Are You Blue?

Are you blue? Are you blue?

We can all be blue in this human state. A little sad, a little dim, a little bright. A little this, a little that. We all have energies.

But when I talk about the blues, I’m talking about something spiritual: what I think of as an energetic field, a presence, a pure, positive light.

I listened to a man talk about the blues as healers, and something in that stayed with me. I haven’t seen a blue being or a blue body. And I do wonder: did listening to him fill my brain with something true, or something that isn’t? I’m still trying to understand it.

What I believe, what I feel, is that there is something beautiful in this idea of care reaching us in places we didn’t even know needed care.

True blue

I think of myself as a healer. A true blue. I wonder whether some of us are blues before we get here, before we become human.

In my understanding, the blues have phases. The highest is what I call “sky phase.” That’s how I picture the ones people describe seeing: beyond the other phases, reaching toward us as healers. Before that, I imagine energy taking other forms, always changing, always becoming.

Where do they live? Where do they stay? Where do they chill?

I don’t know. A land, an atmosphere, an energy, a force field—something. I don’t have a map. I have questions and a feeling.

To me, the blues belong to God’s universe. I think of them as God’s angels. Whatever you call the greatest, the most divine—that’s their jam. That’s their everything.

God’s shit picker uppers

The way I picture the blues, they’re very matter-of-fact. A to B. “We’re here to do this.” Boom.

They nip shit in the bud. They don’t have time to waste because they have a lot of shit to do.

And yet they’re playful. They’d rather be playing. I don’t picture them hanging up a sign that says “Gone Fishing,” though. There’s work to do.

In my spiritual picture of things, they’re God’s shit picker uppers. They pick us up. They keep us moving. I associate them with releasing what feels heavy and returning to a more natural state, with less excess weighing us down.

I think that’s part of what draws me to the blues: this feeling that we can get back to ourselves. Back to our senses. Taste, touch, feeling. Back to where something simple could be enough.

Remember when food could be your biggest enjoyment? When a little chocolate was a celebration? You had it, you enjoyed it, and then the celebration moved on. You didn’t need to keep chasing it every minute of every day.

We consume so much. We put so much into our bodies. When I think about giving the blues less work to do, I’m also thinking about the work that belongs to us: paying attention to how we live and how we care for ourselves.

Our character is ours to deal with—us and spirit. How we show up. What we put out into the world. The blues, as I imagine them, are more concerned with the part of us that keeps moving. Are we able to do what we want to do? Are we too sluggish? How do we find our way back?

Being still is work, too

Sometimes we get comfortable in our pain. We don’t know anything else. The thought of change can be scary, even when we want it.

It’s hard for me to sit, relax, and be still with myself. I talk about opening my heart to the divine, opening my mind to care, opening myself to God’s will—but sitting still long enough to feel any of that? That takes something, too.

I imagine saying, “Have all of me.” Being willing to loosen my grip. Being willing to feel different.

And I think: come on, how long does it take you to get somewhere and do your job? Why do I expect everything inside me to happen in an instant?

There’s still work for me to do. There’s still a human life to live. I’m human. You’re human. We’re whatever we are, trying to make our way through it.

Bodies of movement, minds of motion

When I picture the blues, I picture bodies of movement, minds of motion, hearts of desire—all held in one little bitty thing: their light.

Pure light. The purest energy I can imagine.

Angel doctors. Heaven’s hosts. Medium medics. Those are the names that come to mind when I try to describe them. In my imagination, there’s no clock in their world. If there were, they’d be the oldest mother freakers in any universe.

And they’d still want to play.

I have an altar, and I’ve thought about making a little more room there for the blues. Some recognition. Some gratitude. Who wouldn’t love that shit?

Berries and root vegetables come to mind when I think about what blue might like. I get this impression of a town, of teams rotating in and out, returning for whatever restores them. Crystallizations, formulas—the images and words that come to me as I try to make sense of it all.

Rest. Restore. Renew.

RRR.

Those letters turn up in different ways for me. Reggae, religion, rap. Rest, restore, relax. There’s something in that rhythm I keep coming back to.

I imagine the blues always changing, their matter in revolution, in evolution. A never-ending becoming.

I love the blues. I do. I love what they mean to me: care, movement, light, a little playfulness, a chance to feel restored.

And right now, I could use some of that rest myself. I ate way too many of my blue cookies—blueberries, apples, pumpkin, and banana. A real sweet treat.

I love them, too.