Episode 257: Conversations with Forgotten Gods, Part III
January 1st, 2024
Kristen Zaza
[Eerie Theme Music.]
[Your Narrator:]
Welcome to the new year.
A year is a form, a shape given to an abstract, uncontainable concept, the concept of existence, we created it
And that form, that form we created, has died.
Is that why we feel grief at this time of year?
We are also a form, a shape given to an abstract, uncontainable concept, the concept of existence that I think we created, too
At least, we created these forms we’re in now in the darkness of this castle-space together
Is the end-of-year grief here, too?
I think that’s why we light fireworks and have bright parties and distract ourselves with prettiness and fun
Because otherwise, we’d feel too deeply that the thing we created and experienced for so many months and weeks and days and hours and minutes has passed away
Maybe.
A god visited me last time we spoke
They kept saying something
Something about destroying every tower that I build up
I had a vision recently of another tower
A great, steepled cathedral
A monument to order and organization. A ghastly and powerful human creation, a form, sharp and angular, to house everything made and stored and classified and put together
Kind of like a year, maybe
A grouping of intangible things in an effort to make them tangible
A container of thoughts that don’t want to be contained in an effort to control them
I was afraid, last time we spoke, of the furious and demanding god of Now, I was very very afraid of them
But I heard their voice echoing out in my vision
And a little brick crumbled off the top of this mighty cathedral
And I was full of joy, even in my grief for the imaginary year about to die.
I will not lie to you today.
I haven’t lied to you in some time
I can’t really, anymore.
But I will try to share my thoughts as openly as possible
Because that’s all that’s left to do when all is said and done.
The first god came to me in a blaze of light
The second god possessed my sleepless night
The third god…
A third god will come and visit me
Who comes next? Who comes next?
I think I’m ready
I think I know
Will you go back to New Year’s Eve with me?
Will you wait up with me past midnight?
Shall we greet them together?
There is a place I can go sometimes, far away from the buildings and the streets and the noise of my city. I am fortunate that I have the opportunity to leave it sometimes.
There is a rocky shore to a freezing lake
It has been grey, rainy and stormy here over the holidays
The snow never came.
At night, there is so little light
I have gone out to the porch where by day there is a beautiful view of vast water that seems endless, but by night, you can’t see a thing
It’s been so cloudy that no stars have been in sight for days, not even the full moon could shine through, though I think I saw her ghost, shrouded and pale and distant, once
The Moon is the High Priestess, and sometimes she needs to veil herself to find her power, to look within and to encourage us to do the same.
The porch has a little light on it so you can see the bricks under your feet to a point, but after that point, as soon as the grass should appear, and then the rocks, and the water, well that is all shadow at night
You can only hear the sound of the waves
Birds too sometimes but not always
And sometimes other animals that warn you not to wander too far into the shadows
I wrote about this before I think. Not this place but a different place with a different porch but it doesn’t matter, I was in both and so they were both Here to me at some point
This phenomenon of the world disappearing beyond a nighttime porch
It only happens in dark and natural places
We build cities to avoid it, I think.
Anyway
I stood on this porch on a cloudy night recently
I looked into the shadow, the endless darkness where I know there is a lake but can only hear it
I know there are trees that, by day, have thousands of fingers stretching towards the sky, housing crows and woodpeckeers and squirrels, but by night, I don’t know what they do
I wonder if they point at me and whisper to each other, hopefully nice things.
