Communities Who Cannot Truly See Us… (Venom Part 1)
A dryad tattoos my spiritual body + A powerful metaphor for exchanging the opinions of those who did not recognize us for greater things...
Chapter 1 of 2
This is the first of two excerpts from the same dive experience. Part 2 of this dive will be released on Tuesday March 10 2026. Subscribe to have it sent to your inbox.
Nature track
Sometimes I listen to music to aid my dives, other times I put a single nature track on repeat, each has a slightly different effect. Hit this track on repeat to deepen the immersion as you read…
Communities Who Cannot Truly See Us…
“Having a voice does not rely on being heard. The need to be heard means you are seeking relationship, speaking out truth does not necessitate that. Prophets must deliver their words regardless of whether or not it is heard. Disagreeable people speak anyways, even when people are not seeking their advice. They state truth and facts simply because they are. Your trouble was that you were seeking relationship too much. You were young and you were in a community that was no good for you, but it was the only community you had. So you tried too hard. Now, you will not need people to listen so much. Now you will speak out, for your words are valuable and hold truth, and people will find them.”
“This sounds a lot like what Storm was telling me yesterday.” I responded.
“And so it does. But I am highlighting the key difference here. A confident person knows they hold value and they say what they want, it does not matter if the other listens or not.”
“Truth was stated, the other person can decide if they want to embrace it or ignore it. There is a difference between giving a message and communicating relationally. In a relationship there is a give-and-take, a bonding. Here it is important that you are understood, you are seeking closeness. But when you are delivering a message none of that applies, you simply state truths and leave them on the table, those people are nothing to you. And if they do not listen and things go poorly, you are not upset because you are not in relationship with them, thus their errors are no loss to you.”
“You had trouble because you were tied to the people you were giving messages to. And their foolishness made you suffer. That is not normally how such things work. You are not a child anymore. You are not advising leaders of your own community, not your family, nor your employers. That is why it is good to be a neutral third party when you are a prophet. It allows you to share plainly without being tied to the consequences, and that is good. It does not mean you can never advise true family, but that is something different. It is not what I am addressing here. Even with elders, they address those below them, those younger than them, this keeps them from being overly tied to the results of whether or not their advice is taken. That is important. If you care too much it makes you seem desperate, and people tend to reject desperation. The type who don’t reject it are not the kind of people you want to get involved with..”
I began to center into the dive. There was a waterfall in the background and colors of shimmering gold and greens were dancing in its spray. The sun was beaming down and it was warm. All around was a carpet of moss and a layer of water from the falls. I wiggled my toes, feeling the squish of the spongy moss beneath them and the cold of the shallow puddle.
I couldn’t help noticing my white dress as I knelt down to touch the ground. The dress felt somewhat Greek, with a bundle of fabric running across each shoulder, and covering one side of my chest, leaving an open center and a plunging V-neck. The fabric did not cross together until my belly button. And there was a thin, decorative rope tied across my upper stomach holding the dress in place. I could feel an open back as well. I wore several brass bangles on my right arm. I began studying them, they looked cheap as if they were rusting. One of them had fake, teal colored gems poorly glued along the center. I was puzzled by how tacky they were, then Father beckoned me from his throne, wanting to see them.
When I came over, Father lifted my arm and looked at the bangles with a frown on his face. Then he slid them all off. He shook his head as he did so. As he held them to the side of his throne to discard them, a small creature that resembled a clouded leopard appeared and took them in his mouth, then he darted away.
He sighed, “what are we to do with these?” He still held my arm as if he were examining the bracelets that were no longer there.
“You must stop wearing the cheap praises of man. Ones who do not even see you can hardly give you praise that is worthy of you. Let those old communities and people go, they could never give you the adornments that suit you.”
He sighed, “What are we going to do about this?” he asked me, holding up my arm and trailing it with a finger like he was enjoying a rare beauty. My skin was tanned and beautiful, my arm looked better without the cheap jewelry.
I paused not sure yet how to answer the question he posed to me. Finally I shrugged, “It looks better without those.”
