Vie Darling Oral History, 2022/07/11

Self Description: "'m Vie Darling. I am I refer to myself as the cosmic queen in intergalactic interpreter. I identify as a queer non binary, a fab high femme person, as well as a creator, transmuter, scholar, educator, abolitionist and ethereal being first generation Liberian American."

Some of the things we discussed include:
Working as a healer; cosmic wellness.
Identifying as a witch as a child; growing into an identity as an ethereal being; coming from a family of spiritual experiences: telepathic communication, ascension, speaking with ancestors, shadow work, Dark Night of the Soul.
Childhood premonitions of lockdown, mediumship.
Spiritual awakening at 18 years old.
Connections with past lives, light DNA, auras.
White supremacist interpretations of spiritualities.
Self medicating with drugs and alcohol; getting sober.
Houselessness; being in constant travel throughout the pandemic: Maryland, New York, California, Georgia.
Returning to New York once school went back to campus, working on a BFA.
Modern medicine working with spirituality, rather than against it; loving science.
Transgenerational trauma and epigenetics; ancestors who were enslaved in the USA and then repatriated to Liberia; family’s involvement in the The Liberian Civil War (1989-1997); family members incarcerated, tortured, and murdered; transgenerational distrust of the American government.
Going into Bellevue Hospital after the recommendation of a friend, being misdiagnosed, held against will, hospital communicating information back to parents.
Self-diagnosis; lay diagnosis; misdiagnoses.
Being without health insurance in New York.
Beginning a care network during lockdown; at first focused on the pandemic serving queer BIPOC artists, increasing free fridges; shifting focus to jail support during the BLM protests.
Having money but being held back for not having the credit.
Having Boomers for parents.
Surviving child abuse.
Staying sober as a way of staying safer during the pandemic; the pandemic doesn’t eliminate the risks of dying from overdose or murder.
Liquor stores and bars staying open during lockdown.
Boundaries and being a safe space for ourselves.
Divesting from the false matrix of colonialism, not just decolonizing but indigenizing.
The predatory exploitation of people coming into their spiritual awakening.

Other cultural references include: Australian bushfires, The possibility of the USA going to war with Iran, Harry Potter, Li-Meng Yan, Poro Society, Sande Society, Jethro Kloss’s Back to Eden (1939), Thomas Jefferson, Hunter College, MBTA, Stranger Things, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Matthew Shepard Story (2002), Logo channel, bell hooks, Marxism, Mad Max, Instagram Live

July 11, 2022

Kit Heintzman

Vie Darling

Kit Heintzman

English Biography

English Health & Wellness

English Home & Family Life

English Politics

English Race & Ethnicity

English Gender & Sexuality

English Social Issues

Liberian

witch

cosmic wellness

decolonizing

indigenizing

ancestor

12 Steps

addiction

ADHD

AFAB

ancestry

artist

astrology

Autism

Black

California

colonialism

CPTSD

epigenetics

femme

immigration

Indigenous

Indigenous Liberian

Liberian American

Los Angeles

Maryland

New York

nonbinary

premonitions

queer

race

racism

slavery

sobriety

spirituality

suicidality

trauma

wellness

Black Voices

LGBTQ+

07/24/2022

02/22/2023

03/04/2023

12/05/2024

07/11/2022

Kit Heintzman

Vie Darling

New York

United States of America

Video

English

01:17:28

Working as a healer; cosmic wellness. Identifying as a witch as a child; growing into an identity as an ethereal being; coming from a family of spiritual experiences: telepathic communication, ascension, speaking with ancestors, shadow work, Dark Night of the Soul. Childhood premonitions of lockdown, mediumship. Spiritual awakening at 18 years old. Connections with past lives, light DNA, auras. White supremacist interpretations of spiritualities. Self medicating with drugs and alcohol; getting sober. Houselessness; being in constant travel throughout the pandemic: Maryland, New York, California, Georgia. Returning to New York once school went back to campus, working on a BFA. Modern medicine working with spirituality, rather than against it; loving science. Transgenerational trauma and epigenetics; ancestors who were enslaved in the USA and then repatriated to Liberia; family’s involvement in the The Liberian Civil War (1989-1997); family members incarcerated, tortured, and murdered; transgenerational distrust of the American government. Going into Bellevue Hospital after the recommendation of a friend, being misdiagnosed, held against will, hospital communicating information back to parents. Self-diagnosis; lay diagnosis; misdiagnoses. Being without health insurance in New York. Beginning a care network during lockdown; at first focused on the pandemic serving queer BIPOC artists, increasing free fridges; shifting focus to jail support during the BLM protests. Having money but being held back for not having the credit. Having Boomers for parents. Surviving child abuse. Staying sober as a way of staying safer during the pandemic; the pandemic doesn’t eliminate the risks of dying from overdose or murder. Liquor stores and bars staying open during lockdown. Boundaries and being a safe space for ourselves. Divesting from the false matrix of colonialism, not just decolonizing but indigenizing. The predatory exploitation of people coming into their spiritual awakening.

