I hear birds singing, and trees swaying outside my window, and I want to talk about the apocalypse.

I can cover rent for the next year, and our home is filled with love, and I want to talk about the death and the madness.

I get invited to another party, another ceremony, another birthday. I don't go. I want to contemplate the suicides and schizophrenia.

He's back.

He wants to flare fangs and rip out my throat when I watch 3 hours of Netflix.

He wants to spit in the face of the limp majority who preach that 'doing' is an illusion, that there is nothing wrong, and that we are whole and perfect, right now. He judges them; cowards, or fools.

He fantasizes I loose control. That I blow it all the fuck apart. Tell them we are pathetic, distracted, sniffling clods of grievances, addicted to our black mirrors as the most consequential decade in human history unfolds without us looking up. We won't make it and we don't deserve to.

He sees me; my routines, my laziness, my distractions, and he asks...

"Erick, how do I get you to acknowledge the apocalypse?"

Blood drips from between clenched teeth. The earth beneath his feet melts like wax beneath a flame. Smoke rises from his lattice-starred eyes. His muscle's quiver, begging him to kill me. He is made from the bones of my dharma, but his muscles are my rage, his tendons strung by my ambition, and his fangs are the jewels of my mind; Articulation and Deconstruction, Blasphemy & Prophecy.

He's what happens to my Daimon when I get complacent for long enough.

His name's Anubis.

"Because it is here boy, and you are still pretending you don't see it. If you don't face it, I will kill you."

-- -- --

This is what has been coming through my journal the past week.

25 years before learning about 'parts work,' I was a 6 year old obsessed with wolves.

We lived in Wisconsin and I loved being cold. At night, I'd open the window just above my bed and embrace the freezing wind rushing into my room. Laying in the fetal position, shivering, I'd imagine a great white wolf standing vigil out in the night, watching over me.

Those winter nights imagining my guardian were some of my happiest childhood memories.

I had shirts, posters, and paintings of wolves; but my prize talisman was a snow globe encasing three wolves. Of all the memories my palm holds, that snow globe is what I remember most vividly. I can feel it in my hand now.

By 3rd grade, I had discovered Norse mythology. The day I read about Fenrir was the day I named my imaginal companion.

Fenrir was the first 'part' of myself I met.

He is my intellect.

When I am clear, Fenrir is my curiosity and play.

When he catches a scent he tracks and stalks.

He is the one who devours books, writes 50 articles a year, and obsesses over a question for a decade.

Fenrir doesn't speak in language to me.

He is an inner inclination. He is my genuine desire. His superpower is tracking. He can stay with an idea, desire, or curiosity for weeks or months at a time.

But puberty happens.

Liquid innocence mixes with thick lust, dense hunger for power, and sediments of rage, contempt, and righteousness.

That transformed the pure Fenrir into something else.

Like Jekyll and Hyde, I didn't realize my white wolf had an Alter-Ego -- until he tried to kill me.

Fenrir's alter is named Anubis.

Anubis is the part of me that thinks you're stupid.

He thinks Erick is an idiot, hypocrite, and defective.

He thinks consciousness is an accident, and meaning is a defense mechanism we have to create in order to keep ourselves from killing ourselves.

His gift is brutal rationalism. He's a good story-teller if you let him get going (he prefers Horror).

His gaping deficiency is his absence of compassion and curiosity.

I know he's upset when I start judging people harshly.

I was 22 when he first emerged and he literally tried to convince me to end my life; but now as a 34 year old, he knows who the leader is.

He serves as an advisor. When he speaks up, I know to listen.

He's speaking.

I use to be afraid of Anubis. When I was younger I didn't know how to tame him. When he would get triggered, I'd begin to live in a personal hell.

He'd critique everything anyone said. He'd judge my closest friends as weak, stupid, or foolish. He'd attack me; my habits, my income, my body, and my dreams.

But thanks to Ayahuasca, Parts Work, and a lot of writing, I've discovered a third part that mediates between Fenrir and Anubis.

It's this guy:

Rafiki.

lol, I can't help but laugh at how dramatic I am -- but this is my inner life.

