break the

Navigating certain heartbreaks, it is normal to think in nevers, like never again is now.

But when you are breaking in slow motion, such that the true rift between cycles is perceptible but not yet now, when it is both apparent that a break has transpired, passed you by, a silent cudgel for your growth, and also, as far as time is concerned, has still not made its final approach…that is the sort of occasion when you might be inclined to listen on repeat to The Chain, yes Fleetwood Mac, yes a late 70s LOL but so what—it works, humming

You will never love me again to yourself walking back from an opening at Artists’ Space one Friday evening spent among old and almost friends; or humming it on the escalator down to Trader Joe’s; or in the shower, making the Janet Leigh Psycho face, the face of feminine fear as it curdles into despair—if only it would curdle into rage. 

Because, to invoke situationally helpful Human Design verbiage, not-love in the now means Not-Self ever after. And if adulthood is about at least feigning an attempt to be congruent with one’s essence, while our chains can indeed crack open on their own—because life, if you ask for it, is quick to give you space, to free up personal expression—nevertheless, breakage is a rite of performance as you alone define it. 

The chain in need of breaking presents you with a dharmic quest, asking whether you are willing to detach from others, and therein, from time itself...For some of us, this is more an issue of mechanics, as in

How to unchain? 

Here is one strategy that I have learned: you place that which is encumbering on a separation rose and send it out into ether, encased in golden light. The light then streams back in your direction, to glaze and repair your individuated aura. Eventually you begin to do this reflexively, every day honing your private glaze, coming into further, flowered alignment.

Or you could try the Stevie and Fleetwood template of rhythm and word: as their song suggests, those who proffer not-love are bound to wall themselves in with wills or woulds. But once they have decided your chains are theirs in concept and not theirs in feeling...you must accept that, too, as yours in choosing…and assimilate its consequences. 

For your cords are your cords, your love is your love: precious, power straight from source. To bolster this power, to feed from it, we avail boundaries and cut-off points. We retract and reach out and regroup as necessary. Life comes to a head and so, in parallel fixation, we stand, peering past our reflections in the water, we send ripples through the pond, we initiate the chain, nature furnishes it with length and weight, we are innocent no longer, we cast the first stone, we wait for a response.

Above: the late Anne Heche as Janet in Gus Van Sant’s frame-by-frame Psycho  remake from 1998, the year before I was born.