{"id":14496,"date":"2014-08-15T15:57:30","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T22:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yummy-wakame.com\/?p=14496"},"modified":"2016-10-11T04:47:49","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T04:47:49","slug":"the-secret-lake-and-a-hidden-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/2014\/08\/the-secret-lake-and-a-hidden-place\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Lake and a hidden place"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
\n<\/a>The Secret Lake, Beloved Festival 2014 (Tidewater OR)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

I got back from Beloved a few days ago and intended to post privately here about the journey, but I’m finding it impossible to put it into words. It’s all sticky in my heart and mind still. I guess I’m still processing what happened there. I’m still processing even deciding to go at the last minute and see my previous\u00a0partner\u00a0there, in his element, connecting with girls who gathered around him a lot. It would have been a lot easier if he’d been less visible. And constantly bumping into him\u00a0was weird in so many ways. I fell apart a few times only to be gently and patiently gathered up by the only person who has ever really understood\u00a0me and never left my side. With his support\u00a0I was able to more gently face my fears, stand tall and be strong in my own being, enjoying the juicy bounty of my favourite festival in the Universe.\u00a0It was overall an incredibly positive, healing, bonding and magical experience returning to Beloved this year, which I feel this image gives a glimpse of. The photo\u00a0isn’t manipulated at all by the way, it really looks like this at night.\u00a0All the installations at Beloved had the ability to take you to another world, because they were so fantastical and unreal…<\/p>\n

I haven’t\u00a0left my home\u00a0much since\u00a0the breakup a few months ago, except to shop and a few visits to the beach and to camp. I had lost touch with my whole Portland family, felt afraid to trust any friends or reach out. But I missed them so much, and here they were, almost all of them in one beautiful space, to hug and hold and dance with for 3 whole days. I skinnidipped in this lake with my best friend, then bathed him to wash the algae off, and we cuddled\u00a0in the Sun to dry off afterwards. This is one of the many sweet\u00a0memories from Beloved that I cherish.<\/p>\n

A man\u00a0I had never met before saw us together and asked so excitedly and insistently to take a polaroid of us doing our thing. I will post it here, in this secret, private hiding place that maybe noone will see. For reasons we both instinctively agree on and don’t have reasons\u00a0for\u00a0we wanted to keep this photo private and in our own homes, and not publish it on facebook. But since we have no hard and fast rules between us and since this is my diary\u00a0—\u00a0a rarely updated or visited space — it feels like I’m putting it up on my own private shrine in my bedroom to contemplate and give thanks. A new friend we bumped into on the very last day had been witnessing us connecting all\u00a0weekend and reflected on how moved and inspired\u00a0he was to see two people taking such gentle, loving and focussed care of each other throughout a bewildering journey. He felt our unspoken understanding and love for each other so strongly and it gave him hope again. Him telling me about it gave me hope again. I am so grateful for Kai, for holding me throughout the worst breakup of my life as I went pretty much insane for months. And I’m grateful for knowing a\u00a0gentleness and safety and loyalty and fierceness of feeling I haven’t felt from a friend in over 10 years,\u00a0at the tail end of\u00a0a really unstable decade of my life. The seemingly unending\u00a0pattern of deep\u00a0betrayal in my life\u00a0is finally coming to an end, I can feel it, and he is the Herald.<\/p>\n

Thank you Universe for\u00a0restoring my faith in my dreams again, and giving me new reasons to trust again.<\/p>\n

\"secret-lake-photo\"
\n<\/a>Kai found a wreath bursting with pink flowers a few weeks ago, and put it on his head. We aren’t sure what it is though I think its a crown of a faerie king. Pink is his favourite colour. He was literally in his element \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Secret Lake, Beloved Festival 2014 (Tidewater OR) I got back from Beloved a few days ago and intended to post privately here about the journey, but I’m finding it impossible to put it into words. It’s all sticky in my heart and mind still. I guess I’m still processing what happened there. I’m still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[408,257],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}