Introduction to Vie Darling.
0:00
The spiritual aspect of the pandemic.
4:09
The spiritual awakening that led to his transition.
9:33
Reconnecting with the past.
15:41
Taking what other people said more seriously than your truth.
21:25
What day-to-day life was like before the pandemic.
28:13
The false matrix of the false matrix.
34:16
Feeling the desire to self-harm.
40:30
Community-oriented people.
46:57
What does safety mean to you?
52:19
What does it mean to be a safe person?
57:00
Ways to keep yourself safe.
1:03:40
Re-indigenisation as a practice.
1:08:15

Kit Heintzman 00:00
Hello.

Vie Darling 00:01
Hi.

Kit Heintzman 00:03
Would you please tell me your name, the date, the time and your location?

Vie Darling 00:07
Yes, my name is Vie Darling. Today is Monday, July 11 2022. It's 5:36pm. So 17:36 military time. And I'm in New York, New York.

Kit Heintzman 00:25
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded publicly released under a Creative Commons license attribution noncommercial sharealike?

Vie Darling 00:35
Yes.

Kit Heintzman 00:36
Can I please start by just asking you to introduce yourself to anyone who might find themselves listening to this, what would you want them to know about you?

Vie Darling 00:44
Yeah, so I'm Vie Darling. I am I refer to myself as the cosmic queen in intergalactic interpreter. I identify as a queer non binary, a fab high femme person, as well as a creator, transmuter, scholar, educator, abolitionist and ethereal being first generation Liberian American. Oh, give me just one moment.

Vie Darling 01:16
Hi, sorry about that. Someone got sick, and I had to come and cover for them. But um, yeah, so. Um, yeah, ethereal being I'm first generation Liberian American, which is like, really important to me. And I guess we can talk a little bit about what an ethereal being is, in my personal framework, so I do this thing called Cosmic wellness. It's, I guess, like my spiritual practice. And from that place, I help people to contextualize themselves within the broader universe. And in that way, think it helps with folks knowing themselves and once one knows themselves, they're able to navigate life in a way that feels helpful and authentic. And that is something that I've been developing for, I guess I'd say my whole life. And the reason I identify as an ethereal being, I used to identify as a witch, when I was a little kid, I told all my classmates that I was a witch, and I would make them play witch games with me, and go on fairy search parties. I also always had, like, night terrors. And I didn't know at the time that I was empathic, but I was and so I could also I guess, like, I can say, I feel like yeah, I could make things happen if I really wanted to, but I just knew that I was magical, I just knew that I like was a magical being endothelial, for me, it's like ether, like the element of spirit, which is a big reason why I identify as non binary because I'm just a spirit with a body that is like concentrating my consciousness into this point in space and time with this vehicle, that is my form. I have been in other forms, I have been other species, I some of those species probably are genderless like starfish, you know, or, and also I identify as nonbinary binary also because many, like many other indigenous spiritualities my cultural ancestral, spiritual heritage acknowledged more than two genders. And that being said, I don't really consider myself third gender either. I consider myself to be above gender and transcendent of it. Because of the spiritual aspect of being an ethereal being, so yeah, being in a body and thinking like within the confines of like, traditional thought, I guess traditional Western thought as it's given to us. always felt like a prison to me. And it was until I started rejecting all of those things and accepting the infinite nature of my existence in my being that I was able to finally feel resonance with my identity and my expression

Vie Darling 03:00
Could you tell me a story about your life during the pandemic?