Anyway
I stood on this porch on a cloudy night recently
And as I looked into the shadow where I know the edge of the lake exists by day, I wondered if it was still there at night. I could hear it but that wasn’t enough proof
I looked at the place where there is a man-made wall to keep the tide away from the porch, the place where one can stand on smooth ground to look out at the lake and pretend you’re flying over it because you’re higher up than the shoreline
I could see nothing but shadow
[an enormous, resonant melody, featuring a loud and ominous ‘ding, dong’ and distant humming and sighing vocals]
Except, that is, until
Just like the pale ghost of the moon could be seen like a dimly lit white cloud in an otherwise blackened night sky
A face pushed its way ever so slowly into my view
The same pale white, more like grey in the clouds of the shadow, just coming so gradually into my awareness
Sometimes I don’t know if these things happen because I am trying to come up with something for a story
Or because I desperately want to see beautiful and frightful things with my Kristen eyes
Or because they really are there in some capacity or other, maybe being seen by my Narrator eyes
I don’t know
I think them and I believe them or at least I try to
No wait, don’t disappear, I’m sorry
There is no trying to believe, there is just believing
I’m sorry
I do see you
But who are you?
I can only see their face
The rest must be shrouded in black
I am wearing all black, too, I usually am, and I am awfully pale I’ve been told
Maybe I look just the same
Maybe they look at me and see a ghastly pale face, obscured by shadow
But there is a light on my porch
And they are standing in the darkness by the lakeshore
They are much higher up than where the smooth wall is
They are either very very tall
Or just hovering there
I think it and I see them bob gracefully up and down once
As though propelled by wings
Wings that must be black for how invisible they are
Two little blue glowing lights appear in that obfuscated visage
[A sigh. Then echoing, low and strange breathing, over and over, in an unnatural rhythm]
The third god
When I began this probably somewhat meandering work years ago, I invented an Angel of Death
The Angel of Death
I needed an adversary
I needed a lover
I buried him
I resurrected him
I cast him away
I brought him back
I set him on fire
I froze him in the lake
I welcomed him to my castle
I tore down the castle
He is fiction that I created to satisfy my every human emotion that arises surrounding the magic I cannot for the life of me figure out how to bring into this reality, and I keep trying to say goodbye to him
Because sometimes it hurts so much
Like when I was a child and I decided to tearfully throw away my favourite stuffed animal, I remember standing over a rather clean and garbage-less plastic bin that I don’t even think was meant for trash, and I held a little funeral and I said “I need to grow up now,” and I threw it in the bin
I didn’t like the way that felt
So I picked him up again immediately, hugged him and cried
I remember this vividly
And no one else was there with me
Just me
And a little thing I imagined into awareness
Just a little pile of felt and thread and cotton, sewed and dyed and strapped together to look like a zebra
I didn’t even love zebras esepecially
But because I imagined that it had feelings, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt it.
For a moment, the Angel of Death grins his most terrible and most charming grin and shadows dance across him, making it seem that tacky looking fake zebra stripes appear across the paleness of his beautiful and awful face
Only briefly
As I let the memory go, so does he.
The face grows larger in the shadows, as he comes closer to me
He is gliding, not stepping, not flapping wings after all
He is gliding towards me and away from the frigid lake
Remnants of holiday celebrations are behind me, inside, I think, I’m trying to lie as little as possible here
Good times and bad times, Here and Everywhere, we can go on holiday but that doesn’t stop that process
Nor can I stop him coming closer to me, growing larger still
“Why have I been visited by three forgotten gods this holiday?”
[In a low voice]
“You haven’t.”
And he doesn’t stop coming towards me
[Music again; same as before but add a rolling grand piano]
Even as we collide
Even as I see his grim face smiling down on me
Even as his six wings hand limp and relaxed and on fire behind him
Even as his claws crack with ice as he brings them up to rip open my heart space
He doesn’t stop until he is resting in there now
Enormous and yet able to fit in the small cave his frozen fingernails pried open
And then it’s all quiet
My eyes have adjusted to the darkness a little, or maybe it’s the time of day, I don’t know, time is behaving oddly as it so loves to do
Anyway, I can see a little past the porch now
There are two swans and three geese bobbing roughly in the stormy water
I feel concerned for them briefly but then there is a part of me that wants to give in to that same chaos
Be thrown around by a temperamental lake in winter
What would it feel like?
[The Low Voice, again]
“Like this.”
