Your Inner Warrior Needs A Bubble Bath
Field notes from my Divine Masculine inspired self-care day.
But first…some Artist in the Wild Housekeeping:
A big hearty HOWDY to our new subscribers!
A handful of new magical folks have joined us via my personal essay saying goodbye to a complicated, but very influential, spiritual and magick teacher named Gordon White READ HERE if you missed it. We went from 114 to 134 in just a few days— quite a big bump for this little publication. I hope you all feel welcome— and that you benefit from my quirky unconventional methods of teaching spiritual truth as I live it.
A little about me…Trixie Little is my stage name, Beatrix Keri Burneston is my full name— I go by Trixie. I am an ARTIST first and foremost. A spiritual teacher second. My artistic specialties are—
1. Performing Arts— I am a professionally trained and seasoned physical comedian who cut her teeth in the underground of Baltimore and New York primarily— through DIY cabaret, burlesque and renegade circus.
2. Painting— I got a Bachelor’s degree in painting and now I paint esoteric folk art. Didn’t need a degree to do that, but that’s ok— there are a lot ideas baked in.
3. Writing— this is my tertiary talent. I often call words the dullest knife in the drawer. Because compared to my ability to communicate with you through MY WHOLE ENTIRE BODY or a VISUAL SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE— words seem real basic. Haha! But here we are.
My spiritual lineages are:
1. Christian by virtue of my grandmother. She taught me what unconditional love looks like and to treat others how I want to be treated, which, that one teaching could be a lifetime of work to master. So I am a Christian by osmosis, but I was not Baptized.
2. Yoga. I have been a devoted student since 2001 and a teacher since 2004. Not the Lululemon kind. The seering self honesty kind. Yoga has saved my life more times than I can count. I healed from my divorce, rehabbed myself after a car accident, and you can’t even count injuries or illnesses you never get. Yoga is a gentle but powerful way to create the conditions inside for the nervous system / consciousness to expand naturally, in its own time. Yoga doesn’t usually fry your circuits like drugs or magick can.
3. Western European Old Magic— Magick with a k is about learning to manipulate the field to create results. I’m talking about a Re-Enchantment— the Old Magic— which is about turning on your own muscles of perception that also wire humanity back to Gaia. With the good Old Fashioned Magic we can communicate with Nature and be worthy stewards, working on her behalf.
That’s what you can expect here.
I also have a YouTube channel @artistinthewild--trixielittle with my weird videos about life. I am beginning to post them here on Substack now too.
Welcome to the WILD!
Oh, about my situation— I have been un-housed for about 3 years, depending on how you figure it. I have been living in my 2000 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck in Nevada City, California (which is not in Nevada and is not a city) and have a storage unit with the contents of my studio and tools of my trade— which have been in storage since 2023. I do not have another job. Staying alive and being as sensitive as I am— has been a full time job.
I can’t believe how poor people are treated, as if they did something to deserve it. Like it’s a failure of my character or some karma that I can’t just “get a job.” I have to practice a lot of forgiveness so I don’t take it personally when what I thought were friends do nothing when I am sleeping in the cold on the side of a road, trying not to be discovered. It’s a hard life for anyone.
My nervous system relaxes to about 75% when I’m sleeping in my truck in town. It’s not a lifestyle I romance, despite finding some sweetness in it. At present, I am 2 months behind on my storage unit rent (which contains everything I own) and my truck insurance is 2 weeks from being cancelled because it’s 3 months behind.
It’s hand-to-mouth and bank-to-tank right now. I don’t look like what I’ve been through. I try not to complain too much because I do believe God is working on it.
I give the wisdom here for FREE.
I don’t write on schedules. When pressure builds in me to say something, I share. Patronage is welcome but not at all required. If you can handle hearing / reading someone who may challenge your beliefs, while knowing the words will always come from the heart— this is for you.
I only ever do a soft sell about the membership, called The Wild Side— I do put out at least 2 additional posts per month- either essays or videos— over there. That’s where I go when I’m still chewing on things. I share that stuff behind the curtain. It’s a little more raw.
Due to the relative value of everything in this hijacked world being scrambled (eg: an annual member joined a few weeks ago and the cost of a year Wild Side membership got me exactly 1 full tank of gas in Northern California. LOL.)— Rather than sit here and add up how many people I would need to get all the tanks of gas for a month, a season, a year— which is a degrading way to think about the value of my work AND the value of people— how about we just say fuck it!
If you want to join but are under-resourced, I will give you a membership for free.
