The Anarchic* Psyche of Michael A Leavy

I write this not long after finishing a ritual with the goddess Badb, in which we sought her help in dealing with what is known to some as the problem of “monkey mind.” We’ll keep the details of the ritual to ourself, for now, since we don’t know you very well.

The problem of monkey-mindedness – that is, of the mind running off on long chains of thought that have nothing to do with the present realities of the moment – has long plagued us. As it happens, when we share fragments of those chains with other people, they often prove to be a source of interest. And so, for all the fact that deep within our heart we have no faith that that will translate to the screen, we have decided to try blogging.

Except that that’s not 100% true. I mean, it’s true as far as it goes; but what actually forces us to crash through the gauntlet of fears and doubts is the fact that we’re writing a manuscript and are given to understand that it is very hard to find a legit publisher without having a platform, and so it is time to build one.

The manuscript is currently titled Not a Monster, with an explanatory sub-title that is still in flux. It is about my long recovery from being sexually abused as a child. Nothing new in that, I suppose, though elements of my recovery – especially the meditation practice that I developed along the way – are less common. That’s why I think the book was worth writing and will be worth reading.

We won’t say much more here, except to explain why we have been wobbling between “I” and “we,” between the singular and plural, in the paragraphs above. An early part of our recovery involved Inner Child work, and unlike some – or is it most? – folk, I turned out to have a lot of Inner Children. After developing, in meditation, an Inner Landscape for all of those young inner Michaels to live in, personifications of other aspects of my psyche began showing up, looking to share the space with us. Accordingly, I just can’t think of myself as purely singular, and oscillate between the one and the many, depending on how – as subject or object – I or we feel positioned or predicated in the sentence.

And that is that. Unless I lose my nerve, we’ll be back in a day or so with more.