05:04
Yeah. Oh my goodness, perfect timing. Um, when we went into lockdown. I did experience a really powerful spiritual awakening it was truly earth shattering and life appending. And I don't think that it was specifically because of locked down I think it was actually a long time coming prior to locked down December 2019. I finished this semester, and on the 24th got to London to visit my aunt. But at the beginning of Capricorn season, I had like been doing a channeling on Instagram. And I was like focusing on this point between Venus being an Aquarius, and I think Uranus being in Taurus. And they were making like, they were making an aspect to one another, a disharmonious aspect to one another. And I was like focusing on those to try and like interpret what that meant for us. And like, all of a sudden, they saw this like explosion in my like mind's eye. And like, I didn't have the words to express everything that I was seeing. But it was so shocking and disturbing, that I like, covered my mouth. And I like got off of Instagram, because I was like, I'm not going to talk about this stuff on Instagram Live of all places. And a lot of just different interesting and connected very synchronistic things were happening from that period until I got back to the states and like, all leading up to like being in lockdown, and I was at a party on New Year's Eve. And on New Year's Eve before I was like getting ready, I like started. And all of this comes back to the story that I'm going to tell that it's like setting up context, I was getting ready. And I could hear my aunt listening to the BBC in her room. And at that time, the US was considering going to war with Iran. You know, that which would have meant also potentially going to war with Russia. At that time, there were the Australian bushfires raging out of control. And that was the first time that I heard of a mystery illness in Wuhan, China. But at that point, it was it was barely even news. It was something that was only being talked about on like the BBC, and like also, very briefly, but I felt like all of these things were connecting to that vision that I had. And so that night, I had already stopped drinking for almost a year at that point. But so I was at this party and I met this guy, and he like saw me and he's like, I know what you are. And I've had that experience or I like can see someone and like I know what they are spiritually like I can see their like, light DNA. And like I can see their past lives and their spirits and everything like around them and their aura and that sort of thing. And I say pause and he's like, Tell me more. And he just started like channeling at me like I know what you are like, if only you realize how powerful you are and all this stuff and like told me like where my bloodline was from which he was right on the money about everything actually that he was saying and yeah, it was a lot of experiences similar to that. And it was quite exhausting actually. So by the time that we entered lockdown, I was already just like really spiritually mentally emotionally worn out. I think that the experiences that I was having, and the sheer mass of consciousness that I was like transcending through felt very heavy and painful and unbearable for me so I was smoking a lot of weed. And I was like eating a lot of edibles. Just because like I felt like I subconsciously felt like I needed to like dull my senses to be able to deal with that. And so in lockdown and maybe like three weeks into lockdown you know I was kind of spiraling a lot and a lot of like grief. But I was polishing my crystals. I think maybe this is actually like the first or second week one, I was polishing my crystals and just like staring intently into them like in a meditative manner. And I was trying to induce trance and so I like did like once again there's like this massive explosion and like my consciousness just like, jumped like light years and all of these light codes and like a completely different way than the initial one that I experienced when I was like doing that reading. And yeah it catalyzed to this like massive spiritual awakening which, in some ways I feel like I'm still like riding that wave but irrevocably changed my life. I like changed my name after that, which, technically, it's not that big of a change. I just switched it from V-e-i to V-i-e. And I think that's significant because like, when I did it, I heard a voice that was like, a backwards life or like writing a backwards life because Vie means life in French and I a few weeks later, I got fully sober. Which I knew was a long time coming as well. So that was like a year and four months into like, me not drinking is when I like quit all substances. A change to a different Instagram, I changed my phone number. I left to New York for a year of self discovery. And I really feel like nothing went how I thought that I should have liked it to go, especially feeling like I was being promised so much. But yeah, so I think the story here would be that that consciousness shift that happened at the beginning of lockdown, because actually, a lot of my spiritual people I consider my spiritual sisters were having the same visions as me. And I also realized in that time, like of many of my night terrors, from my childhood, were actually premonitions, about locked down about everything that happened. And then I had more, and it was really quite frightening, like, I was like, in bed for two weeks, just like having these like overwhelming visions. And just having to really stay put, because it's not safe to like, you know, go out when you're like, having a lot of like, those kinds of experiences. But I am really grateful because my spiritual community kept me grounded. And like, I didn't have to go through that alone, which was different from one of my from my very first like, spiritual awakening when I was 18. So yeah, I'd say that's like the biggest story. And I'm like, really in a place of like, revisiting that story. Presently, so it feels like really, on the nose that, that you asked that. But I guess that's why we're here to talk about sort of thing.

