“Every single one of us can be the change, but most are too afraid of being different. People will post how frustrated they were at Gray’s Anatomy last night, but they won't share a controversial meme about what’s really going on with the Dakota pipeline. It's become more important for people to post their supper than something they believe in. That might make someone judge you and we wanted want that. In reality, a lot of people are fed up. Once you refuse to follow their propaganda and get away from the box full of lies, you start meeting likeminded people. People who want humanity for every living thing on this planet and I refuse to be dumbed down anymore and so should you. You owe that much to your kids. You didn’t come here to consume. You came here to live and it’s about time we remove the vail and start doing that.
“Call me crazy, call me a tin hat, call me a conspiracy theorist. Instead of thinking about how bad it really is and how helpless we feel when it comes to changing it, I think about something that makes me happy. I think about how amazing I feel when they all step down and we all become united. I'm a firm believer in the law of attraction, and I think we draw to us the things we're focused on the most. Why else do you think it's called a program? Because they want to keep you sad, scared, and spending money. Their power feeds off it, but there are things we can do to take it away from them. Things we know aren't right and refuse to be a part of anymore.”
Tristan really was a storyteller with a calming, hypnotic voice, her eyes mesmerizing as they briefly locked with each and every person sitting on that ground. I swear there were at least forty kids there, twenty of them under the age of five, and not one of them made a peep. They listened. Everyone there soaked up her passion, and there was no doubt in my mind that every single one of them would leave there changed. Because of her. Because of Tristan.
“My dad once told me that whenever I needed help he’d send me a sign, but I had to look for them. We all have to look for them. When you follow a crowd, when you do what everyone else does because everyone else is doing it, you not only miss the guidance, you miss the opportunity to find out what’s on the other side. I don’t know what signs you may or may not see, but I do know that they’re there. Whether it be a coin, a bird, a leaf, reoccurring numbers. That’s a popular one. Feathers. That’s what I seem to attract. It started when I was around ten. Too many to ignore. Everywhere I went, I found a feather. I found feathers where I shouldn’t have found feathers, including the dryer; in states certain birds didn’t even migrate to. I’ve even found a feather on a Farris-wheel once. I’ve always known that I’ve had someone guiding me and I’ve always paid attention to them.”
“Everyone thinks I’m this happy, floating, bubbly girl that never gets angry or hurt. They long to be strong like me. People think because I’m dedicated to waking up this planet that I’m different, but I’m not. I may be resonating at higher frequency, but it’s all part of the process. When you wake up, you’ll get the information when you’re ready for it and not a moment before. And you keep getting it. You grow and grow into your higher self, and believe me guys, it’s euphoric. Yes, I’ve come a long way, and normally I’m very good about being responsible for my own happiness, but not always. I’m not always this happy and believe me, my patience has been more than tested this past month, and not from having a baby either.”
I smiled when Tristan looked right at me, proud of her for unknown reasons. Maybe because this multitude of people here to see her. Maybe because every last person there was in tune. With her. Man, woman, and child. I’m not sure where it came from, but the awe I felt for her and the energy all around was sacred and I felt it. Call me crazy, but even I couldn’t deny that. This was the resistance. This was the change.
Tristan raised her hand at her own question, continuing with her unscripted speech. “How many of you believe you attract what you think about? Now, how many of you think about what you attract? Huh? You see what I’m saying? If you let yourself sit around and dwell on your past, your dad not being there for you when you were a little boy, or you keep searching for all the homemade cookies your mom never handed out with love, you’re going to keep getting more of it. Like attracts like, you get back what you put out, you reap what you sew. Get it?”
“Unfortunately, sometimes even I need to be reminded of that. Pay attention to it once, and consciously change it. How?” she shrugged like it was a normal conversation, like she wasn’t speaking to a couple hundred people at all. “It doesn’t matter how. Change your mind. I go to whales and bald eagles, but make it your own. You don’t have to sit around and relive that part of your life over and over. It was put there to teach you something not debilitate you. Think about it. When something bad happens, what’s the first thing you do? You place blame. You point fingers. There’s no blame, guys,” she said with great conviction, her eyes shifting around the darkening silhouettes and her words penetrating and strong.
