OUR EDITOR, ON WORDS
When that didn’ t happen( I’ m two human years away!!), I began to look for ways to join the human race. I bounced from job to job hoping to find the answers to my questions in spreadsheets and timestamps.
I studied to become a psychotherapist so I’ d have even more tools to analyze the recesses of my mind that were becoming more and more confused by the humanity I was observing. I explored sexuality with a boy or two who I thought loved me, with a few choice men I loved and with an even smaller list of men I barely knew.
And yet, I still didn’ t feel fully human.
By the time I rolled into my 30s( huge sigh of existential 20s relief), I figured the best way to solve my human dilemma was to forget about it altogether. I’ d explore spiritualty to its fullest while divorcing myself as best as possible from the need to understand my humanness.
In many ways, Adhara exists as an attempt to dive into the deep end of metaphysical thought and selfdevelopment. During its creation, I’ ve had tarot reading after energy healing after tantric numerology session that reveals the same, I’ m destined to be challenged by being human.
Recently, in the wake of learning about a new selfdevelopment paradigm called Human Design, I learned that I possess a type of human that I share with a rare 1 % of the population, and this type, not at all ironically, is the least human of all, present on the planet with a sole purpose of reflecting the human experience back onto the people around me.
Hi, I’ m Alaina, the mirror you didn’ t pick up but can’ t put down.
At the end of my session with my chiropractor, she sent me home with the homework( my favorite!) to identify 3-6 things that are great about being human. Sex, obviously. Well, really good sex. Kissing. Well, really good kissing. Really good chocolate. A really good, deep couch. You get the drill.
And yet, even these are not my favorite part of being alive. There is something far better. Crying.
The best present I’ ve ever given myself, after years of books on Amazon, brand new pots for my house, and those rare pieces of artwork that I had to have, for my 32nd birthday, I gave myself permission to cry. And not just a tear up from a hallmark card cry, but tears that come from so deep within, I discover new recesses of my own heart each time they pour down my cheeks.
Crying just feels.... no adjective needed because feeling alive, to me, is the feeling of feeling. We live in a world where it can be so easy to numb out to the noise around us and in my case, to read and explore and continue the never-ending search for the answers that are ultimately within and more often than not, at the end of a hugely cathartic crying session.
Have you seen the YouTube videos of baby Ethan giggling over his father ripping paper? Pure joy. In my experience, I am the baby, the father, the paper, the carpet he topples over on, and yet, still me; the simultaneous observer and experiencer.
That’ s feeling alive- when my heart opens up to the size of our universe, as if that could ever be enough.
Adhara Catalogue | Winter 2017 29