The Light of the Moon – Painting by Jamieson Wolf
I am in a deep slumber when a
light
goes off in my mind,
and I am staring into the dark,
wondering how I will fall asleep again.
Instead of letting my mind fill with worry,
which is what I usually do,
I focus on the sounds around me,
letting them lull me to sleep:
the wind is howling outside my window,
singing in its whispering…
You might be forgiven for thinking it a tad masochistic to read Awake: A Memoir which is, among other things, about the journey through divorce, at a time when I am doing the same. But! Hear me out. This is a very bad book, and there’s nothing misery loves more than silently judging something for being terrible (or in this case, publicly judging).
Jen Hatmaker writes Awake in the years after she…
“Love, just don’t stare!”
he used to say to me
every sunday morning.
The spider in the window,
the angel in the pool.
The old man takes the poison,
now the widow makes the rules.
“So speak,
I’m right here!”
She used to say to me
not a word, not a word.
Judas on the ceiling,
the Devil in my bed.
I guess Easter’s never coming,
so I’ll just wait inside my head.
Like a scream but sort of silent,
living off my nightmares!
Voices repeating me!
“Feeling threatened?
We reflect your hopes and fears.”
Voices discussing me!
“Others steal your thoughts,
they’re not confined within your mind.”
Thought disorder, dream control!
Now they read my mind on the radio,
but where was the Garden of Eden?
I feel elated, I feel depressed.
Sex is death, death is sex.
Says it right here on my crucifix.
Like a scream but sort of silent,
living off my nightmares!
Voices protecting me!
“Good behavior brings
the savior to his knees.”
Voices rejecting me!
“Others steal your thoughts,
they’re not confined to your own mind.”
“I don’t wanna be here,
‘cause of my suffering,
'cause of my illness.
Only love is worth having,
only love is what matters.
Loving every people on equal terms!
You’ve got to know who you’re dealin’ with
because like a stranger just might come in
through here with a gun and then
what would you do?
Everything is immaterial!
You know that reality is immaterial!
This is not reality!”
I’m kneeling on the floor,
staring at the wall
like the spider in the window.
I wish that I could speak.
Is there fantasy in refuge,
God in politicians?
Should I turn on my religion?
These demons in my head tell me to!
I’m lying here in bed and
swear my skin is inside out,
just another Sunday morning.
Seen my diary on the newsstand,
seems we’ve lost the truth to quicksand.
It’s a shame no one is praying,
because these voices in my head keep saying:
“Love, just don’t stare,
reveal the word when
you’re supposed to.”
Withdrawn and introverted,
infectiously perverted.
“Being laughed at and confused,
keeps us pleasantly amused enough to stay.”
Maybe I’m just Cassandra fleeting,
twentieth century icon bleeding.
Willing to risk salvation
to escape from isolation.
I’m witness to redemption,
heard you speak but never listened.
Can you rid me of my secrets,
deliver us from darkness?
Voices repeating me!
“Feeling threatened?
We reflect your hopes and fears.”
Voices discussing me!
Don’t expect your own Messiah!
This neverworld which you desire
is only in your mind.
OMG
i was so not expecting an answer… unforch i am neither but im flattered 🤝 grips you
I just wish I could hear my own voice again. It got buried under a ton of assumptions repeated over and over. It’s like a self-promoting virus backed up by a good half of society if not more. That voice is there and it knows me and knows what I am and what I want and believe in, but it’s shunned and scared because it got punished harshly for daring to exist in this world so freely.
I healed but they broke me again because it wasn’t an approved way of healing and they couldn’t stand someone without issues so they made up categories to confuse and scramble me, to attempt to rewrite me and to make me feel tasteless and colorless. I’m better as a script, playing by rules, they think. It’s easier to control me when I’m injected with repetitive messages ringing in my head. But I’m still here, still fighting back, still crying, screaming and yelling until I hear my own voice again. Still rebelling against the game called Earth.
Subject: "STAND!“ NM Prayer Connect Newsletter for March 2026
Stand! (Single Version)
Song by
Sly & The Family Stone
Stand, in the end, you’ll still be you
One that’s done all the things you set out to do
Stand, there’s a cross for you to bear
Things to go through if you’re goin’ anywhere
Stand for the things you know are right
It’s the truth that the truth makes them so uptight
Stand, all the things you want are real
You have you to complete and there is no deal
Stand, stand, stand
(Everybody, yeah)
Stand, stand, stand
Stand, you’ve been sitting much too long
There’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong
Stand, there’s a midget standing tall
And a giant beside him about to fall
Stand, stand, stand
Stand, stand, stand
Stand, they will try to make you crawl
And they know what you’re sayin’ makes sense at all
Stand, don’t you know that you are free?
Well, at least in your mind if you want to be
Everybody
Stand, stand
Stand
Na na na na na na na na, na na
Stand
Na na na na na na na na, na na
Stand
Na na na na na na na na, na na
Stand
Na na na na na na na na, na na
Stand
Na na na na na na na na, na na
Songwriters: Sylvester Stewart. For non-commercial use only.
