to suffer.

You would dare take glee?

But I am not punished anymore. Jesus met me in the field. I gathered the stones to myself. Pebbles smoothed over. By water. By tears. I tossed them in the air. They fall around me, bruising nothing. Jesus asks me, Do you celebrate because you are innocent, or because you got away with it?

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I remember the vision. In another, I bend down, picking up one of the oval stones.

With its tip I write a message.

I whisper into the ground. I stand and look to the horizon.

For what shall I be hunched over, morose, and begging?

Even in my failure, love reigned. Good came through.

For myself, how can I dare take pity? How can I dare pout? My God makes every promise come true. He gives and he takes. What has ever belonged to me? What has ever been in my power to steal? Unencumbered by the world, I dance free. What do I prove, by pretending that I am not happy? My God has taken and given over and over again.

The Goddess speaks, You hide your smile like you hide your power.

WE LOOK TO THE SKY AND SEE FIRE COMING DOWN TO CONSUME THE EARTH. AND WE THANK GOD. WE THANK GOD FOR THAT. INSHALLAH. AMEN. SO BE IT. IF GOD WILLS IT, THEN SO BE IT. October 21, 2023 I cannot write the story. I cannot sell a fantasy to the masses purporting myself as a victim of my loss of senses, of my misplaced passion and selfish heart. I cannot sell illusion.

Can I dream up a story worthy of Him? I remember His words, in October of yesteryear. Along with those warnings. That conviction that shuddered through my bones.

You will attempt to trade your heart and soul for fool’s gold.

You will be used for everything.

You will take pleasure in the game.

You will catch and release.

Your spirit belongs to no man, no status, no quote.

There is nothing here that can be bought or sold.

Conviction, a sentence, and that fear - often it is stronger in memory than those words of grace, of love, and of acquittal. I see this in the world at large.

There must be a part of us that holds on dearly to a sneaking and pervasive belief that we have not suffered enough. That we, must somehow, still deserve punishment. That it is rightful, it is justful for there to be punishment. For there to be destruction and desecration.

We look to the sky and see fire coming down to consume the Earth. And we thank God. We thank God for that. Inshallah.

Amen. So be it. If God wills it, then so be it.

Collectively, we have earned much pain. Much suffering. We are reminded. The underbelly of our society is turned over. There is much to be ashamed of.

The light we have become accustomed to is glaring. It is exposing. It is damning. We shrink away. We do not want to be seen by it, lest we are burnt to a crisp in all of our inequities. The stink of our sin seeps through our skin.

The sewers of our cities are failing, bursting from below the ground and bringing with it the atrocities we sought to bury. We cannot rest. We beg this light, the sun, this God, to turn away from us. To allow us our contrived peace.

But, what is this part of us that secretly celebrates, that receives satisfaction from our mutual exposure and annihilation?

Grace, beauty, Love… in its truest form, is a soft light. Much like the moon. Glowing, gentle, and waiting to be received. It is not proud or boastful. It does not command. It does not force.

In its presence, there is no shame or damnation. It does not celebrate our defeat, but provides respite even in the depths of our wickedness. It is not the sun, but it is in its reflection. It is a delicate, soft, ethereal orb. The petals of a rose. A breath of fresh air. The cool relief of a stream. The lush green moss below bare feet.

For what, preserved?

have

I

been 7

October 22, 2023 So, you see, now I am afraid to write the story... if secrets are truly treasures, can I be trusted with this?

I think of that scene in Harry Potter. When he comes to meet Albus’s brother, Aberforth, fulfilling the quests that Albus instructed him before his death. Aberforth questions Harry and questions the sanity and character of the person that sent him on this journey in the first place. He exposes his secrets - the ways he’s led others he claimed to love, even his own family, to their deaths.

In pursuit of his own mysteries, his own power, he has sacrificed much and many. Would you trust this man, even then?

And Harry responds, unshakenly, saying something like: “I do not care what happened between you and your brother. I trust the man that I knew.” This faith, this belief and the admission of it, even in the face of his unknown fate, is the key that opens the door. And behind the door is someone to guide Harry to the final stage of his quest. But let us rejoice - for unlike other parts of the journey, he does not do this alone: his entire tribe is waiting for him.

Harry returns to Hogwarts, ultimately giving himself up to death.

Death is always a solo mission. The living can bear crucial witness, but cannot go with him. But once one chooses to give up their life as a rightful sacrifice, a place is prepared for them. The underworld’s spirits are sent to usher him. And he will be met once again, on the other side, by precisely the person with whom he placed his trust in.

With whom do you place your trust in?

DEATH IS ALWAYS A SOLO MISSION. THE LIVING CAN BEAR CRUCIAL WITNESS, BUT CANNOT GO WITH HIM. BUT ONCE ONE CHOOSES TO GIVE UP THEIR LIFE AS A RIGHTFUL SACRIFICE, A PLACE IS PREPARED FOR THEM.

