extract once with alcohol and once with water and then combine

you put yourself up against the sky. devastated at the falling moon. the fading moon. the moon, up there, and you, against it. you put yourself into the sky. bewitched at the rising moon. the floating moon. the moon, up there, and you, there with it.

you believe and then you don’t. believe and then don’t. over and over. you forget or fail to notice that belief does not require you to believe in it. you need not ever purposely strike a surface to be a percussionist; the heart inside you bemused and jumping, rolling its shoulders. sliding and swishing in its finite accounting of the infinite.

you think the herbs you take will help you. and then you don’t. you think the brain-derived neurotrophic factor, the ways you can work to increase its production, secretion, will help keep your mind from shuddering off, from wishing away.

you think the lion’s mane, the ginkgo, the gotu kola, can help soften and make pliable the already soft and pliable meat, fat, water, of your mind. that you can make new connections, new habits, new ways of seeing something old. you believe in this. and then you don’t.

you do things because you believe in them, and then you do things even though you don’t. the whole time, belief thrums through all the meandering rivers and canyons and tributaries and great big empty spaces of your body. your body, packed full and not at all empty. and your body, an empty container with space enough for everything.

you put yourself down onto the ground. you dig yourself down into it. the little microbes and organisms that you cannot see with your wet and naked eyes, they dance and writhe upon you. they infiltrate you. they become part of you. you, down there where you’ve set yourself upon the ground. down in the ground. which isn’t really so different than the you that is up against the sky. or the you that is in and of the sky.

your anguish evolves you, if you let yourself go soft in it. if you see yourself as not separate from it. you do not need to believe to believe. you do not need to worry, do not need to doubt. you do not need to believe. but you can.