Any of you. State your case simply— not about why you’re poor but why you’re interested in what I have to say— in an email and I will gift you a year long membership. It’s that simple. I respect the Wild Side as a “behind the curtain” kind of a place. So you do have to ask to enter. And I ask that you don’t take a “free” gift for granted.
Ok.
And now…these very important messages….
Please enjoy.
I Gave My Inner Masculine His Own Self Care Day
Although I am still un-housed, last week I had a former dog sitting client of mine ask if I go could check on his plants. He, his partner and dog are away. I asked if I could stay at the house and watch the plants for free to get off the street for a while. He said yes.
Whew. I could land in a house for a whole week.
When you’ve been forced to white-knuckle life and just endure for a long time— when you do finally land somewhere, all the weight that you’ve been carrying— the fear, the disrespect, the fortitude to constantly tell yourself that you are more than this experience— it just comes up and out. Ready or not, the body senses when it can off load old baggage.
I actually was feeling stuck energy forming knots in my body— in my solar plexus and throat chakras mainly. Truck life means I don’t have a place to cook or do yoga or take baths. And the low key fear that grips my heart all the time about what’s doing to happen to me if things continue to get worse— keeps energy from flowing. This is how illness and cancers happen. I felt knots starting to form and needed to restore balance.
When I got to the house, it took a couple days, but the first thing that came up was GRIEF. So much grief and right on its tail, was ANGER. I’m angry.
Righteously, deservedly, deeply and profoundly angry.
There was more mourning for me to do over damage from a flu vaccine in 2019. I wrote about it HERE, which helped me process and let go of a lot.
As soon I had moved through THAT grief, I found out about the death of Gordon, my complicated spiritual teacher. Which then brought up more anger, some regret and confusion. As well as serious concerns about the ethics of spiritual teaching online. It was a 1-2 GRIEF punch.
And then I got sick. Naturally.
Getting sick is a normal physical response to moving emotional energy through the body— our body clears the energy blockages, if we let it. And also due to the toxins that they dump on us constantly, there’s always a backlog for the body to clean out. The symptoms are not problems— they are the messy leftover goo from metabolizing accumulated negative emotions as well as actual poisons. And this is always related to the chakras.
The cold I’ve had has been in my throat and head. Very painful sinus pressure. Like I couldn’t blow my nose to get relief from the pressure for 3 days— it’s moving now, luckily. Natural or artificial blockages with crown chakra opening may also be experienced in the sinuses and skull cavity.
If you’re a singer, you know that what makes each of our voices unique is the resonating aspect of the sinus cavities. They are caves-within-caves— each carved and shaped by air. So, it’s tricky to clear each of those tiny caves out. So I’ve been letting my body have its messy process.
I was excited to have so many people read and positively react to my thoughts about Gordon, but behind the screen, I was weak and fragile from this process. The attention was a lot for me.
I glanced a comment from someone that started with “I see you.”
And I was so thread bare, it felt like a threat.
My first reaction was that I was being attacked. As in— I see you as a target through the crosshairs of my rifle. I had to read it a couple times and talk myself down. It was meant to be a positive comment— someone witnessing me talking some truth.
Due to the fact that the fabric of our culture has been shredded to ribbons, I have also been personally attacked for YEARS.
I have been standing up to bullies and haters, defending truth as I see it, living as an exile off social media and blacklisted from performing communities— for a long time and I am tired.
My reactivity to the compliment scared me into tenderness for myself.
I have been through a lot. I am battle weary and trigger happy. Like I could fuck someone up who came after me at this point and not even blink. Like killing a mosquito. Because I know how close to death I have been. It IS life or death to me.
Observing my own reaction brought to mind a story that originally came to me in Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. The story is in that book, but the better telling of it is her, live, in the 10 part lecture series Theater of the Imagination— which is excellent and worth digging around to find. I’ll try to do the justice to the telling of it.
The story is a Japanese tale called The Tiger’s Eyelash.
A husband returns to his wife and home after war, damaged on the inside. He won’t go in the house or sleep beside his wife. He sleeps outside. He barely eats. He has no words. The wife wants her husband back.
She goes to a healer who tells her that the remedy for fixing her husband requires a special ingredient that’s hard to find, let alone obtain. The wife says she will do ANYTHING to bring her husband back.
Ok, said the healer— healing your husband will require the eyelash of a tiger.
The wife agreed.
She waited for a long while, expecting to hear more.
Finally she asked, how to get one?
The healer said— that’s up to you.
So, the next morning, the wife set out for the closest mountain. She climbed up to what she believed was a tiger cave and waited. She watched. She studied the movements of the tiger from a distance and planned her approach.