Kit Heintzman 13:16
To the extent that you're comfortable sharing, would you say something about your relationship with health and healthcare infrastructure, pre pandemic?

Vie Darling 13:24
Yeah. Oh, big time. Well, yeah, I was just having a conversation with my cousin about this. I think that my relation with health and health care is really complicated. Because I'm not one of those spiritual people who decries modernity and all of its all of its iterations. I think that if anything, if we want to use the terminology of like God or whatever, of a higher power, I think that in people being like, medicine is against spirituality and blah, blah, blah, I'm just like, honestly, like, No, I think the very opposite like it's a progression that can help humanity to be able to transcend our more bass issues. So if anything to me, you know, I don't really have to get into the topic of vaccines because I don't really know where I stand with that. But you know, I think like if I have a headache, I take a Tylenol sometimes just going to sleep or drinking water is not enough. And that's okay. But I do very much not trust the infrastructure because I don't trust any colonial institutions. I know that I have epigenetically inherited the trauma of, you know, the violence that has been done to particularly black female bodies. And so those memories live inside of me. And I don't have to be the one who experienced it firsthand to experience it. It's in my basal ganglia in the reptilian part of my brain, like it's stored in my DNA and that is something that we know to be scientifically true. And because as being half America layby Liberia and half indigenous Liberian, I do have both of my grandfather's are descended from black people who were freed from enslavement and repatriated to Liberia after the Civil War. I have that memory in my body. And I also like, part of my awakening, especially towards the end of last year was reckoning and facing some of the things some of the history that I didn't know. And, you know, it was, it had me laid out emotionally and spiritually, and I experienced tremendous amount of grief. So where that line is, like, it's a fine, fine line to walk of, like reconciling those things with what I know and what I feel. But I would say that primarily in regards to like, what's going on now? I'm just gonna be very honest about it, where people are like, oh, like, it's not real. It is real actually, like people are dying from it. But whether or not it was created, in a lab by the government, like, that is something that can be spoken about. And that is something that actually a woman who now has had to go into hiding, and is the reason why so many articles that came out towards the beginning of the pandemic had to redact the statement that it is completely untrue that it was made in a lab, and it was because of negligence that it was released. Like, those things happen. And those things happen because wealthy people don't give a fuck about the working class and wealthy people don't give a fuck about poor people. They don't give a fuck about bipoc people, we are biological machinery to them, most of us are not even considered truly human to them. You know, I mean, like, and I have family that was murdered by the CIA. So I already have a lot of reason to not trust the government outside of the fact that like, you know, as a black person who's descended from freed slaves, why the fuck would I But that being said, My issue with medicine and like the institution of health in this country, other than the obvious is that like, it is completely bereft of and I would actually bereft of indigeneity and I would actually say anti indigenous, and when I define colonialism, I define colonialism, with five pillars, a spiritualism being the first sis hetero patriarchy being the second, anti blackness, white domination and racism being the third, capitalism being the fourth industrial industrialism being the fifth and those things happen. Subsequently, and consequently, in in that order, it must have a spiritualism first. So there's a disconnection from the planet. There's a disconnection from our fellow human beings that allows these sorts of things to proliferate, which is to say this violence. For me when I was 18 years old, and I started experiencing my first spiritual awakening. I felt like this was my letter to hawk from Hogwarts. I was like, Finally, like, I knew it, I knew it all along in my culture, like we have evil witches. And then we have like, good people like medicine people, essentially, their secret societies dedicated to this, like the Poro and the Sande society. My father, many of his brothers are in the Poro society. You know, my grandmother was actually murdered for being a witch. And those she did do things that like, we're not good. That's neither here nor there. It doesn't matter. She was what she was. And in a culture that is like that wants to be raised those kinds of things. Like I grew up in a world where we talked about like my sisters and I all had premonitions, we all had prophecies, you know, like, my brother also can attest to the fact that he felt like if he pushed his consciousness outside of him, he could change things. Like my nephew has read my mind before. You know what I mean? Like my cousin and I communicate telepathically we practice to telepathy with one another on purpose. And those are things that in this culture, like in America and the Western world, specifically in colonialism, that is like, that's crazy. That's not real, like blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, that's racist. And it's like, anti indigenous to say that all of these cultures around the world are lying and making things up just because you don't like it. Because it means that you can't control us. You know what I mean? And so I started having this awakening, and a friend of mine who's of European descent is actually European. At first was like, all for it. And then like, I made a mistake, and like, criss crossed things in my mind, even though I knew that my ego just got like, really in the way of it and in the way of like, what was really happening. And I wanted to believe that something was happening that it wasn't, but I knew that it wasn't. And that's not to say that, like the awakening that I was experiencing wasn't real, because it was, but she was like, Vie that's really scary. I think that you should like, go to Bellevue, which is a mental hospital, which is a hospital here, but it has a mental health ward. And because of that, I felt like really scared about that. And at the time, I really took what other people said a lot, a lot more seriously than my own truth. And I went there, I was lied to I was told, like, Oh, if you stay the night, you can go home tomorrow. And I did stay the night. And I was just like, you know, I told them, like my entire drug history, which was that I had been doing a lot of psychedelics at that time. And I am somebody who like, I consider myself to be a person who cannot do drugs safely. I am sober and recovery. But that doesn't disqualify my experience. Because I always would have been able to do this, I always was able to do all of the things that I was experiencing. And there was a reason why, like, I knew it was coming. And it felt like an inheritance when it started happening there. And so that happened. And thankfully, I met a girl there, I was told that I would be able to leave, I wasn't able to leave. I was held there against my will for a week before they decided that they were ready to release me. And that was because like I lied a lot. I lied through my teeth and said like, I wasn't having like, certain spiritual experiences, because like, why the fuck would I tell you that I can't trust you people. And so yeah, I met a girl in there who was experiencing the same exact like ascension symptoms as myself. And thankfully, like, that kept me grounded. Because she was very fierce about the fact that like, she knew what was happening to her was real. And fuck if they didn't like it. And I was just like, well, the same exact thing is happening to me. So yeah, I agree with you on that.