Rafiki is my inner mentor. He represents my ability to laugh at myself. Humor tames Anubis. But Rafiki is also a teacher. He helps Fenrir grow. He helps Anubis aim. He is the eternal inner giggle that keeps me honest, compassionate, and kind.

With Rafiki, I don't have to exile Anubis. Because I don't have to exile my lust, power, and ambition, I can journal like I did at the top of this letter.

I can be honest with myself.

Because the old Order as we have known it is collapsing.

Times are changing.

People are suffering.

And there is sacred work to do.

What Would You Do At The End of The World?

The Bob Dylan Biopic A Complete Unknown is a great movie.

When I watch it, I see the story of a man who listened to his wolf.

During my second watch-through, the scene that stands out most to me is what Dylan chooses to do when he thinks the world is ending.

Kennedy is on tv. He's announcing what we now know as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What almost none of is can understand is what it was like that night.

No internet, no fractured culture. One story, one authority.

The King tells you atomic war is here. It is happening now.

A hole opens in your gut and starts eating your future plans. Because you live in New York, you began to hear people yelling. Cars scream. People are running. The world is ending.

There are a few of us who have been blessed with this feeling.

My sister is stationed in Hawaii. She told me that in 2018 an emergency text went out to all military personal on the island. Atomic warheads from North Korea had been spotted. The star death would hit the island in 15 minutes.

They got a text that they would die within the hour.

Imagine it.

Your phone blares right now. You turn it over for the 134th time today, it's our government. It reads "nuclear warheads have been spotted over the Atlantic. ETA 15 minutes."

What would you do?

I want to know what I'd do. I want to know what I really believe in.

I've been lucky enough to have a few life-threatening moments where I got to see what my core response in crisis are.

As people shrieked for taxis and cars tore down the road, Dylan walked to a local bar.

Dylan chose to play music.

What would you do?

Have you considered it?

My Struggle With The Slow Apocalypse

Our situation is not as cinematic as A Complete Unknown. Our crisis is not nuclear, and it is not ending it all in 60 minutes.

Our situation is reality. It's a slow apocalypse. It's our fractured attention. It's are legion of addictions. It's our schizophrenic culture. It's our struggle to sense-make and communicate. It's our normalized illnesses. It's our denial that our children are being raised in the shimmer.

It is the rapid maturation of AI.

I can't help but think my recent voice struggles is in response to my inner conflict of trying to find 'the voice' that can talk about the slow apocalypse I see without becoming someone who peddles fear.

Do you know the myth of Fenrir?

In Norse mythology Fenrir is one of the three monstrous child of Loki's union with a giantess. There is a prophecy that Fenrir will one day grow into beast that will trigger the events that lead to Ragnarok. Translated as 'The Twilight of the Gods," Ragnarok is the final battle that brings death to all the Gods.

So Odin and his kin decide to bind baby Fenrir before be becomes too powerful. They trick him and end up chaining him with a magical ribbon he cannot break. They put a sword in his mouth, with the blade tip cutting into the top of his jaw. There he stays for decades, enraged and betrayed, bound and muzzled, until Loki frees him.

He fulfills his prophecy and starts Ragnarok.

Fenrir kills Odin, the King of the Gods, during the battle.

It's an odd coincidence that 3rd grade Erick chose Fenrir as his familiar. The kid with the stutter, who would one day find himself diagnosed with 'spasmodic dysphonia,' chose a myth of a wolf who has his mouth muzzled.

The final coincidence is that Fenrir is also named after a river. It is said that the blood and drool that dripped from Fenrir's muzzled sword filled mouth created the river Van.

My full name is Erick Van Godsey.

Life is funny and ya boi is dramatic. Rafiki giggles as he raddles.

It is worth tracking the stories you loved as a kid.

They may be hints as to what is coming.

Song I'm Enjoying:

​RITUAL by Jon Hopkins​

Quote I'm Enjoying

"In every adult there lurks a child - an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for inceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the Personality which wants to develop and become whole."
-Carl Jung

"Much of the evil of the world is due to the fact that man in general is hopelessly unconscious."
-Carl Jung

Weekly Journal Prompt

What would you do if the world was ending in 60 minutes?

What is your 'song' you'd sing?

Will you sing it today?