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  • We Are Not Broken. We Are Not Gone. We Remain.

    We Are Not Broken. We Are Not Gone. We Remain.

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    đŸŽ™ïž We Rise to Remain – A Spoken Anthem for the Margins

    Have you ever known a space not built for you? A structure, a language, a collective narrative that simply couldn’t contain the intricate landscape of your being?

    In this episode, released for German Diversity Day 2025, I invite you into the story behind We Rise to Remain—a poetic anthem shaped by resistance, art, rhythm, and survival.

    Spoken in my voice and lived experience, this is more than a performance. It’s a reclamation.

    Rooted in Germany but spoken in English, this piece bridges identity, erasure, queerness, disability, neurodivergence, and class. It names the systems that tried to erase us—and honors the ones who refused to disappear.

    Each letter of W.E. R.I.S.E. T.O. R.E.M.A.I.N. marks a domain of injustice—and the defiant heartbeat of those still standing. This is not a single narrative. It is a landscape of interwoven truths.

    This episode is for:

    Everyone who’s been told they’re too much or not enough

    The misnamed, the misgendered, the erased

    The artists, the survivors, the ones who remain

    Listeners seeking rhythm, beauty, and unapologetic truth in a time of rollback and resistance

    This isn’t about palatable diversity.This is about radical wholeness.

    🔗 Explore the full art & poetry zine and accompanying visuals at:https://wlplookout2create.substack.com/p/we-are-not-broken-poetry

    Featuring the shortened version of the musical anthem We Rise To Remain:đŸŽ¶ We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain. đŸŽ¶Full Text

    Have you ever known a space not built for you? A structure, a language, a collective narrative that simply cannot contain the intricate landscape of your being? I know this feeling in the deepest valleys of my existence.

    I was born into a world where my very existence was often met with quiet dismissal, suspicion, or full-throated denial. I live in Germany. I write in English. I exist in the space between categories—non-binary, neurodivergent, queer, chronically ill, living with disability. And at the same time, I carry privilege: education, citizenship, linguistic access. That paradox, that friction between visibility and erasure, safety and danger, is where this essay finds its breath.

    As Germany pauses to mark Diversity Day, asking, Was verbindet uns?—"What connects us?"—I do not offer a neat, tidy answer. My response is a different kind of offering. I give you a song.

    "We Rise to Remain" is not just a celebratory anthem. It is, for me, a deeply personal map. It charts the terrain of what it means to be deliberately excluded, to be cast to the edges, and yet, to stubbornly continue living. It speaks the names of the systems that would diminish us. It speaks the names of the survivors who persist. It speaks my name.

    Each letter of W.E. R.I.S.E. T.O. R.E.M.A.I.N. names a domain of discrimination and survival. Each verse honors a different population—each one I've either belonged to or stood beside. The anthem isn’t a list. It’s a landscape.

    This is not about representation. This is about reclamation.

    We live in a world where corporations perform a dance of "diversity" in their marketing materials, all while their internal policies quietly, definitively, betray the very people they claim to include. Governments speak in grand pronouncements of "democracy," yet simultaneously construct structures that erase the lives and histories of those who do not fit their narrow definitions. And those of us who find our homes at the margins are often told, with a subtle dismissiveness, that we are "asking for too much"—when, in the profound simplicity of it all, what we are truly asking for is our undeniable humanity.

    And so, this anthem became a necessity. It was not born from a whimsical desire to write a song. It emerged because the very systems that sought to contain and diminish demanded a response. And I found myself with no other choice but to answer, not in their language of control, but in the elemental language of rhythm, of unwavering resistance, and of the profound return to myself.

    Each letter in “WE RISE TO REMAIN” became a pillar—an offering and an invocation.

    Not acronyms in the traditional sense, more embodied signposts. Each one marks a chapter of struggle and survival, a facet of identity too often fragmented or erased. What follows is not a single story, but a gathering of truths—interwoven, irreducible.

    W – Women / Womanhood: Unfurling from the Confines

    They spoke of being smaller, softer. I was raised among women disciplined by expectation, erased by silence. Gender, as I understood it, was discipline. Erasure adorned in floral print, woven into daily life. It manifested in the wage gap's ache, in medical gaslighting, in power avoiding your gaze unless seeking complicity in silence.

    This verse is not just reflection on women; it is a piercing look into patriarchy. A meditation on how it intertwines with capitalism, reducing human worth to output. How aging femme identities are erased, while young ones exploited. Our bodies are never neutral terrain—always sites of control.

    This is not about comfortable inclusion within broken systems. This is about gathering courage to burn down what harms us and, from fertile ashes, building something fundamentally better.

    E – Earth / Ethnicities / Elders: Grounded in Deep Time

    I observed how land is treated as object, a resource. How ancestors, rivers of life, are dismissed as burdens. How languages, rich with history, and lineages, essence of identity, are deemed expendable. Our origins are not slogans; they are living memory, residing in quiet knowing of the body, subtle accents, forgotten recipes.

    This verse holds grief and reverence. Grief for stolen land, unspoken names, dismissed wisdom. It speaks against colonial extraction, the whitening of history. It speaks for Indigenous memory. Diasporic survival. Climate truth.

    What connects us? The solid land. The powerful stories. The loving presence of ancestors. And the breathtaking world that will, in its own time, outlive us all.

    R – Religion / Refugees / Rejected by Cultures: Seeking Sanctuary

    I remember being pushed from sacred spaces. Not for lack of faith, but for wrong shape, wrong love, wrong questions. I saw others cast from homes, severed from families, exiled from theologies—not for lacking belief, but because authentic belief proved inconvenient.

    This verse speaks to spiritual exile. It illuminates doctrine weaponized, dogma supplanting compassion. It reveals religion twisted to justify cruelty, borders sacrosanct, humanity lost. It names nationalism as perverse theology, white supremacy as distorted gospel, the trauma of being unwanted.

    But it also sings of sanctuary. In exile’s desolate landscape, we find each other, building new altars from shattered pasts.

    I – Identity: The Uncontainable Becoming

    No form could hold me. Every box, every categorization, felt like a betrayal of my expansive truth. I spent years translating myself into checkmarks, knowing the cost of honesty. Knowing complexity makes you vulnerable. Fluidity often framed as a threat to rigid order.

    This verse is a bold refusal of simplification. A hymn for every non-binary, intersex, questioning, fluid, expansive human told they are "too much" or "not enough."

    We are not fringe elements. We are the very fabric of existence, weaving new patterns, adding vibrant threads to humanity.

    S – Survivors: The Sacred Roar of Persistence

    Some experiences I survived have no name in polite conversation. They exist in hushed spaces, shadows of amnesia. I broke silences to reclaim my breath, affirm existence. I am not alone, particularly having lived over 50 years feeling a corrupt self.

    This verse is not soft. Not about neat "closure." It is, fiercely, about justice. About truth. About carrying stories no one wants to hear—and speaking them anyway. It names systems protecting abusers, cultures rewarding silence, the burden of shame never ours to carry.

    This is survival. And survival, in its raw insistence, is sacred.

    E – Economy / Exploitation: The Pulse of Undervalued Life

    I saw what capitalism does to people. Watched friends ration medication, skip meals, push bodies to collapse, all for "productivity." Felt the ache of not being "productive enough," punished for being human.

    This verse speaks to labor's realities. To class. To systemic violence valuing people solely by production. It names poverty not accident, but deliberate policy. It demands fundamental reimagining of priorities.

    We are not assets. Not mere overhead. We are the pulse, the creative force, the reason anything exists.

    T – Territories / Tongues / Traditions: Reclaiming Echoes of Home

    I speak English, a language I discovered as a vital tool. I lost others through displacement, fear, silence. My body carries traditions I am just remembering, like ancestral whispers.

    This verse is for those cut off from roots, forced to translate their being to survive. It names linguistic erasure, cultural cleansing, statelessness. It holds sacred space for return, the slow journey back to ourselves.

    To reclaim the sacred, here, is not just spiritual. It is political, a reassertion of autonomy and belonging.

    O – Others / Overlooked: The Brilliance of Difference

    I was told, with deficiency in tone, that I am "too much." Too sensitive. Too erratic. And, contradictorily, "not enough." Not stable enough. Not "normal" enough.

    This verse fiercely embraces those society writes off. It speaks to how ableism is baked into our lives—from job applications to architectural blueprints, to public discourse's silence.

    We are not problems to be solved. We are people. Our minds are not broken. They are, in their unique workings, profoundly brilliant.

    R – Resistance: The Unyielding Heartbeat

    This is the song's spine. The core reason I am still here. The pulsing heartbeat of every being who declared: not anymore.

    Resistance is not always a riot. Sometimes, it is staying alive. Saying "no." Speaking truth when your voice trembles.

    This verse names every pervasive system—capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, white supremacy—and declares: we see you. We survived you. With every breath, every defiance, we dismantle you.

    E – Every Body: A Love Letter to Embodiment

    I spent years making peace with a body the world tried to erase, deem unworthy. I watched bodies relentlessly categorized, judged, made unsafe. Felt the sting of the gaze that perceives you as data, problem, deviation.

    This verse is a profound love letter to embodiment. Not sanitized, but messy, radiant, uncontainable. It honors fat bodies, trans bodies, scarred bodies, aging bodies, bodies claiming rest, standing in resistance.

    We do not need external permission to exist. Our existence is, in itself, the permission.

    M – Memory / Margins / Melanin: Refusing Disappearance

    History is not neutral. Curriculum is not complete, often omitting vital narratives. Memory, in its complexity, is never a luxury—it is a lifeline.

    This verse is for erased lineages, ancestries pushed to shadows. For footnotes that should have been headlines. For children never seeing themselves reflected, intuitively knowing this absence meant something profound.

    To remember, to reclaim our stories, is to fundamentally refuse disappearance.

    A – All of Us / Access: A Revolution in Connection

    Access is not merely a ramp. It is a revolution. A fundamental redesign of our world, a reimagining of who belongs and how we build shared spaces.

    This verse is not about charity or accommodation. It is, clearly, about justice. It speaks to how inclusion, divorced from power redistribution, is hollow performance. How superficial charity is not systemic change.

    "All of us" means precisely that: every single one of us.

    I – Interbeing: The Mycelial Web of Resistance

    We are not separate. That lie, that illusion of isolation, built an empire. It fuels extraction, isolation, war. But the truth: we are intricately tangled. Interdependent. Bound by shared breath, gentle touch, the fact that not one of us truly survives alone.

    This verse is the quiet truth beneath the clamor. The truth capitalism tries to crush. We are not machines. We are a vast, intricate, resilient mycelial web of resistance, thriving in our interconnectedness.

    N – Naming: The Reclamation of Self

    This is the final word. To name is to reclaim. To name is to refuse silence, break free from anonymity. I have been misnamed, renamed, shamed. But I am still here. Saying my own name, affirming my existence.

    This verse is for the ones never listed. Whose stories were scrubbed. Who are still, against odds, rising. Naming is how we begin. How we build a new, more truthful world.

    The Unfolding Truth: A Choice to Remain

    Privilege and marginalization aren't fixed points. They are context-driven, fluid, and intersectional. I know what it means to be read as white, to be fluent, to navigate a room with authority. I also know what it means to be misgendered, dismissed, pathologized, ridiculed, invisibilized. And I know that awareness—deep, ongoing, unsettling awareness—is what makes the difference. Because privilege without awareness becomes domination. And marginalization without connection becomes despair.

    That’s where the idea of connection matters most. Not in feel-good slogans or hollow affirmations. But in radical truth-telling. In naming what hurts, and who is hurting. In choosing to listen even when the mirror we’re handed doesn’t flatter us. And yet, I still believe in the possibility of transformation. I still believe that awareness, once awakened, spreads. That solidarity is not abstract. That joy is an act of resistance. That when we say no one is free until all of us are free, we mean it.