23:19
And when I got out of there, I just decided that I would never tell anybody else what I was experiencing, except my dad. And I told my dad. And my dad said, Yes, it's true. That's exactly what's happening to you. But stop telling people because they're never going to understand. And they're going to say that you're crazy. I'll tell you everything when you come to Liberia and so, um, I did go to Liberia. And he did tell me everything. And yeah, it's an extremely traumatizing experience, an extremely alienating experience. It destroyed all of the trusts that my family had in me, because they told my mom about all of the drugs that I had been doing. They diagnosed me as bipolar and outside of the fact that like, Yes, I was experiencing a spiritual awakening. The fact of the matter is I was also doing tremendous amounts of drugs, which they knew drugs that are known to induce psychosis, why don't you let me sober up for 90 days and see if I'm still experiencing those things, observe me and then maybe you can diagnose me as being bipolar. You can diagnose me with this thing or that thing, but after knowing me for less than 24 hours, like seeing me in one night, I was also drinking excessively as well. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating. I was abusing. Um, I guess like ADHD medication because at the time I was undiagnosed, which I am now diagnosed with, and I believe that that is enough. [inaudible] like, I believe that it is that is a true diagnosis like I do have ADHD, but I knew that I was not bipolar. And thankfully, I had an African mom who's like, my kids not bipolar. And so, you know, if I had continued taking that medication, and if I had believed those people, I don't know where I would be, I probably would not be alive because I think I probably trigger warning, I think I probably would have killed myself. That really did rob me of any will to live. So I do feel like pharmaceuticals are not good for my indigenous ass body. I can't process most of them. When I was diagnosed with ADHD, and prescribed medication for that I found like even at the lowest dose, it was really unsustainable for my body. And so I've had to figure out holistic ways to be able to deal with that. And, you know, I grew up, my parents grew up wealthy, however, I grew up poor. And I moved to New York, and I couldn't, I didn't have insurance here because I had Medicaid back in Maryland, where I grew up, and I couldn't afford to, like get sick, like, and I couldn't afford the medicine like over the counter even like, I had to figure out how to heal myself. And my mom gave me a copy of this book called back to Eden, she's the person who I saw, like, we just did natural remedies for the most part at home. You know, healing through food, a started juicing in high school, meditating in high school, all of that stuff. So I learned pretty early on how to heal myself. And I think that like, in a lot of ways, my being poor, but also having those resources was the best thing for me, because I don't depend on modern medicine because they never could. But then also I just see how violent and abusive it is and how degrading it is, and how inhumane it's just actually like, illogical, backwards makes no sense. And is also predicated on bunk science that has been debunked, like, in terms of, you know, racialized science that like, was made specifically to support Thomas Jefferson's dehumanization, specifically of black people, people of African descent, and like indigenous Americans. So I think it's mainly fraught, but I'm also very much into science. I love science. I'm really into the advances that we are making. But those those advances happen. Besides or in spite of, I think the modern institution, they are not happening because of it, I would say, especially because of capitalism. So really long and long winded, but that's, yeah, that's how I feel about that.