“There’s no blame because nobodies at fault. Maybe what happened to you wasn’t your lesson at all. Maybe you’re not the victim at all. What if you looked at that way? What if it wasn’t meant to teach you a lesson at all? What if that lesson was on the perpetrator and not you? Huh? What if this was only meant to mold you into the amazing person that you are right now? What if you had to get through that, to get here? Would you change it? Would you go back to sleep? Would you? Careful what you wish for. You’re getting back everything you’re asking for.”
“I know a lot of you here, and I know you know this stuff, but I’m going to say it again for you the same way I’m going to say it to everyone who is here for the first time.” Tristan stopped with that for a second, her serious, melodramatic tone. “This is catching on guys. There’s more and more of you coming out of the closet and that’s big. Keep coming out. Keep being the change. Keep being the difference. Keep being the resistance. Keep teaching your kids to be happy and live their life. And if they’re stuck in this screwed up system, get them the hell out. Don’t give them medicine to calm them down. Your kids are supposed to jump off desks. I mean, come on. Does it really make sense to lock your kid to a desk for hours and tell him he’s like everyone else and he has to learn and follow a system like everyone else? Really? You want that? You remember how it was. It’s a system designed to make everyone the same or be cast out. Let them cast you out. Stop letting them suppress our kid’s imaginations. Don’t follow the program. If you’re interested in hearing about an amazing homeschooling program, get with Annie. They have meet-ups just like this for the kids only they’re encouraging their imaginations, not their ability to conform. That’s not fun and nobody wants to it.”
“It’s a big leap and scary as hell. Some of your families will disown you and try to get you help, but that’s the resistance. Do you really want your kids to grow up and get a nice corporate job with a corner office? No! No you don’t want that and neither do they. Break that mold, but do it.”
“Getting back to the shit we grow up with; it happens to all of us guys, but keep moving forward. Look for the signs. You’re never alone, but you do need to let it go. Spend some time in the labyrinth these kids built today. It’s amazing, leave that shit there. Just let it go. Think about unicorns, skittles, or California. Life is going to give you lots and lots of lessons and lots of molds, but sometimes it’s not your lesson. Sometimes it’s your mold, your new mold because you’ve outgrown the old one. It’s time for a newer, a better you. You’re not in that mold anymore. It doesn’t even fit. It’s too little. You’ve grown out of it and you haven’t been there since you were a little kid. You’re not that little boy. ” Tristan urged, her eyes focusing in on me, her voice convicted and directed right at me. She inhaled, taking in an exhausted deep breath, and moved on.
“The day I had my baby was one of the worst days of my life. He couldn’t have picked a worse day to arrive.” Tristan explained, her story changing tracks while my interest piqued, and I hung on every single word, not that I wasn’t already doing that. “I’d gotten a speedin
g ticket that morning, I was already broke, and I’d just spent my last twenty on a broker than me, gypsy. She told me one week before I had him that he was for sure a girl and that he would be born one month from that day. She also kept repeating a name that she swore I had to know, but I didn’t. Never heard it before in my life. I’m not normally one to get down on myself, but being nine months pregnant with no money, frightened about the birth, and a list of other things, I let it soak in and eat at me like a flesh eating parasite. One negative thought after another. Like poison from a snake, that’s what it does. It’ll just keep going, eating away at your soul until you’ve spent hours, sometimes days, wallowing in self-pity. It can last for moments or months, and it’s your decision. It’s this state of mind where we let the poison spread, where we lose the battle of control. It’s hard. It’s hard as hell and I’m not going to lie, but…” she said, one finger going into the air, stopping her words, her eyes on mine. I just sat there, mesmerized while she spoke wise words, holding the attention of everyone there.