    I believe, too, in art. In the language of rhythm, color, song, movement. This is not about being clever. It is about being real. And my real—my full self—is a tapestry of grief, resistance, beauty, hope. So, to my American friends—facing book bans, political erasure, climate disaster, and a system that monetizes your pain—I say this: You are not alone. We see you. We rise with you. And we remain.

    And to those in Germany who feel the tightening grip of conformity, the silencing of queer and migrant lives, the co-opting of diversity for marketing while justice is denied—I say: This anthem is for you, too. Grounded in the spirit of the Charta der Vielfalt and the enduring question, Was verbindet uns? this is not a performance.

    Because what connects us is not sameness. It’s not niceness. It’s not neutrality. It’s the choice to show up—whole, messy, awake—and say: I will not abandon the truth of who I am to make others comfortable. And I will not abandon you either.

    We rise.

    And we remain.

    Jay Siegmann

    — For German Diversity Day 2025

    Please look at my Full Version Anthem Art and Poetry Zine “We Rise To Remain”

    Please explore the accompanying video, full-length poetry anthem, and artwork at Wild Lion*esses Lookout on Substack. There, you'll find the complete text and visuals that bring this anthem to life

    We Rise to Remain — Song in the Shortened Version

    This is a shortened version that matches the actual provided music below and at the end of the recorded poem which you will find here:

    https://wlplookout2create.substack.com/p/we-are-not-broken-poetry

    đŸŽ”We rise for the silenced, the shamed, and the scarred,For women whose power they tried to discard.We rise for the elders, the soil and the seed,For histories buried and futures in need.

    đŸŽŒWe rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.

    đŸŽ”We rise for the exiled, the faithful, the queer,For names they erased and identities feared.We rise for the margins, the masked, the unseen,For fat liberation, for neurodivergent dreams.

    đŸŽŒWe rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.

    đŸŽ”We rise for the laborers, bent but not bowed,For the backbone of nations, for voices unbowed.We rise for the stories they silenced with shame,And kindle the flame as we call every name.

    đŸŽŒWe rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.

    đŸŽ”We rise not in fragments—we rise as a tide,With earth at our feet and stars as our guide.They tried to erase us, deny and contain—But still, we are many. Still, we remain.

    đŸŽŒWe rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe
  • HALLELUJAH IN THE STREETS

    HALLELUJAH IN THE STREETS

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    FROM THE GRENZLANDMUSEUM TO THE STREETS OF AMERICA

    I walked through the remnants of the border today. The watchtowers. The fences turned inward. The silence forced on a people monitored by their neighbors. The flags of ideology that looked different but functioned the same.

    Germany lived through both extremes. The right devoured lives in fire. The left locked freedom behind concrete and glass. Indoctrination wore uniforms. Surveillance came in whispers. Dissent vanished in files. And I see it rising again—across the ocean, beneath familiar slogans.

    Let this be a record. A resistance. A reckoning.

    THE OTHER DICTATORSHIP

    Not the Nazis.The other one.

    The red one,with youth leagues instead of brownshirts—FDJ, ThĂ€lmann-Jugend,indoctrination by age ten.

    They didn’t expand.They imprisoned.Built fences like camp gates,turned inward,to keep their own from fleeing.

    Relocated dissenters from border zones,labeled thought a threat,trained children to report their parents.

    The Stasi didn’t knock.They listened through the walls,sat at your kitchen table,called it safety.

    And now,watching America inch toward controldressed as protection,I feel the wire pulling tight again.

    It doesn’t matter if the flag is red or striped—when obedience is demanded,you are already behind the fence.

    HALLELUJAH IN THE STREETS

    by Gloria Horton-Young

    Listen, People—my People,

    I’m not going to sugarcoat this. We’re in a moment that would make Thomas Jefferson reach for the bourbon and Thomas Paine start building barricades.

    This poem isn’t precious. It’s not asking for your approval. It’s showing up on your doorstep at 10AM with coffee, clipboard, and sensible shoes—because we have work to do.

    Yes, it borrows from Leonard Cohen—and frankly, I think he’d approve of the repurposing. (If his people don’t, well, they can send me a strongly worded letter on Substack.) When things go sideways in a democracy, you use whatever tools you’ve got.

    So, here is

    Listen to this complete version as an actual song with lyrics by Gloria Horton-Young, recorded and performed by Sea Change (you find him here Sea). Based on Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.“ copyright – Leonard Cohen.

    I heard there was a secret vote

    With freedom hanging by the throat,

    But you don’t really care for ballots, do ya?

    It goes like this—the court, the lie,

    The gavel falls, the people cry,

    The shattered voice still sings out Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    Your faith is strong, you stand your ground,

    You march when riot gear comes down—

    They fired gas, but still we pushed right through ya.

    We lit a candle in the square,

    We wrote our names in tear-streaked air,

    And every cry became a Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    Baby, we’ve been here before—

    This bitter script, this blood-stained floor,

    We carry signs where once we carried futures.

    Our flag hangs limp from weathered poles,

    They claim the land but not our souls,

    And still we rise and whisper Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    They jailed the truth, they broke the press,

    They told us silence equals blessed—

    But we’re the truth that history can’t undo ya.

    We bring the drums, we bring the light,

    We bring our bodies into night,

    And set the sky on fire with Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    There was a time we thought we’d won—

    Rights passed down from hand to hand,

    But now they hide the truth and legislate ya.

    They drew the lines, they broke the vows,

    They shuttered schools and stormed the House—

    But we remember, and we shout Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    We link our arms against the tide,

    Ten thousand strangers, side by side,

    When power builds its walls to block and sue ya.

    We face the guns with open palms,

    We stand unmoved through false alarms,

    Our bodies form a human Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    They mock our pain, they laugh at fear,

    They call for cells to hold us here,

    They praise the men who cage and hate and bruise ya.

    But through the bars, beyond the wire,

    Our voices join to form a choir,

    A song that breaks the chains with Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    They took the books, they banned the page,

    They passed the fear from age to age,

    But we are louder than the dark they drew ya.

    We spell our stories on the wall,

    We will not kneel, we will not crawl,

    We build a world that sings out Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    The streets are filled with beating hearts,

    From countless homes, a movement starts,

    When they brand us “threats,” they think that they can fool ya.

    We cross the bridges, fill the squares,

    Our voices rise like common prayers,

    Each footstep echoes with a Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    Maybe there’s a light above,

    But all I’ve learned from those I love

    Is stand together, never let them rule ya.

    It’s not a hymn you hum alone,

    It’s not a law—it’s flesh and bone,

    It’s marching feet that thunder Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    You say we speak the name in vain,

    But we are fire. We are rain.

    We’re countless voices rising up to move ya.

    There’s a blaze of light in every word—

    No law can silence what is heard

    When we rise up and roar our Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    âž»

    We hold the line, we face the storm,

    With linked arms we keep each other warm—

    No prison talk or threat can just subdue ya.

    And though the path ahead seems long,

    We’ll stand as one, ten million strong,

    With nothing on our tongues but Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    Hallelujah, Hallelujah

    Hallelujah
 Hallelujah.

    For God’s Sake, Do Something With This

    Here’s what you’re not going to do: You’re not going to just email this to yourself, notgoing to bookmark it, not going to think “wow, how lovely” and then go back to binge-watching reruns of Law & Order: American Collapse Unit.

    That’s not why this exists.

    Print it out. On actual paper. Take it to that meeting where nobody mentions the elephant—no, the entire damn zoo—in the room.

    Read it aloud. Watch what happens to people’s faces.

    Text it to your college roommate in Florida.

    Send it to your aunt who still thinks politics is a spectator sport.

    Mail it to your senator with a sticky note:

    I’m watching you.”

    And when the church ladies whisper,

    and your HOA president clutches his pearls,

    and your high school friend posts “This is too political,”

    you’ll know you’ve done something right.

    Because this poem isn’t for gentle nodding. It’s meant to be a match. It’s meant to burn. If reading it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, I’ve failed. If sharing it doesn’t make someone else uncomfortable, you’ve failed.

    Now light the damn fuse.

    Forward, always forward! Gloria

    I grew up in West Germany, carrying the silence of our past—and watching, across the border, as the GDR stripped its own people of dignity, freedom, and voice. That, too, was a warning. And now I see it rising—again.

    Damn it, I know this story.

    The silence of guilt, of denial, of stories cut off mid-sentence. My Gen-X were taught to never let it happen again—and now I see the same patterns rising elsewhere. That’s why I will not be silent. Because Never Again Is Now.

    I Was Born After

    I was born after,but I remember.

    Not through timelines—through tremors.

    Through sirens in my marrow,through silence sharpened into laws,through papers checked,names vanished,truth rewritten in the margins.

    I’ve lived this dĂ©jĂ  vu:The cold steel of controldraped in patriotic cloth.

    I was born after,but the smell of ash still lingerson the hands of powerthey call it order.

    Call me survivor,call me storm-bearer,but never againwill I be silent.

    Because I remember.Because I see.

    Thank you for walking the path beside us, from whichever part of the world you read this. This concerns all of us, not just the American people.

    ❀ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.

    How to appreciate a writer


    If you find my essays & poems valuable and want to support my ability to spend more time writing, here are a some suggestions:

    * Become a paid subscriberor give a one-time donation

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    contains an excerpts from

    and Audio.com Leonard Cohen



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

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  • Live with Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

    Live with Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

  • We Remember How to Begin Again

    We Remember How to Begin Again

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    We Remember How to Begin Again

    Writing Poetry Toward Healing Connection and a Way of Being That Remembers We Belong

    We Were Never Meant to Fit Their Frame

    Part 2: A Movement Toward Hope, Belonging, Connection, Peace, and Love (guided by the voices within, and between, us)

    â€ïžđŸ§ĄđŸ’›đŸ’šđŸ’™đŸ’œ đŸ©”đŸ€đŸ©· đŸ€ŽđŸ–€ đŸ’›đŸ€đŸ’œđŸ–€

    HOPE

    “The Voice That Never Fully Left”An emergence from beneath the conditioning

    There is warmth in the air.Not much—but enough to soften what was frozen.

    Something stirswhere stillness held for years:not a roar,a ripple.Not a declaration,a question: “Could this be the beginning of something else?”

    Hope listens.

    It does not hurry.It touches the soiland asks what might grow hereif we stop asking what is allowed.

    Hope remembershow often we mistook control for safety,how deeply we were taught to override our own clarityto please, to prove, to belong.

    Yet here it is—arriving anyway.

    Hope sees differencenot as error,but as invitation.It draws no straight lines,only circles.It opens roomfor questions with no immediate answers:

    ☐ “What does enough feel like?”☐ “How do I move with compassion—for others, and for myself?”☐ “What if love is not a prize, but a practice?”

    Hope walks with Ubuntu.It speaks from inter-being.It reflects: “I am because you are.” “We are because we choose to be.”

    It does not isolate;it integrates.

    Hope is not waiting for permission.It is already weavingthrough cracks in old systems,planting questions in placeswhere only rules once grew.

    It is soft and rooted.It is not interested in applause—only presence.

    You are not behind.You are not broken.You are not alone.

    You are here,and that is alreadyan opening.

    â€ïžđŸ§ĄđŸ’›đŸ’šđŸ’™đŸ’œ đŸ©”đŸ€đŸ©· đŸ€ŽđŸ–€ đŸ’›đŸ€đŸ’œđŸ–€

    BELONGING

    “I Am Still Here: A Rewilding”a living document, a sensory interruption, a refusal to disappear

    [Field Note / Fragment / Body Check]

    ‣ my jaw is tight.‣ I don’t remember what I was about to say.‣ someone called it “just small talk” but it scraped.‣ I smiled. I vanished. again.

