Friend, today's tale begins with the buzzing of cicadas and the resonant vibration humming through my nasal and maxilla bones. I let that feeling merge with the collective field and draw me forward.

It stretched into miles upon miles of sand, an ocean of it, an expanse of barren land as far as my eye could see, and a fat red sun dropping below the horizon. The feeling of loneliness grew in my chest as I watched the light bringer set, and no moon to speak of rise in its place.

To retain the warmth of the day, I feel myself pulled to sit, then lie down on my back, and then very gently shimmy downward into the sand.

I feel my body vibrate with it, as if each grain is just a disconnected particle of myself.

And soon, the sand begins to move. The animating force isn't life, but memory. Echoes of life living themselves out here in this desolate plain with no one to witness except now, me. Now, you.

There are scenes of sand-people dancing, others are weeping, others are alone and some are in immeasurable crowds, there is love and hate, gentleness and violence, every timeline blurred into this single place where it merges: the memory field.

I've somehow journeyed into the liminal space where adipose tissue tucks away what it can't hold, because as I continue to shimmy in the sand, I feel the semi-solid feeling of fat beneath me. I can dig my hands into it, sink in an entire arm, and I know if I tried to push too hard, I could get trapped in adipose and lose my sense of direction.

Which way is the memory field and which way is life?

I'm realizing now fat has no orientation, it also has no moral compass. Harboring a memory in the liminal field isn't good or bad, neither is catharsis, or remembering, or letting it leave the body. All actions adipose can take are neutral.

As feeling, sensing, emoting humans, it's hard to understand that alignment, until you remember adipose as an insulating organ. It helps us not feel the charge until we're ready to. Until we are ready to illuminate what's been ferried into the memory field.

So here I stay, a neutral observer to life long gone, with one directive I can hear.

"Remember."

Suddenly, a memory comes vividly to the forefront, and I feel myself holding my breath; I feel my heart start to ache. I watch as a tear tracks down my face. And with a deep breath in, and a long breath out through pursed lips, I release the memory to glittering dust in the sky.

As I leave the memory field, I hear the echoes reverberate. "Remember."

Yours,

Ash

P.S. I recently completed the adipose card for the upcoming Visceral Oracle. It felt fitting to share a small glimpse after today's story.