This is the episode transcript to episode 3 of our mini-series podcast drama, titled “don’t touch me.” To listen to the episode you can VISIT THIS LINK.
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TRANSCRIPT:
I’ve been hiding something from you.
It’s the reason that nobody wants to be around me.
Nobody wants to touch me.
It’s because of what I did.
[sounds of water]
Greetings Good Listeners,
You are tuning in to The Ancestors Writers Room. I’m Storyteller and Spell Weaver, Shaunga Tagore. This is a podcast drama mini-series that weaves together the big movements with the small things. This is episode three and it’s called, “don’t touch me.”
Today I asked my Ancestors Writers Room, what story story would you like to share with the world today? And they said: a love story. A love story, titled “don’t touch me?” Yes, a love story, titled “don’t touch me.”
Remember that part of what it means to write with your Ancestors, is that if you go into the story, open it up and study it, you find personal and collective divination.
Many people on the planet right now are being re-united with epic, legendary love stories. If we understand partnership itself as a sovereign spirit, a universal life force, a primordial Ancestor, in 2024, this Ancestor is getting an upgrade.
The spirit of Partnership itself is ending major generational cycles of toxicity and abuse; control and domination. It’s choosing a new life for itself, a new road. Even if that road is unfamiliar and it’ll require them to fumble around a little bit to figure things out. The spirit of partnership is moving through everyone and everything.
For some people, yeah, it’s about meeting the greatest love of your lifetimes…you know, in a…sexy way.
But it’s not just about that. It’s also about a woman and her work. A man and his medicine. A Queer Witch and her two Black Cats. Humans and the land they live on. Humans and the stars that guide them. A big fish and a disappeared planet. A giant mountain and some small flowers. A Mama Bird and a Baby Bird. A crazy planet and her freedom.
This love story that we share with you today about a Volcano and a Waterfall, a Fire Keeper and a Grief Bender. It’s about the Colours of Ancestors themselves, Red and Blue. The Numbers of Ancestors themselves, 3 and 5. 3 (friendship) and 5 (breakthrough) which equals 8 = STRENGTH. 2024. You could say it’s a love story between a Dog and a Cat…or between music and writing…in other words the Rockstar and the Storyteller. Aries and Gemini! Obviously!
I know that it sounds like we’re talking about ME. Well guess what, we are! Cuz it’s my podcast!
Let me take you back, underneath, above, within time. Now I had just met the Rockstar about a month ago. But we were living on opposite sides of the continent. I was on the East, he was in the West.
We were in that space of like, talking for hours on video chat every night. At this point we hadn’t spoken our feelings for each other out loud. Like, we hadn’t admitted to each other what was going on…even though it was like I know you know that I know you know and you know I know…we both knew exactly what was going on! We just hadn’t said it, at least not yet.
One night he’s describing how much he loves this new dream home he’s building on ceremonial liberated land with queer and trans chosen family, an ancestral artist mecca, and how beautiful and abundant the solstice is gonna be.
He says: “I really wish you could be here for the ceremony. You’d have so much fun. I think you’d really love everyone here, and they’d for sure love you.”
And then I say: “…Okay!”
“Wait…what?”
“I’ll come for the Solstice. I mean, only if you really want me to…if you don’t want me to, that’s, that’s totally…”
“No! I mean, Yeah! I want you to come…No, like I’d love for you to come…I just um…you would just do that?”
“I mean…yeah…why the hell not?”
And just like that…Fire who lived in the West, and Water who lived in the East, had plans to spend the Solstice together.
[sounds of water fade out]
I’m not going to tell you what that trip was like for me. At least not yet. Instead, I’ll let Aries tell you. That’s right, Gemini is gonna step back, and throw the Mic to the Rockstar. He can tell you the rest of it.
Okay, so Aries here. Uh, okay. So Gemini arrives the day before the Solstice, um, I pick her up from the airport, and right away it’s amazing. [laughs]
It’s like the chemistry is palpable, and we can’t stop smiling and laughing, and yeah it’s like really flirty…ah, but it’s also deeper than that. There’s so much love, so much joy. My heart just feels at peace with her.