    I’ve been included in rooms where I erased myself to stay.I’ve smiled through hollow conversations while my nervous system whispered, “Get out. Get out. Get out.”This isn’t about fitting in.Fitting was always a form of disappearance.

    { Marginalia from a memory I never gave words: }

    "fit in or else.""look normal.""stop asking so many questions.""they won’t like you if—"

    —if I what?if I breathe out loud?

    I do not belong to systems that reward silence.I do not belong to cultures that call survival professionalism.I do not belong to the versions of myself I contorted intojust to be allowed to stay.

    I belongto the one who watched me leaveand waited for me to come back.

    ↯ Inquiry: where do I go when I leave my body to survive this conversation?

    ≡ Excerpt from the Book of Invisible Rules:

    Rule

    Translation

    “Be yourself.” Be a version we recognize.

    “You’re welcome here.” As long as you don’t disrupt.

    “We’re all human.” So don’t mention the difference.

    “Just say what you mean.” Unless it’s hard to hear.

    ✐ Footnote:I have been speaking clearly.You just don’t listen to my frequency.

    [Quote, misfiled in a corporate DEI handbook]

    “Inclusion is being invited to the party.Belonging is dancing like no one’s watching.”

    And yet:There’s a mirror on every wall.The lights are too bright.Someone’s counting the steps.And I was never taught the music.

    [Somatic Reminder:]

    ☐ breath is not permission☐ breath is not politeness☐ breath is reclamation☐ breath is presence☐ breath is practice

    Belonging is rewilding.It is what growswhen I stop weeding out the parts of methey said were too much,too strange,too raw.

    It is not a feeling.It is a decision—repeated in the presence of fearand the absence of applause.

    [Imagined Dialogue Between My Nervous System and a Roomful of Unsaid Things]

    — Can I stay here, as I am?— Will you leave if I don’t change?— What do you need me to not be in order to feel safe?

    ✶ I don’t shrink anymore just to make the silence more comfortable.

    [Re-rooting / Present Tense Practice]

    I notice: My breath. My weight against the floor. The stories I’m still carrying that aren’t mine. The silence I was taught to keep. The voice that whispers—still—“You are allowed to be.”

     What I think, I create. So I think slowly. So I ask clearly. So I listen before speaking—not out of politeness, but presence.

     What I feel, I attract. So I feel on purpose. So I stop numbing. So I allow myself the full range, even if no one else does.

     What I imagine, I become. So I imagine a life that doesn’t start with an apology.

    There is a wildness in methat never agreed to be domesticated.It was trained to behave.It learned to survive.But it never stopped knowinghow to return.

    ✎ I am not looking for a place to fit.✎ I am learning to remain.✎ I am still here.✎ And that is already

    a rewilding.

    PEACE & FREEDOM

    “We Begin Again, Without Their Rules”a field guide for rewilding relationship, one breath at a time

    [Opening Field Note / Refusal / Declaration]

    I will not perform civilityfor a system that confuses silence with peace.

    I will not contort my beingto remain palatable to institutionsdesigned to extract, dominate, divide.

    I was not born to repeatwhat harmed the ones before me.

    Peace is not the absence of tension.Peace is the presence of truth.

    Freedom is not an individual possession.It is a relational state: I am free when I do not need to erase you to feel safe being me.

    [Diagram, reimagined]Old Mode (on the way to the archives)l: Command ↔ Obedience Hierarchy ↔ Compliance Scarcity ↔ Performance

    New Pattern (still forming): Listening ↔ Presence Compassion ↔ Curiosity Power-with ↔ Collaboration Difference ↔ Expansion

    This is not theoretical.This is felt in how I enter the room.In whether I speak to win,or to connect.

    In whether I respond with assumption,or with breath.

    [Nonviolence is not passivity.]

    Nonviolence is the bold actof not replicating what broke us.

    It is the work of meeting force with clarity,meeting fear with grounded presence,meeting misunderstanding with enough spacefor something else to emerge.

    [The Four Immeasurables—Practiced, Not Preached]

    ☐ Metta – Loving-kindness☐ Karuna – Compassion for suffering☐ Mudita – Joy in others’ joy☐ Upekkha – Equanimity in complexity

    Not values to display.Practices to return toin conflict, in conversation, in community.

    [Inter-being: A Thought in Motion]

    I do not end at my skin.I am breath I did not invent,language I inherited,soil I walk on.

    I am because you are.We are because we choose to be.

    Everything I say shapes the world we live in.Everything I withhold, too.

    [The New Conditions of Engagement]✎ Do I speak from fear, or from care?✎ Do I ask to understand, or to affirm myself?✎ Can I hold complexity without collapsing into control?✎ Am I building with you, or reacting against you?

    [Outward Mindset is not strategy—it is surrender to interconnection]

    When I see you as a person,not a problem,we meet.When I see myself as part of a field,not a solo act,I soften.When I remember we were never meant to win against each other,but to witness, and shape together—we begin again.

    [Closing Refrain / Soft Instructions]

    Speak clearly.But not to dominate.

    Listen wholly.But not to disappear.

    Pause often.Let presence replace reaction.

    Leave the old rules behind.Let them rot back into the earth.They have done enough harm.We do not owe them our repetition.

    Peace is not a place we find.It is a form we practice.

    Freedom is not a prize.It is a rhythm we remember.

    â€ïžđŸ§ĄđŸ’›đŸ’šđŸ’™đŸ’œ đŸ©”đŸ€đŸ©· đŸ€ŽđŸ–€ đŸ’›đŸ€đŸ’œđŸ–€

    LOVE

    “The Ocean When the Wind Has Gone Quiet”heart, mind, and soul in conversation

    This is the voice of integration.Every part of me welcomed.Every thread woven.Every silence met with warmth.

    Love moves like water—steady, clear, unafraid of depth.

    It arrives in rhythm,in breath,in the spaces between words,where truth lives without needing to be explained.

    Love listens.Love receives.Love expands.Love mirrors.

    It holds kindness in its gaze.It speaks with compassion’s cadence.It glows with joy that celebrates.It rests in stillness wide enough for every truth to breathe.

    In this space,I walk without hiding.I speak without armor.I meet you as I am—whole,and welcome.

    Love surrounds.Love includes.Love remembers everything,and carries it with tenderness.

    There is harmony here—heart, mind, soulin conversation,in rhythm,in trust.

    Love creates the shape of peace.Love moves with the pulse of freedom.Love invites every being back into belonging.

    I open.I stay.I offer.I receive.I witness.I become.

    This is the calm ocean,reflecting sky and face and future.

    This is the song we carry inside us,the one we hum when we are aloneand ready.

    This is love—and it is all here.

    Now.Always.

    â€ïžđŸ§ĄđŸ’›đŸ’šđŸ’™đŸ’œ đŸ©”đŸ€đŸ©· đŸ€ŽđŸ–€ đŸ’›đŸ€đŸ’œđŸ–€

    ❀ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.

    Thank you for walking this path beside me.

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

    Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay resonates? Share it with someone who could use a fresh perspective on life’s journey.



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  • I Write What the World Forgot to Feel

    I Write What the World Forgot to Feel

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    I Write What the World Forgot to Feel

    Writing Poetry Toward Belonging, Healing the Nervous System, and Remembering What Matters

    We Were Never Meant to Fit Their Frame

    Part 1: The Anatomy of False Promises– Justice, Equality, Equity, and the Illusion of Inclusion

    1. Poem JUSTICE

    [EXHIBIT A: a door that only opens inward.

    EXHIBIT B: my body, framed as weapon and evidence, but never as witness.

    EXHIBIT C: your silence.]

    JUSTICE— She arrives suited,speaking Latin,carrying papers signed by menwhose hands never touched a woundthat wasn’t self-inflicted.

    Footnote [1]:"The law is neutral"is what they saywhen neutrality serves them best.Justice wears blindfoldsto avoid eye contact with grief.She nodsto the badge,not the bruise.

    DO NOT SPEAK OUT OF TURN.DO NOT RESIST.DO NOT BLEED WITHOUT A LICENSE.DO NOT EXIST IN A BODYTHAT IS NOT A STANDARD ISSUE.

    ii was told“justice is for everyone”as ifthat promisewasn'tBooby-trapped.

    (transcript)DEFENDANT: I just wanted to be safe.JUDGE: Define “safe.”DEFENDANT: Not hunted.JUDGE: But were you respectable?

    >>>breaking transmission

  • The Mesa Never Promised Mercy

    The Mesa Never Promised Mercy

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    The Mesa Never Promised Mercy

    How Culture Shapes Our Inner Landscape: A Poetic Reflection on Identity, Healing, and Self-Expression

    NaPoWriMo Day 27

    The Prompt: And now for today’s optional prompt. W.H. Auden’s “MusĂ©e des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.”

    The Mesa Never Promised Mercy

    (after Georgia O'Keeffe’s Black Mesa Landscape)

    The Mesa was never a place of shelter.It rose—raw, unwound, unbending—a bone thrust through the skin of the earth,a memory too old for apology.

    In O’Keeffe’s Black Mesa,you can see it —not the wind, but the wound the wind leaves behind.Not the sun, but the silence it burns into stone.

    There is no softness in this horizon,only a dark shoulder shrugging off centuries,only a patience so vast it wears down mountainswithout lifting a hand.

    We walk across it, pretending ownership—pretending the paths we carve with roads and laws and borderlinesmean anythingto the dust that swallows us at dusk.

    The Mesa watches, unconcerned.It watched empires fall.It watched names and flagsturn to sediment.

    It will watch us too—our hierarchies, our exploitations,our trembling, our rage—until we are nothing morethan another thin line in the sediment,another story the canyon wallshave no reason to remember.

    Writer Pilgrim by So Elite

    Inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie's II, 1930. and my very own Canyon Model.

    In my Canyon Model, I imagine the human self as a vast canyon, shaped by time, experience, and unseen forces. Every wall, every side canyon, every hidden fault line represents parts of our identity, our memories, our wounds, and our strength. But towering over all of it is the Mesa — the societal structures we are born into without choosing: culture, politics, economics, belief systems. The Mesa isn’t neutral; it defines the climate of our lives, sometimes offering stability, but often controlling, eroding, and exploiting the energy we need just to survive. To understand the canyon fully, I had to look up and see the Mesa too — to see how deeply its shape pressed into my own.

    ____

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚



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  • Ode to the Silent Thunder Cycle

    Ode to the Silent Thunder Cycle

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    Ode to the Silent Thunder Cycle

    You are the soul this poem and this music are reaching for across time and silence.

    This work, Ode to the Silent Thunder, was born from a place where memory and music entwine — a place where history trembles beneath our feet and demands to be witnessed again.

    Poetry and music have long carried what could not be spoken aloud: the broken prayers, the songs of resistance, the fierce whisper of dignity when all else seemed lost.In the darkest chapters of humanity, from Weimar to Buchenwald, it was not weapons that kept hope alive — it was memory carried through voice, song, and art.

    You who read these words, you who listen with your inner ear —this offering is for you.

    It is rooted in the spirit of Friedrich Schiller’s cry for human dignity, in the immortal music of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and in the living memory of those who resisted tyranny not with violence, but with unwavering humanity.

    Today, as once before, history moves dangerously close to the edge.We see the rise of hatred against Jews, against queer and transgender people, against migrants, against Muslims, against those who dare to speak for freedom and law.We see the past not returning as a shadow, but reemerging as a deliberate force.And so, once again, poetry and music must rise.

    Ode to the Silent Thunder is not an anthem of despair.It is a bridge between past and present, between the silenced and the speaking, between the broken and the unbroken.

    Each verse is a refusal to forget.Each chorus is a hand reaching out through history toward you.