One day, she left a bowl of rice for the tiger, a little distance from the cave entrance. The tiger wandered out to see what the bowl was. He looked around, didn’t sense any danger and then ate all of the rice. Then he returned to his cave.
Each successive day, the wife placed the bowl of rice further and further and further from the cave entrance, closer to her hiding spot. Until one day, the woman got rid of the bowl entirely and offered the rice to the tiger in her own hand. The tiger did not retreat. He saw now who had been feeding him this whole time and he trusted her.
When the tiger finished eating the rice from her hand, he allowed her to stroke his big, beautiful, furry face. As she did, an eyelash fell from his eyelid and floated down into her hand.
She thanked the tiger quickly, wrapped the eyelash up snug to her heart, descended the mountain and returned to the healer. Triumphantly she presented the tiger eyelash to the healer—now we can heal my husband!
The healer took the eyelash and threw it into the fire. The wife’s eyes popped out of her head as all of her weeks of patient coaxing for this one precious sliver of eye hair— went up in a spark of flame.
The healer said to the wife— What will heal your husband is all that you learned from the process of getting an eyelash from a tiger.
Apply that same approach to your husband.
In 2015 during my divorce, I identified with the wife.
In 2026, I identify with the husband.
I knew this story came to mind for a reason and that I needed to do my best to heal some of my own wounds from battle.
So, Tuesday— which is actually Mars’ day, astrologically speaking— I decided to take an entire self care day dedicated to my Inner Warrior, my Divine Masculine, my inner brother-father-grandfather-teacher-lover-warrior-magician-king!
I had never approached self care specifically for my Masculine side.
I have prioritized getting to know and protecting my Divine Feminine. But who is it that does the protecting of her? My Inner Masculine, that’s who. He’s the front facing soldier out there fighting her battles. And he’s tired.
If you are familiar with the work of Iain McGilchrist, (please don’t judge my crude reduction of his work! ) you recall that he unravels how each hemisphere of the brain views the world, and how important those 2 perspectives are and how they could better interact with the other. He describes the left hemisphere, which has dominated Western culture as: reductive, rational, narrow, focused, plowing ahead at all costs. Where the right hemisphere is relational, symbolic, visionary, big picture, beyond reason.
He describes a not-taught-in-school ideal process between them possibly being: left hemisphere has the vision, right hemisphere takes focused action and then GOES BACK to consult the left for feedback.
Right, Left, Right Brain.
Feminine-Masculine-Feminine.
Lunar-Solar-Lunar.
Receive-Act-Receive.
We have to learn to go back to receive feedback on the action We can’t skip this step. It insures that actions aren’t scattershot, but bullseye on-target shots.
Mars’ day was perfect.
I may move my self-care day to Tuesdays from now on, it was so great! And Chiron, the wounded healer, gently made his presence known to me. In Greek mythology was the greatest of all teachers and also gave us knowledge of herbs and stars (astrology).
Throughout my Divine Masculine self care day, I had insights into why dudes are the way they are, was reminded constantly of things my father taught me, learned a new skill and felt for the tender human man in me that is under all the armor.
AND while it seems like this all the same stuff I would do on any Self Care Day— intentionally invoking, and crudely imitating, the men who have influenced me— made the experience completely different.
Here’s the protocol with notes below.
My Divine Masculine Self Care Day Diary
Start With The End In Mind
Bottoms No Tops
No Rules Exercise
Keep It Cool
Cook Pot Of Chili
Learn A Practical Skill
Clean Your Tools
Make The Castle Ship Shape
Enjoy A Well Deserved Dinner
Body Vehicle Maintenance
End With Bubbles
Thank God
Field Notes
1. Start With The End In Mind
I asked my inner-dude: how do you want to end the day? In a clean bed! I have been sleeping in the guest bedroom here for a week, I was /am sick and I really wanted a clean bed— I immediately started the laundry.
2. Bottoms No Tops
All goods days start with the right outfit. I am usually more of a Tops-No-Bottoms sort of a gal, so wearing sweatpants and just a sports bra all day was a new move for me. I really felt boss though. I think I even pushed my belly out more, which, you KNOW most women do not do. LOL.
3. No Rules Exercise
I needed to move my body after being sick. What started as yoga quickly became dancing. I just didn’t want rules or structure or discipline.
When I’m living in my truck, I have to be meticulous all the time— everything has to be returned to its place or I can lose things. I go to bed early so that I’m not seen when I exit early the next morning. It’s a great way to live, but every way of being needs a rest now and then. I did not feel like being disciplined about exercise.
The radio was on, and I said to myself- just dance hard for one song.
The next song that came on was Sister Ray by Velvet Underground from White Light / White Heat— which is 17 minutes long. LOL.
