At the Slip

A Decent into Orphaned Sovereignty

I struggled to write this and it’s taken me a long time to get here.

“Here” is a work in progress, much like this piece. My intention is to name the place I’m occupying these days, with the understanding that this energy has movement. It flexes, it breathes, it changes shape.

I didn’t struggle because I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but because I kept vacillating between speaking from the “I” and speaking to the “you.”

At times, I’m writing to you, the reader, the witness, the one who knows what it feels like to carry more than you were ever meant to hold. I personally know some of you and I’m glad you’re here.

Other times, I’m speaking to a younger version of myself, the one who waited to be chosen, and eventually chose herself.

And sometimes, I’m just trying to catch my own voice in the dark.

So if the perspective shifts, know that it’s because this piece was born from a threshold, the kind where the soul speaks in many directions at once.

Maybe this is what integration sounds like, more than one voice, speaking the same truth.

Thank you for meeting me here.

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If this reads true for you, some would say you’re lucky. Some would say you’ve worked hard for it and some would say you’ve been cursed. I can’t really say objectively because, well, I’m talking about myself and I tend to think everything is nuanced and complicated. I just know the critiques I often get, so in the spirit of transparency, I’ve generously listed them for you right out of the gate.

We all carry trauma and everyone struggles. Everyone carries light and shadow, but few have willingly sought out and touched the underworld and returned with a lantern.

I say willingly, but it’s a kind of forced willingness. Like, once you’re pushed off a cliff, you have no other choice than to try to grab on to something and pull yourself back up or to just surrender to plummeting to your death.

I’ve been trying to grab on and pull probably since the day I was born and there’s something I’d like to share about the spirit of someone who has worked so hard.

There comes a moment…. seismic, irreversible…. when you stop holding everything for everyone else. (Because that’s what adult children do.)

Up until this point, you’ve held others comfort, projections, unprocessed grief. Probably even their fear of your fullness and their inability to meet you in your range. More often than not, you found yourself in a double bind, and it’s an excruciating way to live.

So you stop. You put it all down and some might say you’re doing it because you’re cruel, but you know deep down that it’s cellular wisdom.

Because for the first time, you need both hands to hold yourself.

So What Are You, Then?

What are you, when you stop being the emotional scaffolding for everyone around you and start becoming the foundation of your own life?

I know!! Hand raised!! Let me tell you!!

You become the Great Witch. The one who knows how to transmute pain into spells, into art, into legacy. This transformation isn’t clean. There’s dirt under the fingernails of this becoming, blood on the thorns of your own rescue.

You become the Good Mother, the one who gives birth to herself.

You become Eros, the raw, pulsing life-force that animates all things.

You also become the Flame: steady, sovereign, and unwavering. The fire that refuses to be extinguished.

You become the Sword: sharp enough to cut through illusion and strong enough to protect your truth.

You become the Builder: the one who lays the foundation beneath your own feet, no longer waiting to be carried.

You become the ache that creates, the beauty that stirs and the holy hunger that moves mountains.

You become the Mother You Never Had. The one who says: I see you and I’ll never leave you again.

You become Love, presence and Undeniably, Unedited, and Unapologetically whole.

When you touch the underworld: descending barefoot, into the darkest part of your own becoming and return?

You become the Lantern-Bearer. You’ll be the one who lights the way for others. You won’t have to push or pull, you’ll intuitively show them what it means to survive the abyss and still choose softness.

And yes, there will be a loneliness here that cuts like a mother wound. You’ll know things that others can’t yet hold. You’ll carry truths that make people uncomfortable, wisdom that came at a price they’re not ready to pay. The lantern that lights the way for others can sometimes feel heavy in your own hands.

You’ll carry grief like a torch, wisdom like heat and yourself, like a prayer that cannot be unspoken. It won’t be the same prayer your father told.

You’ll see that your range is power.

Your sorrow. anger. joy. eroticism. stillness. voice. Your no and Your unbearable yes.

You’ll hold it all, devotionally.

You’ll stop needing to be held by those who cannot meet you because you have finally met yourself.

This is self-initiation.

This is the moment of claiming.

You say: This is who I am now.

And you embody it.

You own your wholeness.

And if you, dear one, whether a reader, a stranger, or a version of me are here, standing on the edge of this becoming, let me whisper something into your bones:

You are not too much.

You are multi-dimensional.

You are sacred.

You are finally coming home.

You are fully, fiercely, and without apology, holding yourself.

And from that place?

You create.

You mother.

You return.

Burn.

Clean.

Bloom.

Love.

I didn’t want to learn this. I resisted it for years but here’s what I know now, and what I say to the part of me that still sometimes waits by the door:

The arms I’d been searching for all my life, the ones I’d hoped would finally hold all of me, were always my own.

I spent decades looking for the parents who could see me, meet me, catch me when I fell.

This is orphaned sovereignty.

It’s not the clean kind of self-empowerment they sell in books. It’s the messy, grief-soaked kind that comes from being left to parent yourself.

No one handed it to me. No one showed me how.

You didn’t ask for this crown, but you wear it now, not with pride, but with the quiet dignity of someone who learned how to raise herself.

This was not the lesson I wanted because I wanted to be held by someone else.

What I found is that I am the only one who can hold the fullness of who I am.

Once I stopped fighting this truth, once I grieved (am grieving) what would never be and embraced what is, I was/am finally free.

I carry the lantern into the dark.

And I am the light.

I am Eros embodied and undeniably whole.

I’ll always be imperfect, but I will never shrink in that way again.

Now that I know what it is to choose myself, I will no longer ask for permission.

I will finally, just be.

Video:

Work in progress.

“At the Slip”

Gouache on Belgian linen; 30 × 40 in.

At the Slip is about loosening the bind by descending into the truth: that the arms you’d been searching for all along are your own.

The piece will be on display at T. Mari Gallery in Chicago November 20 - December 14, 2025.