What do you know of decadence?

And other sentiments

What do you know of decadence?

The question was written below my own handwriting. Now, I am not the most visually observant person. I have been known to miss the obvious. But I feel like I would have seen these words while I was writing. The question was written in big letters across the bottom of the page. And underlined twice.

So while, yes, it might have been there before, I sincerely doubt that it was.
Also, it isn’t something I could have written and somehow forgotten…the handwriting is the type of neat flowy script that I dream of having. It also looks exactly like the rest of the handwriting in the journal it was in…the handwriting of Ms. Georgina Redlace, explorer of realms magical and mythical.

What do you know of decadence?

Well, Ms. Redlace or whomever it might be who asked that question…I happen to know a lot. I am fascinated by it, to tell you the truth.
But I think I can see where this is all going and I can’t decide if I want to play or not.

Maybe it’s the forever tumbling of worlds, some falling while others rise. Or maybe it’s just me and rain and the fact that it was a long roll of thunder that woke me, but I am feeling fiery and I will give the only answer I have and see what the gods make of it.

What do you know of decadence?

I will tell you what I know of decadence.
And reclamation for that matter.
Because for me, they are inextricably linked. One a pathway to another.
Decadence is the house in the woods being taken back by the elements. Kudzu and English Ivy pulling down the walls, showing the magnificence once contained within. The roof pierced by trees. Pools fed by rain. Moss and rot overtaking the furniture. Every piece of what was comfort and show being returned to its most basic form.

The earth, in time, will reclaim us all.
Bringing us back to where we came from.

But maybe there is more.
Maybe there is a pulse of life.
Offering.
Demanding.
A reclamation of its own.
Maybe there is a deity, lush and regal and decomposing, who serves to break us down to who we were before the illusion became more appealing than the truth.
It is scary, I know, as we watch systems so bloated in their power that they crumble under their own weight, not knowing what will become of us.
But maybe it is not a free fall.
Maybe we are being pulled by that deity.
Falsehoods shedding as we tumble towards the becoming of who we have always been.

And also.
I want to know who I was.
Who I am.
Before I was who I thought I had to be.
I want to feel the ground shake with the heartbeat of that which is coming to reclaim me, as that implies that I was once a part of something else. Grander. More. And that whatever it is waits for me. Wants for me.

Perhaps this is naivety, but I like thinking that we will be brought back to what is essential.
And that which stands outside of our truth will be taken and transformed.
Back.

Maybe it is not a deity but rather a creature of myth.
A snake. Writhing. Hungry. Needing.
Needing me.
Needing me to be remembered to all that is true. Alive. Vital.
And maybe the path of reclamation is indulgence.

I think of William Blake.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
And.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

I sit with a wondering of who I should be full of if not myself.
Maybe I need to be as decadently full of myself as I can be until all the rest drops away.
Decaying, feeding the mythos below it all…the one that I was before I pretended otherwise.
Before I named it other.
Named it bad for reasons I can only recall in fragments.
Maybe I have to get so big that nothing can hold me.
And then I will fall back to the soft forest floor.
To gaze up at the sky and wonder what else there is in this grand everything ever.

So, to whomever asked me these questions in the first place…
This is what I know of decadence.
And when it comes to reclamation, I hope…in the grandest expression of my being…that I am the reclaimer and the reclaimed. And I am ok with never knowing for sure.

With love and fire~
Jo Anna


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