He laughed. “You like it better that way?! Ha-ha. And so you shall.” He motioned with a hand and a few creatures appeared from somewhere behind the throne. Father leaned to them and in a low tone and said, “she likes it better this way.” Then he winked at them.
Fire Tattoo
One creature was small, perhaps 5 feet tall, but impossibly thin, it’s features like his head and chest bulging out of a petite neck and stomach. He was something...other than human. Another was female and smoke-like with wild, tree-branch hair. The third was the same leopard from a moment ago.
The first took my hand and lifted it, examining me as he hummed to himself in thought. The smokey figure circled around me several times, and the leopard wagged his tail slowly like a dog that is both shy and interested.
The first creature began tracing a wet paint down my arm in curving patterns like a river. The paint glistened feeling thick and cool across my arm. I watched as circling branches went off here and there to the left and the right. When he got about 3/4 of the way down he stopped as if considering something. Then he began again in the blank space below. A glowing golden feather quill began to appear as he drew on the lower portion of my arm. Then he began to draw a book underneath it. I internally rolled my eyes at the obviousness of the picture. But then I was suddenly enamored. He began drawing the ink on the page leading up to the position of the quill. As he went further away from the pen the words that were written turned into fire which then spread across the landscape he had painted behind and around the image. The ink was turning into flame and catching the the rest of the image on fire…
I gasped, the tattoo came to life when I stared at it, creating a vision unto itself. I looked at the creature still holding the paint and then looked around to ensure nothing outside the paint had caught flame. It was so realistic…. This was more than a mere tattoo. The creature still held my hand so that my arm wouldn’t move, and shook his head at me, indicating I needed to keep still, he wasn’t finished yet.
Then the dryad, made from smoke, stepped up to my arm which was still clutched between the bony fingers of the first. She took my hand from his and breathed out over the image. The color changed from glowing gold to something metallic, then suddenly to the color of ash as if it had caught fire too. The paint turned to a pile of dust, laid in the shape of the art across my arm. A moment later, it began to blow away in the gentle movement of air from my own breathing. I was shocked. The amazement of it, and just as suddenly it was gone. But then I noticed a dull, barely visible stain underneath the ash as it blew away.
The leopard approached me. I smiled and reached out to pet him. He was cute and seemed young. I stroked his head and he wiggled with pleasure, he rubbed his face into my hand, then bit down on it, sinking his teeth into my hand. My eyes flared and my pulse quickened at the shock of it. He held on and wouldn’t let go, pinning my hand and thus arm as well. Then, as I felt the pulse in my arm like a hammer, I noticed something. The tattoo began to light up, what was a light gray shadow now began to intensify until it began to glow and pulse as light seemed to move underneath it, creating a shimmer effect. The more my pulse pounded in my arm, the brighter the tattoo grew.
“What is this?” I asked, distracted from the pain.
The leopard finally let go, and I raised my arm to examine the markings.
“When you power up, so does it. The mark is below your skin, it only shows when power moves through you. We have to hide it until it is needed, you are a rogue after all.” Father mused.
“You’re a catalyst, but you do not always need to catalyze. You are like a sneaky element like baking soda, seemingly benign enough until vinegar is mixed with it. And suddenly no one knows what hit them. Your power courses through your veins, but it only shows up when you need it. It responds when things happen. You are highly reactive. You do not need to show your power because it is like a reflex, it will be there whenever the moment strikes, rising up exactly as it is needed, then fading back behind the skin. Cobras keep their fangs tucked away until they strike, you should do the same. For your venom is potent.”
Dive date: February 3 2026
Lunar: 2 days after the Full Moon.
In this dive, Father taught about the problem with being in community with people who do not truly see us for who we are. The dive below is the perfect continuation of this conversation where Marcus (my personal angel) teaches about the healing power of truly being seen by another…
The Power of Being Seen
“Many times the wounds you humans receive is not so much the thing done to you, but the lack of the other person seeing you as they wronged you. For it is only in such contexts that many wrong doings can even occur, and it is this lack of being seen as another living, breathing human that does the most damage...”
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Great Truths here, Willow!