“You being aware of it is the turning point. You talk to yourself anyway, right? You might as well make it something worth talking about; something that’s going to make you. After all, you’re attracting whatever it is you’re putting out there. Careful,” she quietly warned. “Once you mentally get to the point where you can stop and say… ‘Okay, self. Now look. We’ve been over this same instance for at least a hundred times now, and we keep getting the same results.’ Think about a happy time in your life, replace it with elephants, or even baby poop. It doesn’t matter. The point is to stop it before it consumes you. If you don’t it’ll get you. And some of you already know exactly what I’m talking about, probably all of you. Raise your hand if you’ve ever let something or someone from your past consume you into a bar, a strange bed, or maybe even a needle.”
Even without looking back and around for the raised hands, I knew that plenty were in the air, but it was hers I wondered about. Was it up to engage her audience or was it up because of something else. It wasn’t until Tristan raised her eyes, giving me a knowing look that I raised mine as well. When I raised my hand, I caught a glimpse of all the raised hands. Not one judge. We’d all beat ourselves up time and time again over something someone else had done, but it was at that moment that something stirred, something inside me waking up. For the first time, I understood what that meant. I was the one choosing to be miserable because I expected someone outside myself to make me happy; to change for my journey. That’s what Tristan wanted me to understand. And I did. I had to stop trying to throw my parents in my path. They didn’t belong there.
“Right? You know how it started. You thought about that one time your mom did that thing. Or that time your husband or wife said that hurtful thing. Or the time your dad let you walk out of his life without a fight. Or the time your mom ignored you for a guy. You feed off of it until you snap and go off looking for something to ease the pain; a joint, a drink, someone to have meaningless sex with, a needle, a new dress. Yeah? Believe it or not, I know this game well, but it hadn’t happened for a very long time. I’m normally easily steered back on track, but sometimes I still fall.
“I’m sure I still have plenty of lessons to learn, but the good thing about it is the fact that I can handle them whatever way I choose. If I decide to dwell on something pitiful and full of pain or anger, I’m going to get more of it. I know this. I’ve known this virtually my whole life, but I am still human. Lucky for me though, I normally bounce right back, but I don’t get cocky. Do you know why? Because as soon as you let your ego slip back in, even for a second, it’ll feed and feed, knocking you flat on your ass,” she continued, her hands slapping together with a loud crack. “You get a speeding ticket, you spend your last twenty bucks on a flat tire, and you forget to get toilet paper, remembering after your camp is all setup. Those are the times when you run back to your closed closet and start pulling out those past hurts, rejections, resentments, and bitterness.”
“You condemn your mother to hell for never putting you first, you crucify your dad for caring more about drugs, women, careers or booze than you, or maybe you blame your brother, your sister or the idiot who rather than protecting you, hurt you. There’s always somebody, but we don’t have to let them break us. That’s our choice and we don’t give them permission to do it anymore, but sometimes we do. It’s a sign of ostentation and a lack of self-control. We all do it. Even me. Being aware is the first step and the most important one if you ask me. Once you master the art of seeing it before it consumes you, the quicker you can get on with your real life. Your intended happy life.”
“You didn’t come to this planet to follow a system and be like everyone else. Neither did any of these babies. It’s not about working your life away to buy stuff that you don’t even enjoy. It’s not about looking like the photo-shopped girl on the cover of Vogue. It’s not about your kids being in more sports than your neighbor’s kid. It’s not about your car being newer and better than your sister in-laws’. It’s not about a commercialized holiday that makes you go out and spend thousands of dollars on more stuff; stuff probably made in third world countries. It’s not about fashion. It’s not about the shoes, the purse, or the hair. It’s not about this corrupted government. None of it guys. It’s all a bunch of bullshit and you’ve been brainwashed into thinking that it was okay. It’s not, and that’s why I’m here. That’s why I do this.”