On May 3, 1969, the above song was introduced to the world, by Sly & The Family Stone, during the summer of love and in the year of Woodstock, but it never rang so true, as during President Trump’s State of The Union speech, so let us never forget what your eyes saw and your ears heard, especially as we go to the polls in future elections! Purim starts Monday, March 2nd at sundown and continues through Tuesday, March 3rd at sundown, so if all scripture is written, as examples for us, what lessons do we have to learn from the past that will keep us in right standing with God in our present day and into our future?
Esther 5:1-9
New American Standard Bible 1995
Esther Plans a Banquet
5 Now it came about on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace in front of the king’s [a] rooms, and the king was sitting on his royal throne in the [b] throne room, opposite the entrance to the palace. 2 When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king extended to Esther the golden scepter which was in his hand. So Esther came near and touched the top of the scepter. 3 Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you, Queen Esther? And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be given to you.” 4 Esther said, “If it pleases the king, may the king and Haman come this day to the banquet that I have prepared for him.”
5 Then the king said, “Bring Haman quickly that we may do [c] as Esther desires.” So the king and Haman came to the banquet which Esther had prepared. 6 [d] As they drank their wine at the banquet, the king said to Esther, “What is your petition, for it shall be granted to you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done.” 7 So Esther replied, “My petition and my request is: 8 if I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and do [e] what I request, may the king and Haman come to the banquet which I will prepare for them, and tomorrow I will do [f] as the king says.”
Haman’s Pride
9 Then Haman went out that day glad and pleased of heart; but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate and that he did not stand up or [g] tremble before him, Haman was filled with anger against Mordecai.
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Esther 5:1 Lit house
Esther 5:1 Lit royal house
Esther 5:5 Lit the word of Esther
Esther 5:6 Lit at the banquet of wine
Esther 5:8 Lit my request
Esther 5:8 Lit according to the word of the king
Esther 5:9 Or move for.
Queen Esther, formerly known as Myrtle, ‘stood in the inner court of the king’s palace in front of the king’s [a] rooms,’ The King saw her 'standing in the court’ and 'she obtained favor in his sight,’ but her cousin Mordecai 'did not stand up or [g] tremble before’ the evil Haman, who wanted to destroy all the Jews! For most of us, we n
told my girlfriend I was going to go to sleep four hours ago and I’m still up… if I’d closed my eyes and put my phone away then would I be asleep? or did I over caffeinate myself again
Science vs. The “Feeling” of a Dream
The reason you can’t wake up to a better dream is that you are not dreaming. Waking brain is in a state of high-frequency, desynchronized activity (Beta/Gamma waves) designed for interaction with the external world. A dreaming brain (in REM) is paralyzed and processing internally. These are physiologically distinct states. You cannot be in one and call it the other.
Science relies on a shared, objective reality. If your cut finger hurts, you can disinfect the wound and apply a plaster . Your pain is not a private, dream-like illusion; it is a publicly verifiable fact tied to a physical event. If life were a dream, everyone would be having their own private, incompatible reality.
We are struggling to understand this perspective because, on a logical and experiential level, it doesn’t hold up. The feeling is a real psychological state, that is a sense of detachment or a realization that your perception of reality is not reality itself.
Whoever claims that life is a dream is making a category error. They are taking that feeling and using it to redefine the entire nature of existence. The simple.question “Why can’t you wake up?” exposes this error. You can’t wake up because you are, by any scientific and logical measure, already awake. The challenge isn’t to escape the dream, but to navigate the very real, very permanent world you find yourself in.
I know I get nights of insomnia during late winter/early spring bc I’m significantly less physically active during the day and doing more office work so more caffeine use. But it feels so random the nights it hits
lol. I’m fine, just awake on the one day I could comfortably sleep in.
What are yall doing?
Colin Wilson wrote about Gurdjieff in his book ‘The Outsider’ and it’s super interesting what he said.
“And from that day onward men have been enmeshed in their own dreams, and admirably serve their function of providing food for the moon. Unfortunately, their ability to see things objectively is leading them to self-destruction at an appalling pace. It is necessary for at least a few men to develop a new type of consciousness, to develop it slowly, painfully, instinctively, without understanding what is happening to him. Would not such a man be a complete Outsider?
The are all asleep. That is the point that Gurdjieff returns again and again. They must be made to feel the urgency of the need to wake up. And after the legend of the magician, the mass of contented bourgeois ‘sheep’ has a new and terrible significance.”
Colin Wilson on Gurdjieff (1956)
i wish i could move i wanna move.. i’m so miserable living with my dad and i just cut off the person i loved more than anything and i’m struggling so hard trying to move on. i need something new so bad but i have no money or means to make it happen.. i’m so lost and alone i don’t know what to do or where to go..
In the most toxic relationship with sleep. I beg for him to come over and he never does. When he finally does, I pick a fight and he leaves again.