    In this cycle, you will find echoes of Schiller’s "Ode to Joy," but transformed through the lens of sorrow, resilience, and fierce tenderness.You will hear whispers from the streets of 1930s Weimar and songs rising from the ashes of Buchenwald.You will stand with those who kept singing when all was stripped away but their souls.

    You are not asked to be a passive witness.You are invited to walk alongside the memory, the music, and the living fire that refuses to be extinguished.

    This work is an act of remembrance.It is also a call to resistance, to belonging, to courage.

    If these words and melodies touch something within you — if you find yourself remembering what the world tries to make you forget — know that you are not alone.You are part of a long, unbroken river of voices that choose dignity over despair.

    Thank you for walking this path with me.From my lands in Germany to your lands in the USA, from the deep memory of the old world to the fragile hope of the new, may we choose again and again to care for each other.

    May we stand, sing, and rise — together.

    If this offering resonates with you, I warmly invite you to subscribe to Wild Lion*esses Pride. Your support — through reading, sharing, subscribing, or tipping — helps keep these songs alive in a world that urgently needs them.

    Above all:Take care of each other.Take care of your friends, neighbors, colleagues, Jews and Muslims, Blacks and Brown people, Queer and Transgender people, people with disabilities and health challenges, those who risk themselves to stand up for us all.

    We are many.We are making.We are rivers.We will rise.

    Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute

    If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

    If my writing, art, and recipes resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

    If a monthly or annual subscription isn’t feasible for you right now, you can also show your support with a one-time tip via my Tip Jar here.

    Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey



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  • Where Music Becomes Connection

    Where Music Becomes Connection

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    Where Music Becomes Connection

    In this episode, I explore how music becomes more than sound — how it becomes connection, memory, and transformation. Inspired by two NaPoWriMo prompts (Day 24 and Day 25), I share a deeply personal reflection and two original poems shaped by a powerful concert experience with accordionist Martynas Levickis.

    The first piece, Sound Woven Through Steel, recounts how live music in an industrial steel hall became an immersive, emotional experience — one where I found myself floating, not alone, but in silent communion with a stranger.

    The second, Floating Together, is a lyrical response to the prompt exploring how music moves us in shared space.

    Also included is Hallelujahs We Carry, a collective, community-driven poem inspired by the music of Leonard Cohen and Gloria Horton-Young, exploring the deep resonance of protest, memory, and harmony.

    đŸŽ” Themes:

    Live music as emotional experience

    Floating in sound and shared presence

    NaPoWriMo poetry prompts

    Poetry inspired by music and community

    Accordion concert reflection (Martynas Levickis, Liepe & Co Festival)

    Rain, dawn, and music as transformation

    Music in protest and resilience (Hallelujahs We Carry)

    Queer poetic voice and lived experience

    Whether you are a poetry lover, music dreamer, or NaPoWriMo participant — this episode is an invitation to pause, listen, and float.

    Thank you for continuing to walk this path with me.

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

    Tip Jar https://buymeacoffee.com/jaysiegmann

    https://wildlionessespride.substack.com

    ❀ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe
  • You Deserve Clarity When Faith Is Used for Control

    You Deserve Clarity When Faith Is Used for Control

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    You Deserve Clarity When Faith Is Used for Control

    An essay that gives you the language to see how Christian nationalism turns belief into political control

    ✹ Episode Description:

    In this deeply personal and historically grounded episode, Jay—writing from Germany as a queer, neurodivergent, non-binary lesbian—offers a clear lens on how Christian nationalism distorts faith into a tool for exclusion and political control. Drawing on lived experience, historical parallels, and a comparative analysis of movements in the U.S. and Hungary, this essay-turned-audio-essay gives listeners language, context, and space to discern what’s being done in the name of belief—and why it matters, even beyond national borders.

    🔑 Key Points Covered:

    How Christian nationalism misuses religious language to justify control

    A clear breakdown of core Christian values across faith traditions—and how they’re being distorted

    The personal impact of witnessing these patterns as a German citizen, shaped by inherited societal trauma

    Why secularism in post-war Germany was a response to power—not a rejection of faith

    A comparative analysis of Christian nationalism in the U.S. and Hungary, revealing shared strategies of exclusion and mythmaking

    How this ideology impacts LGBTQ+ rights, bodily autonomy, democracy, and pluralism

    A reflection on why understanding these dynamics matters for people everywhere—not just those directly targeted

    🧭 Takeaways:

    You’ll gain clarity on how Christian rhetoric is used politically

    You’ll learn to recognize the difference between faith-based values and control-based agendas

    You’ll be offered language to name what may have felt off, but hard to articulate

    You’ll see why history, identity, and language are inseparable in conversations about power

    You’ll leave with a stronger sense of how to stay grounded in your values when exclusion is framed as morality

    Conclusion

    So, to bring it all together: Christian nationalism in the US? It's not just a political thing; it's a chilling echo of the past, a ghost of ideologies that thrived on 'us vs. them' and the crushing of anyone who didn't fit the mold.

    And let's be cristal clear, this isn't just about abstract ideas. We're talking about real threats – the flouting of court orders, people being detained without a shred of due process, and the very real possibility of this targeting anyone who doesn't align with their narrow view of who "belongs."

    This is personal. This is about protecting the right of everyone to simply exist, to live as their true selves.

    I choose to speak, to resist, to stand in what I believe. You might find your own way to act. History has shown us, the cost of silence is far too high.

    In these turbulent times, information is not enough; discernment is essential.

    The ability to critically analyze the narratives we are told, to question power, and to hold fast to our conscience is, in my view, our most potent defense against the encroachment of any ideology that seeks to divide and control.

    Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute

    If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

    If my writing resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

    https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

    If a monthly or annual subscription isn’t feasible for you right now, you can also show your support with a one-time tip v

    Tip Jar https://buymeacoffee.com/jaysiegmann

    Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey.

    https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/p/when-healing-means-losing-everything

    Since January 2024, my mental health has forced me onto sick leave, leaving Monty and me with a mere €350 a month. And, as I shared in 'When Healing Means Losing Everything,' the reality is, this isn't sustainable. By the end of 2025, I face losing my home and my car, forced to leave a country that no longer feels like home. I'm building a new life, a new beginning, and your support could be the bridge.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe
  • On Sound, Memory, and Reclaiming

    On Sound, Memory, and Reclaiming

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    The way sound can slip beneath the surface—into memory, into muscle, into places where words haven’t yet been able to tread—it’s profound. And it’s real.

    It happened in response to the following Video within the ARTSTACK Poetry challenge:

    đŸ–‹ïž Write a poem inspired by Teezo Touchdown - UUHH (Instrumental).🎧 Include a 30-second audio clip (of the instrumental, your voice, or other relevant sounds) in your post on Substack.đŸ—Łïž Optional: Record yourself reading your poem out loud and include that audio too. Give your words voice.

    What I experienced wasn’t just a reaction to music. It was a whole-body remembering. That pounding beat, the relentless drive of the bass—it didn’t land as rhythm. It landed as a trigger. A summoning. A reminder of what it feels like to be overpowered, overwhelmed, made small by something louder than my own voice.

    And still—I stayed with it, if only for a moment. Turned toward the sensation instead of away from it. Not because I had to, but because I could.

    So I’m not writing from the sound. I’m writing from the after. From the breath that came after the noise. From the pause. The reclaiming. Not of the music, but of my own voice.

    bodymemory (in bass)

    BOOM.

    not a beat—

    a blow.

    a command:

    move. —

    but I freeze.

    static in my fascia,

    pain-spiked spine,

    shoulder blades clench

    like they know what’s coming.

    no music here.

    just a mother’s voice,

    volumed-up violence

    in 4/4 time.

    and the floor—

    it isn’t a dancefloor.

    it’s a witness.

    to impact.

    to recoil.

    to retreat into bone.

    I do not move

    to this rhythm.

    I brace.

    //cut the sound//

    (quiet now.)

    my breath—

    a softer metronome.

    irregular.

    still mine.

    I walk backwards

    out of the noise.

    into the hush.

    into a meandering

    remembering

    not to forget but

    not to relive.

    I write not from the bass,

    but from the space

    where the bass used to be.

    .

    #ThePoetryHaul #artstackpoets

    Would you be willing to support my work by subscribing or contributing? It would mean so much to me.

    Your presence here means the world. Creating art, testing recipes, and sharing these reflections is a labor of love, a way to connect, a lifeline. But, as you know, love doesn't pay the rent, or replace a car.

    Since January 2024, my mental health has forced me onto sick leave, leaving Monty and me with a mere €350 a month. And, as I shared in 'When Healing Means Losing Everything,' the reality is, this isn't sustainable.

    When Healing Means Losing Everything

    https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/p/when-healing-means-losing-everything

    By the end of 2025, I face losing my home and my car, forced to leave a country that no longer feels like home. I'm building a new life, a new beginning, and your support could be the bridge.

    If my words, art, or recipes have touched you, if you believe in creating spaces of honest reflection, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your contribution directly fuels this work, allows me to keep sharing, and helps me build a future.

    I know times are tight. If a monthly subscription isn't feasible, a one-time tip, even the price of a coffee or a bag of cat food for Monty, makes a difference. You can contribute here.

    Tip Jar https://buymeacoffee.com/jaysiegmann

    https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

    And, if you're looking to collaborate, I'm also open to working with you.

    My skills extend beyond this space. I offer trauma-informed, bilingual (EN/DE) editing, logo and illustration work, photo editing, and slogan support. I'm also available for DEI consulting, copywriting, personal assistance, embodiment coaching, cooking, baking, bartending, hosting, concierge services, travel management, systemic conversation facilitation, photography, or even a whimsical weather frog person. If you know of any opportunities in these areas, please pass my name along. You can see more of my work here:

    https://wlplookout2create.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-lookout?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

    Your support, in any form, means I can keep creating, keep connecting, and keep building a life where both Monty and I can thrive. Thank you for being part of this journey.



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  • Come, walk with me! Accompany my journey.

    Come, walk with me! Accompany my journey.

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    Prologue | As Nature Knows

    Not all endings are tragedies. Some are contractions—waves of breaking and becoming, as raw as they are necessary.

    If we look to nature, we see it clearly: Birth is not quiet. It is not clean. It tears. It floods. It demands everything before offering anything.

    Even spring, so full of bloom, begins in the shattering of ice. In the thaw. In the splitting open of seed and soil.

    So too, this life of mine—what dissolves is not just pain, but what no longer fits. What held me too tightly, or not at all.

    And yes, it hurts. Yes, it asks more of me than I thought I had to give.

    And beneath it all, a knowing rises: I am not falling apart. I am breaking open.

    This is not a collapse. This is a beginning wearing the face of fire. Let each part be spoken. Let each piece fall away with purpose.

    Because something new is arriving. And I intend to meet it whole.

    1 | Dissolving | Relationships

    Dissolving Begins

    They faded quietly,not like doors slamming,but like rooms emptiedwithout warning.

    At the beginning of 2024,I still said friend out loudand believed it.By January 2025,only three still reached back.Today, only one remains.

    It wasn’t betrayal.It was erosion.A slow wearing awayof who I had to becometo be tolerated.

    They loved the versionwho twisted into usefulness,who bore weightwithout asking for gentleness in return.

    But I could no longer holdthat shape.I unfolded.And when I did,most of themlet go.

    What dissolvedwas not just connection.It was the performanceof closeness,the silent contractto be small.

    And in their absence,a stillness.Painful.Clean.

    2 | Dissolving | The Company

    Collapse and Exhaustion

    I gave it everything.Before it was even mine,I gave it everything.

    My thirties, my forties, into my fifties,the hours I should have slept,the years I should have been healing—all offeredto something I helped buildfrom ash.

    And when it became mine,when my name was on it,when the title matched the effort,I thought:maybe nowit will return the favor.

    But it didn’t.It couldn’t.