“Whether you want to leave and never come back to one of these things is totally up to you. And some of you might even do that. Actually, I’m sure of it, but that’s okay. If you can take only one thing from this weekend, I hope that it’s this. Nothing in this world is ever as it seems. At least the seed is planted, whether or not you feed and nurture it, is on you. The day I had Baby-T was just short of a nightmare. From the moment I woke up my day was doomed. Everything around me felt suffocating, crashing in all around me and I couldn’t breathe. And yes, I thought about everything under the sun, I blamed anyone I could think of for everything that happened that day; both my parents, the man my mother married, the government, but most of all my third grade teacher for hating on my new boots. That’s another story. Of all nights, for whatever stupid reason, I let it bother me. I let what Sister Lana said about my shoes tear me down again, eleven years later,” she admitted playfully, attracting a light laugh from her spectators.
This girl…
I was so in love with her it wasn’t even funny, and I wanted to hear that story. I wanted to know about the new boots and why she still thought about something her third grade teacher said all these years later. I could barely even remember my third grade teacher. Actually, I could barely remember my fourth or fifth grade teacher, let alone an event that had taken place. While Tristan took a break, drinking water and staring into the eyes of her patrons, I let that sink in. Even though I couldn’t remember my teacher at that age, I had plenty of influences that I did remember, many instances where I was left to care for myself, or I was all-alone. All of which I still thought about placed them front and center every time I had a chance. It was the memory, not the age or the people.
“Where was I ? Oh yeah. The day my son was born, I was worse than a bear with a thorn in his foot. Pissed off at the world. I’d had this annoying pain that I was sure was the fake labor pains; Braxton Hick’s contractions for the ones’ who haven’t had that pleasant experience yet,” she sarcastically added with a nod and a funny frown. Again, gaining an engaging laugh. “I was trying like hell to gather some wood for a fire, I was hungry, and none of my batteries had charged from the alternator like the guy I’d just paid fifty bucks said they would. I was mad at him, too. I did finally get a fire going, but the fake labor pains weren’t going away, and they were coming faster and faster. I was terrified of what was happening, scared and alone, but I was still pissed off at the world, my mom, my dad, the sister that I needed but never even had, my third grade teacher, my favorite, broken flip-flop, the wet blankets from a lea
king jug, the low air on the tire I’d just replaced…You get the picture. I dropped my umbrella and let it pour, drowning me in pathetic sorrow.”
“I had spent the entire day, wallowing in every negative thing I could find. When my water broke, I knew I was in trouble, my anxiety was through the roof, and my baby felt it. Every unneeded stress that I’d let build and build, instead of stopping and calming down like I should have. By the time I wanted to change my mind and think about something pleasant, something that made me happy, it was too late. I’d already worked myself into a huge ball of hurt, despair, and anger, pissed off at any and every one I could think of. Even my dad. Especially my dad. I screamed to the dark sky with rumbling, thunder clouds moving closer. I screamed to anyone who could hear me. Mostly my dad. I called him a liar at the top of my lungs, blaming him for me being alone, sure there was no one there but me, daring him to let it storm.”
“You think I don’t fight with demons? I do. Not often, but once in a while, I fall apart, too, but, I’m getting better, and as long as that keeps happening, I’m going to keep striving for it. Nobody makes you feel anything. Nobody makes you happy or unhappy. You do it to yourself and until you stop pointing fingers and stop judging other people for where you are right now, well, you’re going to keep on getting what you’re getting. A bunch of smelly shit that you don’t want nor need. I don’t want that in my life. I don’t have room for it because I’m too full of love and humanity, and I want to keep it that way. I don’t want to fall, but when there’s a lesson to be made, I’ll face it. And then I’ll pick myself up and dust off my knees. Because that’s what you’ve got to do. Only you are responsible for you. What other people have done to you has made you who you are. Remember that and then ask yourself where you’d be had that one thing not happened. I’ll bet you’re glad you’re right here. Right now. While I was having my dramatic meltdown in the middle of the forest all alone, screaming, madly at the sky, I dropped to my knees, sure I wouldn’t be able to dust them off this time.”