As soon as the voice resonates from my heart, I feel as though I have been pushed from a great height
The water is blackness again, no swans or geese, The wall and the grass eaten up by shadow, the porch is next, the little lightbulb goes out just as I run back inside but all of the lights in this place shut off, too, one by one, the darkness bursts through and into this house I’m in, the shadow that dragged me down and won’t let me go, but how can I tell you I’m not afraid of it? How can I tell you how good it feels?
The fireplace roars into awakeness
His face is there too
All heat and energy now
The Angel of Death is a demanding muse and a consuming flame
But it too bursts and is swallowed up again by
Everything
The third god, I think, is the god of death. Gods, angels, ghosts, same same same.
Death is the New Year’s Eves that have yet to come
Death is the end of a year we’ve created, but time won’t stop after that, a new year will come because we will create it too
Death is the way we imbued the year with life and cried over its passing away
Death is kept at bay by the way we can always bring another stuffed animal to life to cuddle close in the form of a 2024
Death is the muse I sing to, the story I weep at, the arms I cling to in sleep now though I once shunned, because he will never stop coming to me
It’s rather touching
Happy New Year
We may feel mourning for a year gone, with its bangs and whimpers alike
But we spend that time distracted by the arrival of our new god, our new idol we created each and all of us, the god of the New Year.
Let’s take a break from that for just a moment.
Breathe with me.
We are in a dark, quiet, meditative space
Between your ears, behind your eyes
Mine too
I have been feeling an extreme urge to come here
The god of selfish desire is the force inside me that wants me to be distracted so I can’t tell these stories
The god of the demanding now is the force that wants me to stay focused on the present moment, so I still can’t tell these stories
The god of Death
Well
I won’t be able to tell stories when I’m dead, surely
Will I?
[Eerie theme music]
(Host speaks as Kristen:)
Hello, my friends, and thank you for joining me. And most importantly, Happy New Year to you. I hope you’re having a lovely holiday. I’ve been appreciating some really peaceful quiet time, I’m really grateful for that. Still no snow, though, but that’s all right. I hope you’ve had a warm and loving holiday, full of things that bring you joy, whether that includes being in the moment, distracting yourself, or celebrating endings and beginnings. I’ve certainly had a little of all of that.
Sending my gratitude to my newest Patreon supporter, Misti. Thank you so much for joining my community there and for helping me make the show. If you’d like to support On a Dark, Cold Night on a monthly basis like Misti, each patron of $1 or more a month US gets access to my complete soundtrack, while each patron of $5 or more a month US gets that, exclusive recurring bonus “Quick Momemnt” meditation episodes, and a monthly tarot reading video every full moon. Learn more at patreon.com/darkcoldnight. The meditations are also available through a subscription to the Sonar+ channel on Apple podcasts for 3.99 a month; you can search for On a Dark, Cold Night or the Sonar Network on itunes to learn more. You can donate one-time only without any perks by buying one or more metaphorical coffees at ko-fi.com/darkcoldnight, or by buying a t-shirt or hoodie at bonfire.com/on-a-dark-cold-night.
Sending many thanks to itunes listener “dog mom 1111” from the United States who left me a really sweet 5 star review on Apple Podcasts! I really appreciate you taking the time to do that. Leaving a rating and a review on iTunes, Spotify, Facebook, or wherever else you like to do so is a wonderful free way to help the show around the holidays. You can also follow me on social media; I’m on Facebook and YOuTube under On a Dark, Cold night, on Bluesky and Tiktok under kristenzaza, instagram at darkcoldnightpodcast, and Twitter @ADarkColdNight.
Thank you again for listening. Thank you for your patience with my release schedule as the year came to a close and the holiday came around.
Wishing peace and light and love and compassion for all of us in 2024.
Wishing us peace and light and love and compassion for all of our own raging gods inside of us.
Wishing you a very wonderful and life-giving Happy New Year, my friends.
Sweet dreams.
[Eerie theme music]
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