    It devoured me gently.It wore my namelike armorwhile hollowing out my health,my finances,my spirit.

    Fifteen years of tryingto save a sinking thing.And still, I blame myselffor the drowning.

    And I am not the water.I am not the hole in the hull.

    I am the onefinally swimming away.

    3 | Dissolving | The House

    Letting Go of Space

    I look aroundat everything I gatheredto make permanence feel possible.

    Books in corners.Fabrics on chairs.Walls I once touchedas if they could hold me.

    But this was never mine.Not fully.Not truly.

    It was a containerfor survival,not a sanctuary.

    Now,I walk from room to roomand ask:Will this come with me?Will this wait in storage?Will this be released?

    Two suitcases.That’s all I’ll carry.

    Everything elsewill be sold, stored,or surrendered.

    And somehow,this feels like clarity.Like stripping down to the boneso I can rememberhow to feel light again.

    4 | Dissolving | The Community of Heirs

    The Quiet Breaking

    We shared a lineage,a name,an agreement writtenin inheritance and grief.

    Bound by loss.Bound by law.Bound by the fragile threadof family.

    My brother wants to endthe shared bondof what we’ve been given.

    On paper,it’s just the dissolutionof a legal structure.But to me,it’s the quiet endof the last threadI once called home.

    It does not feel like betrayal.It feels like standing aloneon the last remaining dockas the ship pulls away.

    And yes,there will be money.A beginning, perhaps.A resource.

    But also:a goodbyeto the illusionof being part of somethingthat could not hold me.

    And in that,a loss I cannot nameexcept to say:I feel it everywhere.

    5 | Dissolving | The Country

    Refusal and Release

    It was never safe.Not really.

    The streets I walkedtaught me to shrink.The systems I worked inrewarded my silence.

    This country never saw me.Only what I could produce.Only what I could endure.

    I played by its rulesand was stillfound guiltyof being too much,too different,too human.

    My body learnedto brace itselfevery time I left the house.Hypervigilance became habit.Tension became the tideI lived inside.

    I do not owe this placemy breath.It cannot havewhat little strength remains.

    I am not fleeing.I am refusing.

    I will leave.Not just the land—but the violenceit taught me to accept.

    I am donebeing loyalto somethingthat never kept me safe.

    6 | Dissolving | My Past Life / Emergence

    The Becoming

    It is all gone.

    The roles,the rooms,the residue.

    I do not mournthe scaffolding.I mournhow long I stayed inside it.

    And yet—even that grieffeels like a door opening.

    No more keys.No more ownership.No more architecturebuilt from obligation.

    What emerges nowis not a plan—but a pulse.

    A rhythm I finally hear.A self I finally feel.

    I do not know the nameof the life I am walking into.But I know this:it is mine.

    Fully.Gently.Wildly.

    Two suitcases.An open sky.And a selfno longer divided.

    This is not a beginning.This is the becoming.

    I am not dissolving.I am becoming water,light,motion.

    I am not starting over.I am arriving.

    With Gratitude

    To all who walk with meon this path toward Emergence—thank you.

    Your presence, belief, and carehave helped carry this unfoldingfrom silence into voice,from survival into possibility.

    With special thanks to:Ramona Grigg , Lily Pond, Sandra Pawula, Mesa Fama,Betina Cunado, Rosana Francescato, Dr. Tara Cousineau ,Tracy Mansolillo, Linnea Butler, MS, LMFT, Ellie Bozmarova, Healing Stories , ❁ SILKE KRISTIN JUELICH ❁, Christina T. Diaz,Jules, Julie Snider, Ros Barber, Lisa Bolin, Dr Vicki Connop, Plata Life (she/her)Tracey Edelist, PhD, Teyani Whitman , Dr. Jessica de Jarnette , Becca Lawton, Kendall Lamb , Debbie | Behind Shoji Doors , Beth Cruz Cassandra Zilinsky, Susan Heathfield , Dina Bell-Laroche, Lisa Tea Constellations In Her Bones and Gloria Horton-Young —

    as well as all of my paid subscribers,and those who have trusted me with their stories,their questions, their healing.

    Through your support,you’ve kept this dream—of one day arriving fully in my life—vibrant, rooted, and very much alive.

    With all my heart: thank you.

    ❀ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.

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  • A Collection of Poems from April 7-9th 2025

    A Collection of Poems from April 7-9th 2025

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    A Collection of Poems from April 7–9, 2025

    Episode Summary:This episode gathers five poems written and compiled between April 7th and 9th, 2025, as part of my National Poetry Writing Month practice. One is a prompt-based original. Four are found poems—shaped from the shared sentences and voices of fellow writers on Notes. Together, they explore queerness, resistance, wildness, emotional truth, and the poetry of presence.

    Episode Notes:Since Monday, April 7th, I’ve been creating one poem each day as part of NaPoWriMo—some guided by prompts, others built from shared reflections, conversations, and communal insight. This episode includes:

    1. A Queer Theory of Socks(Original poem, April 9)A six-part, multimodal poem that defies binaries and celebrates the joy of mismatch. These socks don’t align—they stomp queerness into wooden floors with rhythm, reverence, and riot.

    2. The Tide’s Whisper(NaPoWriMo Day 9 Prompt)A lyrical response to the Day 9 prompt: write a rhymed poem with varied line lengths and a specific sound.The foghorn calls through thickening mist as the tide rewrites what we thought we knew—without flaw, and without fear.

    3. Wild Doesn’t Ask(Found poem, April 9)Drawn from shared sentences by Michelle Dowd, Susan Heathfield, Tracy Mansolillo, Linnea Butler, Ana Flores, and Gloria Horton-Young.A poem about wildness, burnout, mature visibility, and the quiet fight to remain whole in a world that forgets.

    4. The Awakening(Found poem, April 8)A fierce meditation on anger as love, spiritual disillusionment, and communal resilience.This poem weaves together reflections on patriarchy, truth, beauty, and the messiness of becoming.

    5. The Hill We Write From(Found poem, April 7)Part protest chant, part collective memoir.Voices of resistance, survival, women’s labor, and queer strength form a patchwork of poetry, shouting across states and into history.

    Lately, I’ve been leaning into more unruly forms: poems that break convention, that are multimodal, hybrid, polyvocal, and queer in structure. A Queer Theory of Socks is one such piece.

    a queer theory of socks (with apologies to linear thought) i. footnote (literally) today’s outfit begins at the bottom: left foot: white cotton, punctuated by tiny rainbow hearts — red at the tip, purple at the root — right foot: a full-stripe riot with white hearts like punctuation marks, as if joy could be grammared into being. ii. who says socks must match? (mother said. catalogs said. uniform codes whispered compliance in department store voices.) they lied. these socks argue — not in anger but in kaleidoscope logic: why be one thing when I can be plural? why follow lines when I am the spectrum? iii. not exactly a manifesto (but close) these socks are not confused. they are deliberately exuberant. they do not align — they coexist. they don’t whisper queerness, they stomp it into wooden floors with the rhythm of marching bands and dance parties and that one awkward first step into being seen. iv. interlude (a conversation overheard) — are you allowed to wear those together? — allowed by whom? — i mean, isn’t it weird? — only if symmetry is your religion. v. a brief history of resistance, in fabric this is a patchwork gospel. stitched by hands that were never invited into the center — so we made our own thread. call it a zine, a chant, a mismatched hymn for the feet that walk away from rules and toward themselves. vi. epilogue (or maybe just a toe-wiggle) today, i am a walking archive of delight and defiance. i am not polished. i am not planned. i am not matching. i am composed. in every color and none of your binaries. 2025/09/04

    NaPoWriMo Day 9

    A poem following the dedicated prompt.

    Today we’d like to challenge you to try writing a poem of your own that uses rhyme, but without adhering to specific line lengths. For extra credit, reference a very specific sound, like the buoy in Hillyer’s poem.

    🌊 The Tide's Whisper The lighthouse bell tolls across darkening shores, its hollow ring a signal— not omen, not lore. Waves wash away footprints I carefully pressed into wet sand just moments before— a brief trace of presence, now more. The distant foghorn moans—a low, steady drone, cutting clean through the air as I stand here alone, watching the shore shift under each swell. My skin tightens as the evening turns raw, like time reshaping what we thought we knew into something with weight and without flaw. That sound again—foghorn through thickening mist, not mournful—just measured, like the truth we resist: we change, and remain, like sea foam. The tide pulls back, then breaks once more, not to erase— to return, to score its pattern in sand, vulnerable and true. I listen as night leans in and holds— the foghorn steady, the water bold— and nothing untouched by time's persistent hand. 2025/09/04

    The “Found” Poems

    “Wild Doesn’t Ask” A Found Poem for National Poetry Month Day 9 The forest lets me feel too much. It never asks me to behave. Come undone, breathe weird, be wild again. Sourcing your worth from someone else's rules means forgetting how to help yourself remember. Kindness, patience, respect—we know these values. Even then, emotions hijack the moment. We shut down or lash out fast. Sometimes we say the thing anyway. We swore we wouldn’t, but we do. Life comes whether or not you’re ready. Feeling safe is a spiritual experience. For many, it is unfamiliar ground. Today’s gentle reminder: slow all the way. The world won’t end if you do. But your burnout absolutely will, in time. My quest is quietly fierce and ongoing. It’s daily, for mature women—seen, heard. Respected for living, not patted or tolerated. They earned that simply by showing up. I fight for it in small ways. Sometimes I fight for it in big. Speaking up, refusing to shrink or disappear— like showing up when the world forgets.

    A found poem with words by these wonderful writers: Michelle Dowd Susan Heathfield Tracy Mansolillo Linnea Butler, MS, LMFT Ana Flores Gloria Horton-Young

    The Awakening (A found poem) A found poem for NaPoWriMo Day 8 In an instant, my entire belief system collapsed. What if anger is not disconnected from love, but a love so fierce it will go to war to protect others? After decades of spiritual seeking, I dream of the day we no longer pretend we are masters— those discontented kings, broken from Life itself. Start making something beautiful and unpredictable. The patriarchy keeps us isolated, feeling like we need to carry everything ourselves. Yet knowing that my words became part of something larger, something luminous, fills me with gratitude. It's happening right now— in all its messy glory. We are strong when we stand together. Thanking others communicates they are seen and valued. Isn't that what most of us want anyway? Go fight for what is right: the spaciousness, the deeply okay-ness, the fluid strength to be. It's not our feelings that get us into trouble, but the unchallenged beliefs we allow to arise in the wake of those feelings. Beauty at your back, we need each other— yet difference opens the door of possibilities. 2025/08/04

    Thank you for all your words! This poem was made from sentences by: Lori Bickel Jeannie Ewing and Felicity Ewing ❁ SILKE KRISTIN JUELICH ❁ ❁ Don Boivin Dr. Erica Matluck Bob Lewis Gloria Horton-Young Christine Castigliano Allysha Lavino Megan Walrod

    The Hill We Write From a found poem compiled for National Poetry Month Day 7 He could not easily march, but he could lay on his horn in support of democracy like none other. The power of yet rings louder than sirens. You have survived 100% of your worst days. We are with you in spirit!!! This isn’t my first protest rodeo. I’ve marched, I’ve sat in, I’ve shouted the truth through a bullhorn— and yes, I’ve absolutely locked eyes with someone holding a handmade sign and thought, well now, that’s how revolutions begin. ALL 50 STATES, ONE MESSAGE: HANDS OFF! Poetry— from its ancient origins to its contemporary manifestations— has given voice to beauty, sorrow, rebellion, and hope. I feel like I’m mining for the story every time I sit down to write. So much of women’s work is undervalued and under/unpaid— we are expected to give, and give, and give ourselves away. There’s no way around it. You’ve got to write, and write, and write some more. Trans rights are human rights— I will happily, and with pride, die on that hill.