But there’s something that I wasn’t expecting. Like, it’s different in person. Like you know when you’re talking over text or through multiple voice notes per day, and there’s like so much built up tension over the distance that you feel like okay once you’re together in person the physical passion is just gonna explode.
But, she got here and it wasn’t like that. Not that there wasn’t attraction. The attraction was actually off the charts, but it was more like…there’s a forcefield around her. An orb. A shell.
Something that saying: “don’t touch me.”
There were, like, moments where I felt like we might have moved in closer, and gotten physical, but right at that edge her energy would pull back into itself.
It didn’t bother me, it just surprised me, you know?
The next day, the solstice, in the afternoon, she took a nap. Uh, I went out and sat on the porch, I got some smoke going. I love talking to the smoke. It helps me come back to myself and see things clearly. It helps me see more.
Cuz I’m starting to feel my relationship anxieties and insecurities come up, you know? Like, I’m starting to question what I see and what I think is real.
So I ask the smoke: is this more than friendship or is it just friendship? I mean, okay, it’s obvious that there’s attraction and chemistry, and we’re feeling things for each other, but that doesn’t mean that she wants to make it more of a physical thing, like it doesn’t automatically have to mean that.
Look, the most important thing to me is that this person I’ve just met is so special to me, and I want this, whatever it is. I want to be open to whatever our relationship wants to be and grow into. Like, I don’t have an agenda. Like, I mean, like yeah, I want her. I want her in all the ways. I do, sure. I want her to come home.
I think that she’s a cat, that for whatever reason was left alone by a tree, wearing a really scraggly green collar that was too tight around her neck, and she just survived out there, sitting by that tree, like for who knows how long, alone, and then I found her and I…I want my ceremonial home here on liberated land with queer and trans chosen family, and I want this to be her Furrever Home too.
But if she is a cat, and she has another home that is calling her spirit, then I can’t be the one who keeps her away from that. I know that she has prayed for love as much as I have.
I already love her enough to want it to be me.
And also enough to want her to have it, even if it’s not me.
Then she speaks. She’s still sleeping in the other room, but through the fire, her voice comes through loud and clear.
“I didn’t fly across the continent in a moment’s notice because I just want to be friends. You’re my person.”
I realized that as soon as we met in person, all my old stories came up like, oh it’s probably not me, why would it ever be me, I’m not good enough.
The truth is, deep down I feel like I’m a monster. And monsters don’t get love. And that’s fine…I’ve made it this far. I can live without touch, too.
But something about her voice just broke that lie open, like a Gemini Twin will do that. Like I was getting stuck on the, what are we – friends or not friends? But her voice broke that binary open and a world emerged and I saw her clearly.
“Oh…you’re just shy…you’re shy when it comes to physical affection.”
Didn’t even occur to me, because you’re so confident and upfront, badass and bold, like you take so many risks and you do it publicly and you perform on stage, it didn’t occur to me that there could be a place in your life that you’re just…shy.
And I saw that first night you spent with Estha, your beloved Black Cat…15 years ago in 2008, the first night that he came home with you. He and his sister Rahel, they were foster kitties. They were living in a temporary home, an apartment with green window panes, across the street from the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario. As soon as you met Estha and Rahel, like within minutes, and probably before that. For sure before that. You knew. And they did too. They are your Furrever Home.
But even so, the first night they came home with you, it was hard.
They were confused to be in a new environment, scared, stressed out. Estha hid under your bed that whole first evening, and he wouldn’t come out.
But then late into the night, you were sleeping, and he slowly creeped out, quietly leaped on the bed, sniffed your face, checked things out. He softened, getting to know your energy, and how familiar it was. He fell asleep next to you, you cuddled the whole night, and you bonded.
The next day, Estha was a complete 180. He was fully comfortable, happy, and in love with his new home. He just needed a little bit of time and quiet. He needed to come out, on his own terms, in a soft environment.
“don’t touch me.”
It goes real deep, for you, that sentence, doesn’t it? That orb, that forcefield, that shell is a world that’s protecting something. What are you protecting?
A Story. In the Multiverse.
I see a small kid who is getting ready for her first day of school. She’s excited. She puts on her best outfit. She can’t wait to immerse herself in an environment that is completely dedicated to why her essence as a Gemini was created in the Universe in the first place. To Learn!