I hold on for love. I hold on because I still do not fully understand. I hold on because I am perhaps just coming out of the wilderness from which I came through. Because I feel, perhaps foolishly, as though the quest is not yet complete. And if I certainly do “know” deep down, it is because I want to embody and establish the wisdom in my conscious mind and in my waking life. I want to bear fruit. The juiciest fruit - a healing tonic - an elixir of life.

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Last night I read the story of Jacob’s wrestling with God. At the end of the wrestling, the angel dislocates Jacob’s hip. I go to sleep with this story in mind. And in the middle of night, I feel a pain in my hip. A slight stinging discomfort.

Again this morning Jacob’s story appears to me in the final chapter of Bell Hooks’s All About Love. In the form of an angel, Jacob wrestles with God. The angel appears to him in the wilderness and, as Bell tells it, just after Jacob meets his soul mate, and deep within the arduous journey of returning home to her.

Jacob wrestles with the angel and does not let go until he receives a blessing from it. This analysis gives me much satisfaction. It is said that “The fool that persists in his folly becomes wise.” In the depths our of wilderness - our journey through arrogance and ignorance - there is a perseverance in knowing that this, even this, must transform us. I cannot let go until some soul wisdom is retrieved, until it has taught me what it has to teach me.

Through my arrogance I sought enlightenment. I endured the pain because the pain is the price of mastery, or the tonic for which I descended. The wisdom is retrieved in the wrestling, but the blessing is obtained in the act of letting go.

The blessing that the angel gives Jacob is also accompanied by a wound. Because Jacob is strong and keeps holding on: the angel dislocates Jacob’s hip and blesses him to be free of him. Then the angel is gone, and Jacob’s journey continues, but he is forever changed.

I feel as though the Biblical story does not take enough time and words to explain this change. He claims that he experienced the felt presence of God, and perhaps that gave him the faith and strength to carry on. But why the wound?

For innocence, says Bell. For innocence.

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October 23, 2023 The insistence of innocence must be the most obscene blessing. All of the devils and demons of hell and of Earth and in between, and the dark wizards past and present, internal and external, living and dead, summon their might and mount their attacks when one attempts to claim, to understand, and to grasp for oneself, in its fullness, the immense blessing of innocence.

Your skin tightens. Your indignation rises.

Innocence?

You dare claim innocence.

Who, in this entire world, Can ever boldly claim innocence?

Who do you think you are?

For our sins, collective and individual, we can make a list that extends from the East and West winds. From the North and South ends.

And thrice around the Earth again.

What can you, human, of blood and bone, of dirt and ground, ever know of innocence?

Innocence is a concept reserved only for children, and when faced with war and tragedy, we can then attempt to extend it to others. But never is it for ourselves.

There is some compulsory, indispensable nature within or around us that will not allow us to seek, access, and fully embody the innocence within ourselves. It leeches off our guilt. It is sustained by our shame.

It is threatened by our audacity.

And so, it must be received as a gift.

Bestowed. Unearned. Uunwavered by our sense of worthiness, nor our attempts to run from it once it has chosen us as its own.

WHAT CAN YOU, HUMAN, OF BLOOD AND BONE, OF DIRT AND GROUND, EVER KNOW OF INNOCENCE? 10

A Woman’s Allegory: Seek and ye shall find.

So be careful what you look for.

“She demanded answers.”

Looking for answers, seeking forbidden knowledge is the great sin of women in the Christian tradition. Old fairytales born and steeped in this mystic feature princesses who violate this spoken rule. In doing so, they lose their heaven, their standing in the King’s court, their innocence, their prince, or all of the above.

They are ostracized from their families. Their hands are burned or severed. Their beauty is hidden or taken from them. Their voices are stolen from them. They are cursed to a distant wasteland or haunted forest where they lament and sorrow, seeking scraps to sustain them...

Until they are redeemed or proven innocent by their own acts, or by a brave suitor’s. And often, only by the healing, restorative power and magic of true love. Bravery, wit, spiritual and physical support, the crying of earnest tears, humility and hard work, keeping secrets until curses are lifted, supernatural blessings, the wisdom of women, and true love from an honest man are usually the ingredients necessary for her epic journey. The great paradox, or twist of fate, is as such: the seeking that cast her out becomes the very way back to her redemption.

The gifts received along this journey, though the risks and perils are great, are many. The girl, on her way to becoming an embodied woman: Realizes her own primal magic and gifts Retrieves a sacred sexuality Establishes a healthy independence (often separate from the culture and family values that raised her) Travels to distant lands, meeting many human, animal, and mystical friends along the way Recovers ancestral wisdom Receives the blessing of the redemption (aka the blessing of the wound) Returns with healing elixir for her people (oftentimes the very same people that ostracized her) Unites, reunites or reconciles with her true love 11

The transformation is beautiful.

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Dream language msmsd

Dreams are the language of the subconscious, and a bridge between the dimensions of soul, spirit, and body.