    With lines from these wonderful writers: Gentle Nudges From Renee Wood , Janet Ridsdale, Felicia A. Iyamu , Sage Taylor Kingsley , Gloria Horton-Young , Women Forward , , Mesa Fama , Amy Gabrielle , Mr. Troy Ford , Kate Mapother

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  • Part 2: Creative Healing Journey A Live Sacred Space with @Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

    Part 2: Creative Healing Journey A Live Sacred Space with @Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    Thank you Lise Tilly, Ronald Mcknight, Kendall Lamb, Andrew Lynch, Dawn Roe, and many others for tuning into my live video with Christine Castigliano! Join me for my next live video in the app.

    Welcome to the Canyon: A Journey into Creative Healing

    We gathered in a live sacred space—an energetic field designed to hold the unfolding process of creative healing. Not a finished product, not a fixed destination, but a living journey. As I shared early on, “This is not a done thing. This is an ongoing beautiful journey.” (00:11)

    Christine Castigliano, through her Substack Mostly Brave, hosted this conversation—a gathering place for creative souls growing their self-trust. It isn’t about being fearless. It’s about being witnessed when we show up scared, tangled in perfectionism, and still reach toward our full, wild-hearted selves. That shared intention—acknowledging fear while choosing authenticity—was present from the start.

    “We are not 100% brave because we got acknowledged when we're scared, when we're having, you know, perfectionism, all of our issues, and grow the trust to show up in our full authentic wild heart self.” (00:36) —Christine

    A Canyon Carved by Trauma & The Moment of Meta-Awareness

    I introduced myself from Germany. “I'm looking forward to leave Germany because I'm very unhappy here.” (03:37) I said it plainly, but what lay beneath that statement was anything but simple. My unhappiness wasn’t circumstantial. It came from living in a country that never felt like home, shaped by deep, unrelenting layers of trauma. By the time of this conversation, I had uncovered 28 trauma tops. When I began, I only knew of five. I’ve never had the sense of standing tall in the world. I was always somewhere lower—emotionally, energetically, spatially. Not on a peak or even a plain. I was down in something, something enclosed.

    "I was always in kind of a valley or canyon or some structure. I was not up. I was always down in something." (05:21)

    So I spent years trying to escape it. Trying to fix it. Trying to find light. I thought healing meant climbing. I longed for that altitude, but I couldn’t get there.

    The shift didn’t come from rising above. It came from seeing clearly—perhaps too clearly. I became aware of myself, in motion, but with no access to the controls. I wasn’t in the driver’s seat. I wasn’t choosing my behavior. I was just watching. "I could see it. But I couldn’t do anything about it." (07:06).

    It wasn’t that I lacked insight. I could feel everything, name every emotion, recognize every need. But the response was already underway. The program had kicked in before awareness arrived. “When the consciousness sort of set in, the program was already running, and I couldn’t stop it.” (09:31)

    To stand inside myself with all that clarity and still be unable to act differently—that was the most painful thing. The moment I saw my body hijacked by something far older than the present.

    “Sometimes 50, 55 years ago. Not just 20 or 10 years ago. And I was reacting still to what happened back then.” (10:12)

    That’s when I knew: this wasn’t about now. My body wasn’t reacting to this moment. It was running the script of a wound so old it predated most of my memories. And that wound had written an entire corrupted self—an identity assembled not by choice but by survival.

    That self knew how to please. How to function. How to perform, and to push through. But it didn’t know me. It didn’t know how I feel when I’m free, or how I move when I’m not being watched. It was designed to survive in environments that denied my truth. And I watched it—this self, not me—take over my body.

    I had called it the corrupted self long before I understood its full architecture.

    A patchwork version of me, built on compliance, fear, and adaptation. Highly functional. Deeply disconnected. Structured around everything I needed to be in order to avoid rejection, abandonment, or punishment.

    And for decades, it worked. I showed up. I achieved. I kept going. I looked strong. But I wasn’t in the car. I was watching it drive from the back seat, powerless to intervene. The breakthrough came not from judging it, but from seeing it for what it was—a survival code. Not evil. Not bad. Just no longer needed.

    That insight didn’t change everything overnight.

    And it was the first true foothold. The first time I realized that what was happening to me wasn’t some mysterious failure of willpower or character. It was a program.

    A script. A pattern. And patterns can be unlearned—once they’re seen.

    That was the moment I began.

    In the actual recording Christine does a short recapitulation of what we discussed in part 1 of this talk, which was mostly about my past and a summary of some of my life changing experiences.

    (00:13:08) - (00:15:10)

    Trauma Mapping: The Side Canyons

    When I began talking to myself and my therapists about the canyon model, I hadn’t expected it to unfold with such clarity. But it did—one image at a time. Each element carried weight. And the more I named them, the more I realized: this canyon wasn’t just metaphor. It was memory. A map etched into my body, my psyche, my way of being.

    I started by recognizing that my main canyon—the one I’ve always found myself wandering—was shaped and reshaped by trauma. Not one moment. Dozens. Each left its own distinct trace. And some didn’t just shape the canyon walls—they carved into them, branching off as side canyons.

    Each side canyon held a story.

    Slot Canyons — the sharp, narrow wounds

    Some were tight and dry, where light barely entered. Slot canyons. They marked singular, acute traumas—an accident, a moment of violence, a rupture with no before or after. These cuts didn’t connect to anything else. They stood alone, smooth-walled and silent. Places I’ve felt but can’t climb into. Places I don’t visit often, but I know exactly where they are.

    Rift Canyons — the structural breaks

    Others came with force—explosions that fractured the entire system. Rift canyons. These weren't just wounds. They tore through everything: sudden death, family implosions, destruction that shook the ground beneath me. I still feel the aftershocks. These canyons didn’t scar—they split. And nothing around them stayed the same.

    Braided Canyons — the exhausting, endless paths

    Some canyons didn’t start with a single event. They wound in every direction, no beginning, no end. These were the complex traumas. The slow, tangled ones. Emotional abuse layered with neglect. Environments where nothing made sense and everything required adjustment. They were confusing, and more than that—exhausting. Always turning. Never done.

    Stable Canyons — the slow, quiet shaping

    Not all side canyons came from devastation. Some were shaped over time by pressure—cultural, systemic, social. They didn’t crack or slice. They wore me down, slowly, like water carving rock. These canyons formed through repetition, through the demand to fit in, to perform, to stay functional. I adapted. I survived. But not without cost. These places look smooth and stable, but freedom doesn’t echo there.

    Inheritance Canyons — the humming legacy

    And then there’s the deepest layer—the canyons I didn’t dig myself. Intergenerational trauma. Patterns etched long before I arrived. These don’t scream. They hum. They move in my posture, my fears, my voice. I didn’t choose them. They came with the lineage. Seeing them—without shame, without blame—was its own act of healing.

    Each side canyon impacts the main one. Some divert the flow. Some block it. Some lead to new paths I didn’t know I needed.

    And not all of them are accessible.

    Some have wide entrances—I’ve done the work there. I know their trails. Others remain hidden, layered behind fear or forgetting. And some are still sealed. Closed by shame or silence or the simple truth: I’m not ready.

    And that’s okay. I’ve stopped forcing. I meet each canyon when it reveals itself.

    The Dam and the Reservoir: A Journey Through Internalized Oppression

    There came a point in my journey when I saw it clearly for the first time—the Dam. (00:18:26)

    Not metaphorically, but as a real structure in my inner landscape. It appeared in the canyon, not as something that belonged to the terrain, but as something distinctly foreign. Artificial. Constructed. And when I saw it, I said it out loud.

    “The dam is
 not something that is nature-made. It is man-made.” (00:34:54)

    I hadn’t built it from curiosity or creativity. It wasn’t a product of my essence. It was put into me. Built from the outside in. Layered over time, silently and methodically, with every message I received about who I had to be in order to be acceptable. What I had to suppress in order to be safe.

    At first, I only sensed its shape. Its function. It was there to regulate. To block. To keep something in.

    But then I realized what it was really built for. It wasn’t designed to serve my life. It didn’t protect me the way a boundary would. It was something entirely different.

    “It’s there to produce an outcome which is not for myself. It is for some external person or force.” (00:37:13)

    That sentence didn’t come from theory. It came from my body. From recognition. The dam didn’t exist to support my growth, or to channel my energy for my own nourishment. It existed to make me productive. Presentable. Palatable. Compliant.

    It had been formed by all the external expectations that had governed my life for decades.

    Not just spoken rules. Also the unspoken ones. The ones I learned through rejection. Through silence. Through punishment. It wasn’t one person who laid the bricks. It was everyone who reinforced the message: that who I was in essence wasn’t quite right, wasn’t quite enough.

    So I adapted. I bent. I built.

    And this Dam—this internalized structure—grew strong. I didn’t even question it, because it was there so early. It felt like it had always been part of me.

    But when I stood in front of it this time, really saw it, I knew: it wasn’t mine. Not in origin. Not in purpose.

    It had been assembled from:

    * Parental conditioning

    * Silent contracts within my family

    * What teachers rewarded and punished

    * What culture considered appropriate

    * Gender roles, religious morality

    * What Germany had taught me as a child, implicitly and explicitly

    * Trauma inherited across generations

    And from all those “shoulds” that had become muscle memory—so deeply embedded I didn’t know where they ended and I began.

    The Dam wasn’t made of my fear. It was made of everything fear had built inside me. Everything that told me to keep things inside. To silence the true flow. And behind it? There was no clear water. No fresh reservoir of potential. What waited behind that dam was stagnant, dead weight.

    Descent into the Reservoir

    “It was dead
 oily surface
 no nutrients in it.” (48:24)

    That’s what I said because that’s what I saw.

    Not a thriving lake of untapped dreams—but a poisoned holding tank, full of everything I’d suppressed just to stay functional. Grief I had no space for. Rage I was never allowed to feel. Joy I learned to mistrust. Desires I buried so deep I couldn’t recognize them anymore.

    There was no light reaching that water. No life moving through it. It didn’t just hold things back—it dissolved them. It swallowed memory and instinct. And I could feel it, not just as a metaphor, but in my body.

    I didn’t know yet what to do with it. But I knew I had to go in. Not in theory. Not to fix or drain or understand it. But to be in it. To feel what I had spent a lifetime protecting myself from.

    That’s when the work began. The real kind. The quiet kind.

    I didn’t blast the dam open. I didn’t destroy the walls. That would have flooded me. I had to descend, consciously. And when I did, I didn’t find abstract fear. I found a little one waiting. Still whole. Still alive inside the muck.

    Her name was Judilie.

    In the first encounter she was three years old. In kindergarten. Frozen in the very first trauma I ever experienced, being gender-non-conform. For the girls I wasn’t a girl. For the boys, I still remained a girl. I stood there, in between all chairs, that had already been taken, with no chair left for myself. And I was mobbed and bullied because of it.

    “I started with integrating the first trauma... the trauma at three at the kindergarten.” (00:56:07)

    And I went back there. Again and again. Not to relive it. But to meet it.

    I didn’t rescue her. I listened. I stayed. And then I came back again. Eighteen times, to be exact. Not because I planned it that way, but because that’s how many returns it took to integrate what had been frozen there.

    This wasn’t psychological processing. It was full-bodied.

    What Changed After Integration

    And something miraculous happened—not because I tried to force a change, but because I stayed present long enough for the system to remember it didn’t need to react anymore. “With every trauma I integrated that way, the automatism... was broken.” (37:29). That word—automatism—was crucial.

    I didn’t stop having reactions because I became better at controlling them. I stopped having them because my body no longer needed them. The neural pathways simply didn’t fire the same way anymore.