Kit Heintzman 28:20
Would you tell me a bit about what your day to day life was looking like pre pandemic?

Vie Darling 28:25
Yeah, my life was really small. Had agoraphobia also, so that was a big, big part of why it was so small. Which is common for people who are bottoming out in you know, substance abuse disorder. But yeah, I just would go to school, I go to Hunter College, I'm finishing a BFA here, and I worked at a cafe five blocks from my house. And that's pretty much all I did was go home, go to the cafe go to also hung out there because my friends were there. And that was like my community at the time. So go to school, go to work, go home, smoke a lot of weed. Usually with my roommate on the couch is very depressed. Because it's really alienating being the only person not drinking in your community. So I was a party girl for a long time and I was active in nightlife for a long time. So most of the people that I knew were doing that, and I was also self medicating. So just super depressed and like, at that time, also, like, the MTA fair was going up and like there was a lot of fucked up shit going on in the world and is depressing and Yeah, it's really, really dark also, it's winter. But yeah, so prior to lock down, that's what that looks like. And then, immediately prior to that I was in London in Paris for, I guess, a month. And but just routinely, that was pretty much my life at that time.

Kit Heintzman 30:22
I know you already touched on some of the ways that your life looks different in the sort of early period of lockdown. What are some of the other ways that your day to day living changed over maybe a longer course of the pandemic?