She’s so happy, on that first day of school. She has magic in her hands, electrifying, phenomenal magic, that she can’t wait to show off and share. She is overjoyed at the thought of playing with other kids who might just be magical too!
She’s innocent, curious and full of wonder, she’s a wonder child. She reaches out her hand toward another kid. She’s just being generous with her magic. It was just a touch. Just a simple gesture of physical affection.
But, her magic was too strong. The magic in her hands zapped that kid, flung him across the playground, and he was knocked unconscious.
There he was, lying on the ground next to a teeter-totter, traumatized. Still alive. But in shock, and his mind was warped by the impact of her magic.
Like he couldn’t think straight anymore. His brain waves were actually fucked up by her celestial charge. Then it was chaos. Everyone in the school…teachers…parents on recess duty…other kids…they all came running to save the boy, and pushed her to the side.
Then, they put her in a cell – solitary confinement – because they deemed, it wasn’t safe for her to be around anyone.
Parents, teachers, community elders, they came together in council and tried to figure out what the hell they just saw. This was unprecendented. Even though this was a magical school, for spiritually gifted children, nothing like this had ever happened before.
They had several, long meetings, for weeks on end, discussing her case. As time went on, more and more community members joined these meetings, they turned into bonifide town hall sessions. All revolving around her.
And the kids, ugh, the kids were so mean. They would gather underneath her cell window, and pretend that they didn’t know she could hear them, and they’d chant: “She’s a Witch! She’s a monster! She’s an ugly, Wicked Witch!”
In those Town Hall Meetings…everyone and their dog had an opinion. Some psychoanalysed her with great depth. Some just needed to vent and rant about her the whole time. Some spoke about her with compassion. Some spoke with resentment and even hatred.
But I’ll tell you, whether it was hatred or compassion, nobody got it right. Everyone saw things about her through their own projections. Through their own woundings, and what their spirit was called to heal.
The thing is, while they were having these convention seminars, that lasted for weeks and weeks – they enjoyed it. See, the Girl, even having almost killed a Boy, still brought the community something that they needed.
The community had never really gotten together regularly like this. They had just been kind of dropping off their kids, going back to their individual lives, they had never congregated before like this, and they needed it.
They needed each other. They brought food from their own cultures and shared them. Through talking about this Girl, their own magic was released. They were finally able to say: You know, I feel like this about her because x, y, z happened in my lineage. Or, I see magic like this because of this tradition I’m apart of.
All these stories were releasing from their throat chakras, that they didn’t even know were missing from their every day lives, and it was healing.
That’s what the girl did, it opened them up to their generosity, their inspiration: Maybe I could bring this part of myself to the congregation this week. Wow, I could share this memory that just unlocked. I could talk about this secret that I’ve been carrying that I’ve never been able to share with anyone, and it will be received with respect.
It was an incredible few weeks for this community. They learned a lot about life, about each other, and you know what – they did eventually decide what to do with the girl. And they kept meeting after that too.
She was still a topic of conversation quite often, that never really changed, but they wouldn’t have to focus so much on her all the time.
This went on for generations, and after a certain point, nobody remembered the origins of why they started coming together in the first place.
Still it remains true, that this little girl’s magic changed everyone. In the Multiverse History books, this village will be known and revered for its communal nature for the rest of time.
It’ll be celebrated for its generosity, for the way it shares cultures and traditions with respect and accrediation. Forever More, it’ll be known as a great place of exchange.
This village will be known, but nobody will remember the girl’s name.
If her likeness ever gets discussed, they say – oh I don’t trust her. An innocent boy almost died because of her.
In those first few weeks, while they congragated, she lay there, in her solitary cell. Curled up. Shaking. Traumatized.
What they didn’t realize is that their conversations were pulling her mind apart, in the same way that her magic temporarily fucked up the brain waves in that little boy.
It was the stories they were telling about her, and all the projections. The way her name was being thrown all over the community like a hot potato. Everyone’s voices, everyone’s voices were so powerful because she could feel everything they were saying about her.
So many conflicting stories that had nothing to do with her, but those stories traveled to her, because her name was attached to them.
Those stories were looking for a Mother.