    “I was no longer reacting. The body is in fact healed because otherwise I would experience these automatisms again and again.” (01:00:55)

    It wasn’t a performance. It wasn’t a new spiritual practice. It was integration—a gradual dissolution of the dam’s power, not by dismantling it, but by entering the place it was meant to protect me from.

    And here’s what mattered: I didn’t suppress the response. It didn’t arrive. The circuitry had changed. The trauma had released itself, not through catharsis, but through presence.

    That was the first true proof that I wasn’t just collecting insights. I was re-embodying.

    And that gave me a new kind of confidence. Not the surface kind. The deep-rooted, cellular kind.

    So when I talked about becoming the canyon—it wasn’t a metaphor anymore. It was the truth of how I lived inside my own body.

    I looked up at the canyon walls, expecting to see the same layered stories, the same familiar terrain I’d spent years mapping. But it wasn’t just that I knew them. I realized something I had never been able to say before:

    “I was looking at these walls and suddenly I had an epiphany... I am this Canyon.” (00:16:32)

    Not the explorer. Not the cartographer. Not the person navigating from outside. I had become the landscape itself.

    I no longer walked the canyon like a visitor. I was the canyon. Not only the walls and passages, but the echo, the depth, the space that held it all.

    From that moment on, I stopped thinking of this as just my story.

    It became a framework. Because I realized that what I had built—the Canyon Model—wasn’t only personal.

    Not for coaching. Not for teaching. For witnessing.

    For understanding how deeply systemic forces shape our inner terrain. How trauma and patriarchy and familial expectations aren’t just emotional events. They become architecture.

    It held within it a way of seeing how external forces become internal terrain. How culture and patriarchy and religious conditioning don’t just shape opinion. They shape geology. “I have structures with which I can implement how these outside influences affect my canyon.” (01:07:50)

    And once you begin to see that, you can stop blaming your struggle on willpower. You can start understanding that you didn’t fail at healing. You just hadn’t seen the structures inside you yet.

    So the model gave me language. But the experience gave me embodiment.

    And it’s from this place that the Canyon Model became more than just a personal map.

    Closing: A Living Canyon

    This isn’t the end of the story. It’s a foothold. A resting ledge. A place to breathe before we continue.

    The Canyon Model isn’t something I built and now present as finished. It’s still forming—layer by layer, path by path. Each trauma I’ve named, each pattern I’ve unlearned, each structure I’ve uncovered—it all reshapes the terrain. And every time I return, I see something new. That’s the nature of canyons. They deepen with time.

    What began as survival turned into mapping. What began as exile turned into return. And what began as metaphor revealed itself to be memory, body, structure, and truth. The canyon is not outside me. It is me. It holds not just my pain but also my possibility.

    And now, it holds yours, too.

    We’ll be continuing this conversation on

    Friday, April 11—early evening EST / late afternoon PST

    where I’ll share more about what it means to become the canyon, and why that shift changes everything. Christine and I will co-host this next part, and we’d love to hear from you.

    What questions do you have? What parts of this living terrain do you want to explore? Because this isn’t a map I hand to others—it’s an invitation to trace your own.

    Thank you for walking this stretch with me.

    Until next time,Jay

    — Written to accompany the video conversation between Jay and Christine, April 2025— Written to accompany the video conversation between Jay and Christine, April 2025 ❀ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.

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    Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute

    If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

    If my writing, art, and recipes resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

    If a monthly or annual subscription isn’t feasible for you right now, you can also show your support with a one-time tip via my Tip Jar here.

    Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe
  • Hope in the Canyon: A Personal Letter to You

    Hope in the Canyon: A Personal Letter to You

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    đŸŽ™ïž Hope in the Canyon: A Personal Letter to you in the Face of Fear and Loss

    In this solo episode, I open the canyon of my life—layer by layer—and speak directly to you. I share my journey through identity, trauma, and the slow, ongoing work of reclaiming my true self after decades under toxic shame.

    This isn’t a highlight reel. It’s a deeply personal invitation to sit with grief, complexity, and change—and discover the quiet ember of hope that can keep us going, even when everything else is gone.

    Key Takeaways:

    Hope is often a whisper, not a rescue.

    Labels assigned by others can erase the truth of who we are.

    Integration matters more than survival alone.

    Avoiding pain deepens it. Meeting it can soften its edge.

    Accepting change doesn’t mean liking it—it means allowing room for life to move.

    We carry patterns that don’t belong to us. Letting go frees us.

    True safety is built—not assumed—and begins within.

    Healing isn’t linear. It moves like a canyon trail: unexpected, layered, real.

    A tiny belief that life can be different is sometimes enough to begin.

    Letting go of what was never ours makes space for what is.

    🌀 Reflection Prompt:What parts of your story did you inherit, and what parts are yours to write now?

    📝 I’d love to hear what spoke to you—feel free to share in the comments or reply privately.---

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is read across 49 US states and 40 countries.

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

    Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay resonates? Share it with someone who could use a fresh perspective on life’s journey.



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  • CREATIVE HEALING JOURNEY :: A Live Sacred Space with @Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

    CREATIVE HEALING JOURNEY :: A Live Sacred Space with @Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    Thank you Amy Brown, Kendall Lamb, Christine Castigliano, Kara Westerman (she/her), Belinda Ivy, and many others for tuning into my live video with Christine Castigliano! Join us for my next live video in the app.

    Summary of this special live talk between Christine Castigliano and Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay :

    The imprints of trauma weren’t a distant echo or sudden revelation. They were daily air. From the age of 2.5, I lived in a body and world that told me I didn’t belong. Not with the girls. Not with the boys. Not even in my own home. I adapted because I had to—but adaptation isn't healing.

    Then came the car crash in 1985. My father died. I didn’t. That trauma didn't begin my story—it simply pierced through the surface of a life already shaped by rejection, isolation, and survival.

    By 1986, I came out as a lesbian. And again, I lost nearly everything. I stood on the edge—literally—just months later, in January 1987. Only my baby brothers tethered me to life.

    It took years of therapy to name what I had lived through: abuse, not discipline. Conditioning, not care. I thought that awareness meant healing. But what I had really done was look at a snapshot of my pain—not yet step into it.

    When my partner died in early 2020, it all cracked open again. The pandemic silenced distractions. Grief and insolvency brought me to my knees. And in that quiet, I finally began to hear myself.

    I reached out for help. Coaching became my lifeline. Slowly, I began remembering. Not just facts—but feelings, fractures, forgotten parts. I saw how my beliefs, shaped by early conditioning, weren’t truly mine. The canyon inside me started to reveal itself.

    That’s how the Canyon Model emerged—not as a theory, but as lived truth. A metaphor at first, then a map. A place where trauma isn’t a story we tell once but a terrain we walk—layer by layer, memory by memory. A way to trace what shaped us and choose how to walk forward.

    And here’s what’s next:

    There will be a second episode—where I’ll take you deeper into my Canyonlands, and show how the Canyon Model can help make sense of your own past. How the inner landscape, once feared, can become familiar. Mapped. Illuminated. Not to erase what’s been—but to reclaim it.

    If you're standing somewhere in your own canyon, unsure of the path—maybe my story can help you find a light of your own.

    Let’s keep walking.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe
  • Learn How to Notice What You Accept and Choose What Truly Serves You

    Learn How to Notice What You Accept and Choose What Truly Serves You

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com

    Learn How to Notice What You Accept and Choose What Truly Serves You

    By exploring German bread traditions, you can reclaim authenticity and understand the cultural stories they tell.

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month or 50$ a year. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

    Episode Description:What do you do when every craft bakery in your town closes—and all that’s left is bread that collapses under the weight of butter? In this personal essay, I take you with me on a quiet Saturday morning in Germany, through a memory-filled Brötchen-Tour with my father, and into the deeper question of what happens when tradition is replaced by convenience.

    You’ll hear about the slow disappearance of regional bread culture, the systemic forces behind it, and how I slowly began to reclaim my own connection to bread, to presence, and to choice—by baking it myself.

    This episode isn’t just about crusts and crumbs. It’s about learning to notice what we’ve accepted without question. And it’s about choosing, deliberately, what truly nourishes us—on every level.

    In this episode, I explore:– What German bread once was, and what it has become– The quiet rituals that shaped my early relationship with food– How Easter traditions and old stories still hold memory in their form– Why I began baking out of necessity, not trend– How systems preserve themselves through our passive acceptance– What it means to reclaim presence in a fast, disconnected world– The simple act that helped me remember what enough tastes like

    Whether you’re a baker, a curious listener, or just someone trying to reconnect with something real—this story is for you.

    Paid Subscriber to my Stack? Download your Recipe https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/p/11dc30f8-d4cd-4ddc-b05e-84ec71fb08bf

    or here: https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/p/exclusive-recipe-collection-for-paid

    Call to Action:You don’t have to bake your own bread to make a shift. Just start by noticing what you’ve been taught to accept. Then ask—does this truly serve me?

    Each twist, tweak, and taste test comes with the joy of creativity—and yes, a little bit of cost, too. If this recipe resonated with you and added a touch of nostalgia or delight to your day, I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d consider leaving a tip. Or, better yet, indulge in a monthly or yearly subscription to support this publication

    Your generosity helps keep these flavors alive and ensures I can continue exploring, experimenting, and sharing them with you.

    Follow me https://wildlionessespride.substack.com

  • Own Your Mornings, Own Your Life

    Own Your Mornings, Own Your Life

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com

    Own Your Mornings, Own Your Life

    Episode Overview

    Think about it—each morning, you wake up with a choice. Do you start on autopilot, scrolling through notifications and rushing into your day? Or do you take ownership of your morning, create space for yourself, and set the tone for what follows?

    A conscious morning routine isn’t about perfection or rigid habits. It’s about choosing presence over chaos, clarity over reactivity, and intention over habit. Small, intentional shifts in your morning can create lasting momentum—leading to weeks, months, and ultimately, a life lived with more purpose.

    In this episode, I share practical self-coaching tools that can help you reclaim your mornings—without needing hours of meditation or an elaborate routine.

    Key Takeaways

    💡 Your Morning Routine – A Conscious Choice

    The first hour of your day shapes the energy you bring into the world.

    Shift from reacting to intentionally creating your day.

    Find a morning rhythm that works for you—it’s about consistency, not perfection.

    ✹ Tips for a Meaningful Morning Routine

    Set aside enough time—avoid rushing.

    Wake up at the same time each day to establish rhythm.

    Prepare the night before—what’s on your agenda?

    Define the sequence of your routine and how much time each step will take.

    Create a minimum routine for busy mornings.

    Be patient with yourself—this is for you.

    📖 Morning Rituals for a Positive Start

    Self-Coaching Questions: The quality of your questions shapes the quality of your life.

    Movement: Dancing, stretching, yoga, or running—wake up your body.

    Meditation: Whether five minutes or half an hour, mindfulness helps you reconnect.

    Gratitude Practice: Write down three things you’re grateful for.

    Affirmations: Use positive statements to reframe your mindset.

    Reading & Inspiration: Start the day with something that fuels you.

    Goal Setting: Write down your life goals—every single day.

    đŸ§© Why Self-Coaching?

    Most people react to life instead of creating it.

    Self-coaching helps you pause, realign, and make intentional choices.

    Inside my Own Your Mornings, Own Your Life guide, I share 50+ open-ended self-coaching questions spanning 13 life areas, designed to spark growth, self-awareness, and action.

    🌟 What If Tomorrow Felt Different?

    Imagine waking up clear instead of chaotic.

    Imagine setting your own intentions instead of letting the world set them for you.

    Even five intentional minutes can change the way you move through your day.

    🎧 Listen in as we explore how small shifts in your morning can lead to powerful transformations.

    📖 Want More? Get My Ebooklet!

    Get the full Own Your Mornings, Own Your Life PDF & EPUB for just $4.99—no subscription needed!