This short piece is an excerpt from a nightmare that felt like my own dive into Dante’s Inferno.

October 28, 2023 “Hell is when your dreams are overrun by demons.”

That is what the man said within my dream. Faceless, nameless. I walked the streets of a city overcome with fear.

The streets were crowded with homeless, broken, wailing beings. There was too much groaning, so much pain. I felt as if I walked with no protection. Why can my eyes see this?

Why can I feel this? It was as if the usual cover of my sight had been stripped away, exposing me to everything I was once protected from seeing.

I reached the end of the street and a man grabbed hold of me. He was drunk and beside himself, he swung around me and his head kept hitting the sidewalk. I caught his swing and smashed his head into the concrete. His broken face kept muttering. I walked on into another alley. A few women gathered to walk beside me. We were looking to get out of here. One fell down to the ground, stretching her arm up to me. I lifted her up and walked on. Another beside me, a black woman, took off her shirt exposing her breasts. She walked with her chin lifted up. We came to some craggy cliffs. I sensed things following us. Ghouls. On the cliffs was a bridge. But the bridge was locked, and on the way to the bridge there were crevices where ghouls attempted to lead us. On the crevices there were chains - torture devices. The women that came with me were caught. I continued. I ascended up the cliff and climbed my way across the bridge.

msmsd I entered another small ghost town through a dead casino. A woman in the casino said I look like I’ve been winning. “3-0” I said, not stopping to talk any longer. The fear was residing as my confidence rose. I walked out into the dust out of town. Women and children were trying to ascend to higher ground. Something was coming. I lifted myself up onto a few bins, readying myself as well.

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Songs to get you thru Hell My favorites from the playlist

There is a Peace

by Harvey

Don’t Give Up

by United Pursuit

Never Known a Love

By Cecily, Meredith Andrews

Jesus Hands, Spotify Playlist by freethetigress

Don’t Even Worry

By John Mark Pantana

DON’T GIVE UP ON ME. When I could not sleep, when I did not eat, when the wrestling became too much, when I begged for relief, when the demons made a home in my room and sought to hold down my body - a hand of light was extended to me, pulling me up and out.

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A Fairytale for Enlightenment

Vasilisa at the Hut of Baba Yaga, by Ivan Bilibin

VASILISA THE BEAUTIFUL Vasilisa The Beautiful is an old Russian fairytale about a girl who, like many stories, experiences cruelty from her stepmother and stepfamily. With spiteful intentions, her stepmother sends Vasilisa to Baba Yaga’s house to retrieve light for them. Vasalisa must venture there and back again and first submit herself to the tasks of the witch that imprisons her, and then find a way to escape with the light for which she was sent. But, she has supernatural aid: her birth mother’s blessing in the form of a doll that informs Vasilisa what to do at every trial.

I encourage you to read this tale. Then consider reading Clarissa Pinkola Estes’s Here, you can place a caption for the photo. It can be a analysis of it in her book, Women Who Run With the Wolves. short description or it can credit the production team.

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In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment.

This is the most precious gift true love offers - the experience of knowing we always belong.

Books that Hear you

ALL ABOUT LOVE

By Bell Hooks One of those books that as soon as you read it, you wonder why you took so long to pick it up.

It’s all about love.

Yet even though this is a terrible situation, the wild self will try over and over to save us. It whispers, whimpers, calls, drags our fleshless carcasses around in our nightdreams until we become conscious of our condition and take steps to reclaim the treasure.

WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes I come back to this book over and over again, like a map back to my natural psychic land before pollution and self-harm, before assimilation and domination.

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A Film that Sees you Soft Liquid Center is a film about relationships and people that haunt you even after departure, and the toll that can take on your psyche.

It is, likely by design, hauntingly slow. but the reward for your patience is a film that drips in lush visuals, and a beautiful score that runs up and down your spine.

It was made in Colorado, by some dear friends at Perry Home Video: Zach Gutierrez, and Steph and Joe Holmbo.

The film will be available to stream on Dec 12, 2023.

Soft Liquid Center cover art by Rebecca Green

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Podcasts Communion is a podcast started by three friends: Pedro Silva, Katerina Jeng, and Mercedez Davis. The hope for the podcast was to provide a sanctuary to speak about love, life, death, and spirituality - and the lack thereof. It is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

for Listening

Recommended Episodes After a hiatus, the gang gets back together again to talk about all things happening in this transitional time of our lives, internal and external. The result is love soup.

Death, whether literal or metaphorical, is just another transition that we all make. And there is a way to meet it gracefully, valiantly, and to challenge the stigmas that it has carried in our society.

In the reimagining of the outcome - the women started questioning everything.

Questioning all the systems in place, questioning the religion, questioning everything... and then they made choices.

-Pedro Silva in Love Soup

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Hold on to me.

Hold on to me again.

I will push and pull you out of this.

I loved you then.

I love you still.

I have you.

I have you.

-GOD

Thank you for visiting.

With love,

Mercedez

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