That’s why they came to her. It fucked up her mind. She didn’t know how to protect herself from that kind of invisible magic because she was just a kid.
She was lying there, shaking, for weeks, alone, just like that boy did for minutes. The only difference was, the community rushed to help him. They loved and cared for him in that state. Because of that love, he came out of it so much more quickly. Any trauma he experienced had a way to move and be released, because the community took care of him.
That wasn’t the case for her. She was left alone, and the community made it worse.
At the end of those few weeks, they did come up with a solution. They did let her out of the cell.
They gave her an orb. A forcefield, a shell.
They said here: this is the magical technology that you will use for the rest of your days. You can only take it off if you are by yourself. And if you come anywhere near or mid-range human, you have to put on the shell.
She said: “Fine, okay. Anything is better, I guess, than this damn cell.”
She grew up like that, she got used to it. She was really sad, but she learned how to make happy within the sad.
She made peace with herself inside the orb. She even learned to fall in love with herself in there.
She had friendships, she had a lot of relationships, but she just never touched anyone.
That’s just how she lived and died.
I don’t feel sorry for her. Because on her death bed, to her grieving Mother, the last thing she said was:
“I’ve had a beautiful life. And this is a beautiful death. What more can I ask for?”
[sounds of water]
So I’m sitting here on the porch listening to the Fire – oh hey it’s me again – Aries, the Rockstar – I’m seeing this whole story, all the timelines that emerged from it, coming from this beautiful person who just flew across the continent to spend the Solstice with me.
And I get it now, I mean maybe some of it. What she told me about her previous partners.
She’d start dating someone, and it would be nice for a while, but then they’d get close.
Inevitably she’d come home one day and her lover would be like a completely different shape. Like they used to be human, but now they’re like a 5D jigsaw puzzle, like super colourful, but all these shapes that don’t fit together. Like squares and trines and oppositions.
And that lover would be panicking, because their body isn’t fitting together anymore, and it’s terrifying. And they’re like what the fuck did you do, what fuck did you do to me?
And then they’d break up. That’s usually how it went. I understand maybe a little bit now, why she spent the last 7 years isolating herself from everyone because that’s what happened when magic exploded from her hands.
I saw how she was really, really sad. But she learned how to make happy within the sad. I saw that she had a beautiful life there, and she wasn’t alone, not at all.
She was actually really, really happy.
She lived and died a beautiful life in that shell and she is not the only one who lived and died there too.
Her voice comes through the smoke again and she says:
I want to try, and be open, and come out of my shell. I think that if I reached out and touched you, you maybe wouldn’t turn into a bunch of colourful squares and oppositions the way the others did.
Because in you I already see the colours, they’re already there.
They’re like paint swirls, they already dance in the sky like the Northern Lights. They’re already Rivers and Waterfalls, just like me.
I think you were born with them, those colours, they come from the land that you’re from.
Those colours, they’re just you. I love your colours and I do want to touch them, because I think they’re a part of me too.
So I want to try, and I want to be open, if you want to take that risk with me. Maybe we could light a fire underneath these hands, yours and mine, and see where that leads.
She reaches out her palms. I place my open hands under hers.
“I would be honoured to hold the hands of a grieving mother, and light a fire underneath.”
[sounds of water fade out]
Thanks for tuning in dear listeners. There is so much to unpack in this story that we just listened to. Lucky for you, we are dropping a writer/director commentary on this episode at the same time. In this commentary I unlock the ancestral teachings that come alive through this love story, and also the grief and rage that emerges from witnessing what happened to this little girl in this village. We have to talk about that. So I do: tune into the very next episode – we’re going to talk about that grief, rage conjunction. And we’ll also hear from PLUTO and SATURN as Ancestors – the planets of hard and ugly truths, and what they have to say about the time when Survivorship and Sobriety fell in love.
You’re also gonna wanna check out the links in our show notes. We have an amazing Ancestral Artist Retreat coming up in May 2024, it’s all online. It’s gonna be epic. We are going to see real life love stories and long lasting dreams and prayers come to fruition right before our eyes. Trust, it’s where you want to be. Learn more about LOVE THAT BREAKS THE RULES in our show notes, and I’ll see you in the next episode.