    🔗 Buy it here: Buy Booklet now ($4.99)

    💛 Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute

    If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

    If my writing, art, and recipes resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

    Thank you for being part of this journey.

    Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey

    Let’s create intentional mornings and meaningful days—together. ✹

    Download PDF and epub now for Paid Subcribers!

    All files are available to Download in my “Download Section”🔗 Join here: Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

  • Finding Strength in Compassion, Joy, and Mistakes

    Finding Strength in Compassion, Joy, and Mistakes

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    Episode Title: Finding Strength in Compassion, Joy, and Mistakes

    Reflect on how your experiences, both painful and beautiful, shape your connection to yourself and the world around you.

    Wild Lion*esses Pride Podcast

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy Monty some cat food as support” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

    A sacred land shaped by time, wind, and presence—like the canyons within us, carved by experience, resilience, and connection. In this episode, I sit by my canyon’s edge, watching the morning light carve new stories into the rock, reflecting on what healing truly means. Healing is not about leaving. Healing is about inhabiting.

    I explore the Brahmaviharas—Metta (loving-kindness), Karuna (compassion), Mudita (sympathetic joy), and Upekkha (equanimity)—and how they weave through my personal journey. Through the lens of the Canyon Model and the wisdom of Ubuntu, I uncover the ways in which love, presence, and interconnectedness shape our healing and growth.

    Join me in discovering how kindness does not always announce itself, how compassion lives in the unseen crevices, how joy flourishes when shared, and how equanimity teaches us to trust the path even when control is an illusion. Ubuntu whispers through every moment: I am because you are.

    Poetic Reflection: We Are Because

    This episode also includes a special reading of my poem, We Are Because, a reflection on belonging, love, and the unbreakable threads connecting us all. Through imagery and rhythm, the poem invites you into a space of deep recognition—of yourself, of others, of the shared breath between us.

    Lessons in Mistakes: 50 mg of Mistakes

    I once believed mistakes defined me, carving regret into my ribs and mistaking survival for silence. Yet mistakes are not tombstones. They do not bury us. They are stepping stones, guiding us toward understanding, resilience, and transformation. I share a personal reflection on how each fall has whispered a new truth—not failure, rather flight; not ruin, rather rhythm.

    Closing Reflection & Invitation

    This is why I write, why I share my stories, and why I reach out my hand. Because we do not walk alone. Because the breath between us matters. Because somewhere, in the hush before dawn, in the hush before breath, we already belong to each other.

    We are because we are.

    Glad to have you walk beside me.

    ❀ If this episode speaks to you, please consider showing your support. Click the heart, leave a review, or share it with someone who might find comfort here.

    Wild Lion*esses Pride is read across 48 US states and 40 countries.

    Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute

    If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

    If my writing, art, and recipes resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

    If a monthly or annual subscription isn’t feasible for you right now, you can also show your support with a one-time tip via my Tip Jar here.

    Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe
  • Walk With Me Through a Nazi Concentration Camp: History Up Close

    Walk With Me Through a Nazi Concentration Camp: History Up Close

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    Walkthrough of Buchenwald and Weimar

    This documentary takes you on a 40-minute walkthrough of the former Buchenwald Concentration Camp, located near Weimar in Thuringia, Germany. Being the largest concentration camp still on German soil, Buchenwald was deeply connected to the surrounding society.

    I invite you to share this free documentary widely with friends and family. It is essential that these stories are never forgotten. Let’s keep history alive and honor those who suffered and were murdered by ensuring their voices are heard.

    This journey moves through key locations in and around the camp. A full exploration of the site, including the surrounding grounds, typically takes about 2.5 hours visiting time. From there, we transition to Weimar, a city once celebrated as a center of enlightenment, now bearing the weight of its proximity to these horrors. I guide you through a 10-minute tour of the historic city center.

    The journey ends with a quiet reflection in Ilm Park, where Goethe once walked.

    Link to the Buchenwald Memorial Website.

    Link to Weimar Tourism

    1. Arrival at Buchenwald (Visitor Center, SS Barracks, Railway Tracks, SS Command Center, Gate House, Garages, Caracho Path)

    The walkthrough begins at the Visitor Center, where the scale of Buchenwald becomes apparent. The remains of the SS barracks, railway tracks, and the command center reveal how the camp was administratively and logistically connected to the outside world. We follow the infamous Caracho Path, where prisoners, already weak from transport, were herded into the camp under brutal conditions.

    2. Inside the Camp (Main Gate, Roll Call Square, Crematorium, Reflections, Museums, Ostracism and Violence Exhibition, Graveyard and Memorials)

    Stepping through the camp’s iron gate, inscribed with Jedem das Seine (To each his own), we enter the Roll Call Square, where prisoners endured hours of forced standing in all weather conditions. The tour moves to the crematorium—an unflinching reminder of the camp’s function as a place of mass death. We pause for reflection before visiting the museum and its exhibition Ostracism and Violence, which highlights the close ties between the camp and local society. The section ends at the graveyard and memorials, where victims are honored today.

    Link the the Overview on the Exhibition Ostracism and Violence

    Link to the Personal Stories related to Exhibition Ostracism and Violence

    Link to the Online Exhibitions of Buchenwald

    Link to the Buchenwald Library

    3. Outside the Camp (Quarry, Blood Road, GDR Buchenwald Memorial)

    Leaving the camp itself, we visit the dog kennels, the quarry, where prisoners were subjected to forced labor under unbearable conditions. The Blood Road, paved by inmates, connects the camp to Weimar—its very existence a symbol of the exploitation that sustained Buchenwald. The section concludes with the imposing GDR-era Buchenwald Memorial, constructed in the 1950s as an ideological monument to antifascism.

    4. Weimar: Between Culture and Darkness (Goethehaus, Marktplatz, Hotel Elephant, Historic City Center, Ilm Park)

    A short journey from Buchenwald brings us to Weimar. Once the heart of German intellectual life, home to Goethe, Schiller, and the Bauhaus movement, Weimar’s legacy stands in stark contrast to its proximity to Buchenwald. We visit the Goethehaus, Marktplatz, and the historic Hotel Elephant before taking a short walk through the old town. The documentary ends in Ilm Park, where the serenity of nature invites final reflection on the coexistence of cultural brilliance and human cruelty.

    This journey is an invitation to witness, to remember, and to reflect on the responsibilities we carry today.

    5. About the production

    I filmed the documentary on location in Buchenwald and Weimar on January 24th and 25th, 2025. For this project, I stayed overnight at a Boutique Hotel in Weimar, about 90 miles or a 1.5-hour drive from my hometown of Einbeck. The Buchenwald Memorial Site, especially with filming equipment, is only accessible by car.

    On the first day, I spent about five hours filming Nazi history and their genocide on the premises of the former concentration camp, as well as the quarry, using my iPhone 12 Pro, a Lavaliere microphone, and a DJI Mimo II, along with my NIKON D750 DSLR for both photography and video.

    On January 25th, I filmed this documentary for about two hours on location in Weimar, taking a short walk through the city center, including the Goethehaus, Marktplatz, and the historic streets. Later that day, on my way back, I stopped again at Buchenwald, as it lay along my route. I filmed the Blood Road scene as well as all footage of the GDR-era Buchenwald Memorial, spending another two hours capturing these final elements.

    Post-production was completed using Adobe Premiere, with Audacity for audio editing. Most of the music was created with Suno.ai based on my prompts, and all tracks were free for cultural projects. The only piece credited under Creative Commons is J.W.S. Bach Etudes 144.

    When I filmed this documentary, I already knew the United States had fallen into the hands of a figure of Germanic descent—one who openly worships the very man responsible for the existence of these concentration camps on German soil. The election of DT and the wave of re-traumatization it triggered in me—his behavior mirroring my mother’s treatment of me—was one of the underlying reasons for making this film. As a German, watching DT and his Germanic cronies rise to power made it clear, even in early October, what America was facing.

    This was not a new administration but the return of a regime that echoed the very one that had built and operated Buchenwald.

    I would like to thank Gloria Horton-Young and Armand Beede for their encouragement and expressing their willingness to actually watch the finished work. This made it easier for me to finish this project.

    I invite you to share this free documentary widely with friends and family. It is essential that these stories are never forgotten. Let’s keep history alive.

    ❀ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.

    CULTURE HISTORY FILM U.S. POLITICS INTERNATIONAL POLITICS TRAUMA NAZI HISTORY GENOCIDE PSYCHOLOGY DOCUMENTARY

    Would you be willing to support my work by subscribing or contributing? It would mean so much to me.

    Creating art, testing recipes, and sharing my reflections here is a labor of love, yet it also comes with real costs. Since January 2024, I have been on sick leave due to mental health challenges. Monty and I make life work with a disposable income of €350 / $380 a month.

    On February 24, 2025, a bankruptcy lawyer confirmed what I had already known—my current situation will become unsustainable. I share more about it here:

    If my writing, art, ands this documentary resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

    And if I may ask—should you happen to know of opportunities for a cook, baker, barkeep, host, concierge, travel manager, personal assistant, house philosopher, systemic conversationalist, photographer, resident artist, or even a whimsical weather frog person—please pass along my name. I’m eager to embrace new adventures, wherever the tides of life and serendipity may lead me.

    Your paid subscription helps keep this space ad-free, reader-supported, and accessible to everyone, while also supporting the time, creativity, and resources I dedicate to this work.

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    Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey



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  • A poetic journey through captivity, discovery, and liberation.

    A poetic journey through captivity, discovery, and liberation.

    · Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

    A poetic journey through captivity, discovery, and liberation.

    Keys 1 to 4 – Unlocking My Doors. Four Poems About My Way Into Freedom

    In this episode, I take you through a journey of transformation—one lock at a time, one key at a time. Through four poems, I trace my path from captivity to liberation, from carrying keys I did not know how to use to no longer needing them at all.

    Each poem marks a shift: from the realization of being locked away, to the discovery of the first keys, to the opening of doors, and finally, to the moment when keys are no longer needed.

    Poem 1 | Locks

    Before there were keys, there were only locks. I lived in silence and duty, in spaces I did not choose. This poem explores the invisible prisons of expectation, the weight of obligation, and the belief that captivity was just another name for home.

    🔑 Themes:

    The illusion of duty and home

    Codependency as captivity

    The moment before questioning begins

    Poem 2 | Forgotten Keys

    The first key arrived quietly, placed in my palm before I even knew what to do with it. Slowly, mentors, teachers, and healers handed me more, each unlocking a part of me I had forgotten. Some doors resisted. Some keys slipped away. But the unlocking had begun.

    🔑 Themes:

    The slow discovery of self

    Healing through bodywork and awareness

    The people who offer us the first glimpses of freedom

    Poem 3 | Unlocking

    The doors are no longer locked. One after another, they open—not through force, but through guidance, presence, and the quiet courage of stepping through. I name the people who stood beside me, holding out keys, reminding me that I never had to walk alone.

    🔑 Themes:

    Community as a force of liberation

    Facing the past without fear

    Stepping through the doors and into freedom

    Poem 4 | Returning the Keys

    I have held many keys—some mine, some never meant for me. Some opened doors I have long outgrown. This final poem reflects on what it means to return the last keys, to let go, to walk forward without hesitation. No longer locked in, no longer locked out. Simply free.

    🔑 Themes:

    Releasing attachments to the past

    Letting go of spaces that no longer serve

    Walking away without looking back

    Final Reflection:

    This episode is more than poetry—it is a map of my journey. Each lock, each key, each door led me here. And now, as I return the last key, I step forward. No longer carrying them. No longer searching for them.

    Just walking.

    Just free.

    ❀ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.

    Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute

    If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

    If my writing, art, and recipes resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

    If a monthly or annual subscription isn’t feasible for you right now, you can also show your support with a one-time tip via my Tip Jar here.

    Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey

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  • Se mer