I went into a raging dance-trance for the entire song and thought not of Lou Reed, like usual, but of MOE (Maureen) TUCKER.
Allow me to mansplain something important about The Velvet Underground to you.
They had a FEMALE DRUMMER. She stood up to drum. She used mallets instead of sticks. And she was a fucking bad ass who later became a Republican with 5 kids and a job at WalMart. And I love her for all of it.
Not only that, but for as ruthlessly rock’n’roll as Velvet Underground was / is— their woman drummer, Moe Tucker, did NOT like using cymbals. That’s right. Let that sink in. She hated crashing symbols.
Move on over Neil Peart— you try making rock’n’roll without cymbals!
Just the beat, baby. No crash.
Anyway. I was sore the next day from this very effective exercise.
Exorcism is more like it.
4. Keep It Cool
After the Velvet Underground, who are the epitome of COOL— I really wanted to hear Chet Baker. I longed for some tender hearted COOL masculine vibes. When I had my fill of Chet, I listened to mostly jazz the rest of the day—- Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, mainly.
5. Cook Pot Of Chili
I wanted a big hot meal that would last a few days and I had some produce that needed to be eaten. Here are the steps.
Soak some dried pink beans for a few hours.
Sauté ghee, chili spices, bay leaves, onions and garlic then add the drained pink beans. Sauté more to coat beans with ghee-spice mixture.
Add water and cook beans down to half the liquid. Cook slow so beans are firm but smashable. Let cool.
See #5
De-can the ingredients. The lady of the house here is a potter, so all of their dish ware is EARTHEN WARE! It’s so cool and such a luxury to eat on earthen ware. I liberated the ingredients from plastic and metal containers so they could breathe and come to room temperature on the clay dishes. I emptied a big can of tomatoes, beef bone broth, and finger mixed ground beef with seasoning— onto their own bowl / plate. Let them sit.
Lay out the veggies in their own bowls— some odd choices for chili maybe, but you can’t go wrong— I had mushrooms, carrots and Swiss chard.
Cook beef separately.
Sauté veggies in more ghee, spices, onions and garlic.
Add them all together and cover with beef bone broth and the bean water.
Boil then reduce to very low flame and let cook until it starts to turn from bright red to deep maroon chili color. Mine cooked for about 2 1/2 hours.
6. Learn A Practical Skill— aka How To Open A Can With A Swiss Army Knife
I have not been able to find the can opener here at this house. I spent time again looking, and I was determined to make chili, so I got my Victorinox Swiss Army knife out of the truck. I tried to just open the can how I assumed the weird claw thing worked.
Turns out I needed a YouTube video mansplaining pocket knives to me.
I was into it!
I grabbed a beer and kicked up my feet and watched 2 videos about it. LOL.
And then I opened 2 cans horribly, but effectively, without injury, for the first time, using a Swiss Army knife. The key was in how much pressure to apply— way more than I thought. And the pressure required changes closer to opening because there’s less resistance from the can as it opens. I have a lot more practicing to do to get good at it, but a new survival skill has been learned. Yay, me!
7. Clean Your Tools
While I was at it, I took the time to deep clean my Swiss Army knife with hot soapy water and a teeny tiny bottle brush. I also cleaned and washed my boar bristle hair brush.
8. Get The Castle Ship Shape
In the past few years of my un-housed-ness, when I am granted the use of someone’s space— whether house sitting or visiting— I wind up cleaning a lot because I can’t think clearly in disorder. I also love nesting.
Just like a wood worker, a sushi chef, a dress maker— it’s essential that the work space is clean, organized and what I call “idiot-proofed”— referring to my own idiocy that comes out when I am rushing or cutting corners. Obviously, if a project is underway, there’s chaos, but that’s why you reset the space as often as possible.
Often people get insulted when I clean before I make myself a meal. You’d think they would be excited to have their mess cleaned, but nope. They twist your actions into an indictment on how they live. To each his own. I’m not judging. It’s just that I CAN’T function well like that. I can’t. I don’t. I won’t.
Cleanliness IS next to Godliness.
The first Yama of yoga is— Saucha— Cleanliness.
Buddhist monks do their chores BEFORE meditation.
I was going to clean anyway here because my week was nearly up, I try to leave things better than I found them. Then in the afternoon, I got word that I can stay a whole second week! That meant I would get to actually ENJOY all the cleaning. Also, I have worked with this couple and their dog for years— I like investing my energy in their home. Energy needs a place to go. Might as well put it to use.
Honestly, my inner-dude was SO HAPPY cleaning the house.
It made me wonder if HE is the neat freak in my life.
