Duality & Resurrection…

Duality is balance.
Deciding that neither side is better than the other – but embracing their differences.
I like to use the example that neither man, nor woman, is the better sex; they are just different.
That neither blue, nor yellow, is better; they are just different.
Each serves its own individual purpose.
Every purpose is subjective.
For every positive there is negative…and every negative a positive.

This is my duality.

The balance between inner thoughts, impulses, and disciplines.
The mistakes, and the masterpieces.

When we hang on to things, we get full. Full of rage, full of material things, full of excess weight.
And when we let go, we make room for new things: new experiences, new people, better things.

Sometimes, the new can be the old, but with more value.

I left my hometown at 16… afraid, but ready to begin a life.
I left my home county at 30, ready to begin a new life, ignorant of the unknown, and hit a block.
Smacking my face on a cold, hard wall or “starting over.”

Or perhaps I was starting – Period.

Some will call it the “Saturn Return” … But I was just beginning…
It was a sheer kick in the ass to start something…Anything…
Better late than never, I suppose.
I said I’d never look back… but back was all I desired after committing six years to a place of which I knew nothing and no one.

The Palm Tree Mirror

In the attempt of holding on to LA, I mean, after all, it’s written in my given name (London Alyssa Figueroa)
I was told it was, “time to let go…” That “hanging on” means you’ll stunt your growth…

I sold my vintage palm tree mirror for $50 because, to me, palm trees were the icon of what I knew to be home – Los Angeles.

Two years later, after a conversation with my partner, I decided I wanted it back.
I found one online for $1,000 and realized, not only had I sold my fucking mirror, but it was also a VINTAGE COLLECTION PIECE..

I sold my soul to a place that hated the very thing that made me who I am, and at a SEVERE discount… Double Mistake.

The Ritual

Fast forward to 6 months ago…

I left San Diego County and moved to Huntington Beach in 2023. I didn’t know anyone here but my roommates.
It’s a faster pace than SD and closer to LA. I figured I can now visit my tribes, instead of wandering HB as the new loner in the town…

In December, I decided to literally burn away all ties I had to my past.

It was my “ritual” to myself … of letting go of any fear – fear of being seen, judged, mocked, ridiculed, and having ANY envious comparisons to my peers.

I wrote down every pain, every idea, every mistake, and every fear and burned the entire piece of paper, rinsing the ashes down the kitchen sink.
It was my way of writing it all out and ridding myself of the burdens.

My only expectation was: anytime I thought these thoughts again, I’d remembered I’d flushed them and move forward.
No more time wasted on the things I cannot control.
Make room for new connections, new friends, new experiences.

Come January… LA was literally on fire…

The Resurrection

I’ve lived in Huntington Beach for 2.5 years now, and often stay, for a months at a time, in LA County since I don’t know anyone here…

I began vending shows in LA and OC for the past year.

I’m a nomad.

I sacrifice the comforts of a single home, for my art and lifestyle, and though desired, stable and still, aren’t quite the theme for this point in my life.

Always on the go!

Saving money on rent so I can do more art and events sounds like a plan!
It’s unconventional… but what part of my life isn’t?

In the new chapter of this journey, amongst my return to the familiar stomping grounds, while letting go of old ties and wasted emotional baggage I once attached to everything in LA…

I participated in the Pasadena Chalk Festival.

How have I spent so much time in Pasadena, and never attended this?
Yas!
New medium, new experiences, and ironically….
New blasts from the past coming to visit me from San Diego, La Verne, and even …. My hometown, Burbank – the place from which I burned all chains.

Resurrected connections… meaningful conversations.. and a full circle experience filled with laughter, support, and sheer happiness..

The Reunion

There must have been something in the clouds, the winds, the stars, the planets…

Not long after the event, a few more good old friends from Burbank contacted me, planning a gathering after 20+ years of separation…

The day before we were supposed to meet, my Burbank friend who visited me at the festival, needed help with his website, inspired to begin blogging again.

When we met at a local coffee shop…we had a lot of catching up to do… So much can happen between 16 and 37… Lol who knew!?

But the similarities and emotional ties to Burbank we couldn’t seem to shake.

It was like, he too, was finding ways to reconnect with Burbank… something, with which I am all too familiar.
Reconnect? Where are you living?
HUNTINGTON BEACH?
THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME!!!
Palm Trees.
He likes Palm Trees.
He’s an ordained monk, hoping to inspire others to seek enlightenment!
This is absolutely fantastic!
Meditation.
Divine Reconnection?
Detachment.
Meditation.
Palms out!
Palm Trees.

The Palm Tree Mirror!

His start to begin blogging again.. and my stop to smell the roses, with the past of which I ready to let go….
But somehow, it came right back … and as I made room for what I thought would be new… maybe … “new” means old, with experience… deeper understanding… and elevated frequencies.

Creatives brainstorming weekly, inspiring one another, working together at coffee shops!

This is SO FUCKING LA! (My favorite part part about it)

The next day we had the quad pod… a picnic in the grass, lunch, tea, tarot, tattoos and risqué conversations of experiences, laughter, and just good fun!

Like the adult versions of the children we once were, but we were grown… our own decision makers.. but we were back together.
Back but different.
Matured.

Evolved.

The experiences I had in life, didn’t always make me happy.
They didn’t allow me to connect to others the way I always wanted…
But maybe, if I had it any different, it would have been “received” differently.
Maybe we’d perceive each other differently.
And even though we repeated over again, how we should have never let this much time pass… maybe we needed this time to pass so we “could” enjoy it better.

Had it been another day, another year, another version of our chapters, we wouldn’t have smiled as much.

The reassurance. The reconnection. The updates.

It was perfect.

Divine.

I’ve never been so grateful to be exactly where I am now. Which is everywhere and no where.
It isn’t good, but it isn’t bad.
It’s just different.

It’s an elevation in my evolution of experiencing duality.

What is yours?

-Lund3on
Rise & Reign