I felt like I was doing perimeter checks, looking for weaknesses, identifying possible threats, testing the strength of things, observing how materials are aging, airing things out, re-locating intruders, looking for patterns.
While a witch and her broom may be well known, a man who runs a tight ship is always respected.
You don’t get a tight ship by letting other people clean for you.
You would miss all kinds of small indicators of potential future problems. It’s amazing how much nonsense DOESN’T come your way when you run a tight ship.
Cleaning is a chance to be in relationship with your container, your tools, your systems. To do maintenance and repair— which all begin with cleaning. I do this with my old truck too.
Through cleaning, here are some things I learned about this house:
That a snake visits or lives near the sun room off the kitchen because it shed part of its skin in a planter.
Where the wasps are nesting— who I did not disturb, but have been talking to about respect and boundaries.
I found a new spider (not a Daddy Long Leg) by the bed, after I had a weird bite. I don’t let spiders stay in the bedroom. Some in the bathroom, yes. Bedroom, no. They always bite me. I moved it outside. Then swept and mopped around the perimeter of the bed.
Geckos just hatched a bunch of babies, and they were playing hide and seek, being trained as prey and predator by their parents. Maybe they are flourishing because I’m here watering the plants they live in.
I moved some pots away from the house where ants were gathering. They have many entrances and tunnels, I just wanted them to move further away from the house.
I watered the plants and noted how they are doing since my arrival a week ago. Much improved.
I cleaned out some obviously moldy jars from the back of the fridge.
I saw where mice had been in the sunroom, their poop is different than lizard poop.
I hosed off the front porch— such a grandpa thing to do!
I also felt that the animals were watching me. The birds and squirrels approved. The bigger critters had respect — possums, raccoons, deer, bears— were getting the signal that this space is occupied. They tend to push limits with un-occupied spaces, being the curious, voracious critters that they are. But I don’t like fences or how they are treated here in the forest, where humans are the guests.
Last thing regarding cleaning— this wisdom is from my Divine Femme side— you aren’t cleaning if the elements aren’t involved.
Water, air, fire mainly. You can’t just Swiffer your floor with chemicals and believe that you’re cleaning or cleansing the space energetically. I use a bucket of hot soapy water— Dr. Bronner’s peppermint is the main soap I buy for every purpose you need soap. I use soapy water on everything.
That pop of peppermint DOES chase the gremlins away.
Water is just as powerful as fire in its way. I love incense and candles to bring the fire element in. Opening the windows and doors lets old air out and brings fresh air in. Just don’t leave them open willy-nilly. Be intelligent. Those are portals.
And clean the windows any time you feel you need clarity.
Last step in cleaning— take out the trash.
This should go without saying. The sink is not clean until the strainer is empty. The house is not clean until the trash is out. The last part of cleaning is taking out all of the trash and recycling.
9. Enjoy A Well Deserved Dinner
I love being hungry after working really hard. I had another beer, a smoke, and a big bowl of chili. I heartily enjoyed them outside.
10. Body Vehicle Maintenance
I cut and filed my finger and toe nails. I scrubbed the bathtub, cleaned the toilet, washed the mirror and got fresh towels in preparation to CLEAN MYSELF. As I was running an evening bath— I asked my inner-dude what kind of a bath he would like.
Usually I use either epsom salt, baking soda, or a combination of salt-n-soda with 1-2 types of essential oils. That’s what my DF does though. My DM wanted a a different bath.
11. End With Bubbles
My inner dude wanted a BUBBLE bath! I thought this was really sweet. My grandmother taught me how to blow big bubbles as a kid and I always loved bubbly baths. I used Mr. Bubbles until high school, but as an adult, I am usually trying to heal some physical condition, heart ache or pain with the baths.
My inner-dude didn’t want to FIX anything.
He just wanted to feel light.
Bubbles really help do that.
I couldn’t find body wash or proper bubble bath soap, so I had to use shampoo and hand soap. That worked well enough. It was a slippery, sudsy bath that practically washed my hair for me, just laying in it. Then I showered, dried off and jumped naked into the fresh, clean bed that I get to sleep in for one more week.
12. Thank God
Which I do.
It was an absolute DELIGHT to spend time with the spirits of all the men who have made me who I am. Self care is not only about tending to yourself for mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. Self care is also showing respect and appreciation to God for what you have been given.
And so, my dear readers, it is in this fashion, that I continue to love myself back from the edges and restore the tender and strong heart that this life requires.
Thanks for reading.
I hope you enjoyed this account of my magical experiment. Let me know if you try anything like this in your own life!
More soon.
XO, T