Vie Darling 30:35
Yeah. Well, a lot of the money that I made was from doing in person events, which stopped over the course of time. Yeah, I mean, it really enabled me to develop a really strong basis in my recovery, which I'm extremely grateful for. But it was just mind boggling, I could not stand my life anymore. I think a lot of people started to realize that within their own lives, my apartment was very small. And it's very hard to keep an apartment clean when you have four adult, a fab people living in a really, really, frankly inhumane sized rooms and a very small apartment. And I think a lot of people started to realize, like, I'll keep it on myself, I started to realize how untenable my life was when I didn't have the distractions of the outside world. And I actually had to sit there and bear witness and experience it. And so that became quite unbearable, and I decided to move. Unfortunately, the place that I moved, the person was my roommate was just like, experiencing a psychotic meltdown. So I was very, it was a very unsafe situation for only lasted a month. But a friend invited me to stay at their place in Los Angeles while they were coming out here. So I, for I intended to go for like a two week trip to get like, say bye to my aunts who are in Maryland. And my mom was also going back to Liberia at that time, one of my aunts had come to America to receive cancer treatment at that time in the beginning of locked down. So it was saying bye to my aunts. And then I think I may have seen one of my best childhood friends at that time, but I don't really remember. They do know that I went to Atlanta to see my grandmother. And then things just got like, because I wanted to move to LA. Anyways, and that summer, I was supposed to be spending the summer out there. But yeah, things got sidetracked because my friend's life got fucked up as everyone's was in this time. And I ended up staying in Atlanta a lot longer than I intended to. Just kidding. It's like spiritually based. I have a lot of like trauma around my family that I wasn't really facing. And a lot of experiences were prior to me getting to LA. I went for three weeks, I finally got there, after being stuck in Atlanta for a month and a half. And then I got to LA for three weeks. And was like, Yeah, I definitely wanted to move here. But like by me just try it out. Because I was on doing school online at that time. So seemed really low stakes. So instead of moving my entire life out there, I just had like everything in storage in New York. And I came back to the East Coast. And real realize like out like, as a sober person. I can't live in New York City. Like, I'm way too sensitive. And the thing about that is like every time I like, level up and like my practice, I get more sensitive, and there's less that I can do and less that I can engage with the outside world, which I would refer to as the false matrix, which is our social matrix. To the ideological framework of colonialism and our interactions within that social system. And for me, particularly in this case, it's the industrialism, like, I grew up in a very, like lots of forests, lots of going adventures and forests, lots of like, fields and riding bikes very much like, um, make believing Stranger Things was real kind of childhood. And that felt really good for me, I started to realize, like, why I'm never as creative as I would like to be in New York, is because like, I just am so drained by not being in proper contact for me, with the planet and with nature. And also, just being too many people being on the subway, it's like, really draining too much going on. And this is something that a lot of like highly sensitive people can identify with. But particularly people who at some level have sensory processing disorder, or ADHD, or autism spectrum disorder. And there's another one that I don't really remember. But either way, all of those like all of those diagnoses essentially just mean that like our nervous systems. And sensory processing is like very different from neurodivergent people. And so there is also a really high comorbidity with that, and like substance abuse because of self soothing, and, yeah, like, it was in LA for three weeks. I loved it, because I did have more access to nature, it's everything like the sun, like everything's more spread out. Also the vibration of the land, there's really like beautiful and like, when I came back to New York to stay, I stayed with my one cousin for a month, and then I stayed with my brother for a month before moving back to LA for six months. And well, yeah, I mean, all of this spiritual labor that I had to do to transcend my ego and face the things that I hadn't been facing using substances. But being with my cousin was really difficult because their roommate was in active addiction, and it was just like, really gross. Their apartment, no matter how much we cleaned it, like, just get so gross, like so quickly. And as a spiritually sensitive person, like I can't, I really do believe like, cleanliness is next to godliness, that phrase or whatever, I do abide by that because like, just vibrationally I cannot deal with that. And it like, embodies in me that disgust. Like I'll just say like, it makes me squeamish. I think that's like the easiest way to frame it. But when I went and stayed with my brother, the first day back in New York, I was like, just sitting on the train, nothing was happening and trigger warning here. I was just like, I want to kill myself, like this makes me want to die. And I knew that it was because of like, just the violence of industrialism, essentially. And also just like thinking about how many people have died because of the industrial nature of the city. It's just like a black hole. It's like in Sabrina or not Sabrina in Buffy living on the hell mouth. That's what it's like living in New York. But cons some. Conversely, I like have found my community here. I found my people here. But what leaving New York showed me was I don't need this city to survive. And I did when I first left Maryland, because as a queer kid, growing up in a very traditional African family. Very, very suburban, pretty conservative, those superficially liberal wealthy suburb. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't and I never wanted to go back when I thought I needed the city to be able to survive, but I've realized since then, that I don't. And so staying with my brother, like just really bottoming out and spiritually and emotionally

Vie Darling 39:57
Hey, spiritually and emotionally as being very, very ill because it showed me like, it was, you know, memories of the abuse that like not physical but like, emotional, just like he's a narcissist. He's like borderline sociopathic, but just engaging with him, just made me want to die. And I was like, What is this feeling, I didn't realize like how much it made me want to self harm. And it's like, oh, because every other time that I've been with him since I was 15 years old, like, I've been drinking or smoking, and we've been partying, and, you know, now I have to face those feelings that, and I can't do that. But also at the same time, I started to like, feel and see his inner child, which is like one of the other aspects of my gifts. Which is, my heart is just like, I am so much more of a compassionate person, after this, like really dark night of the soul. Because my instinct was to want to hate all of these people and all abusers and really complicates things when you're faced with all of these feelings. But then also you can see the hurt inside of somebody and the fear that keeps them from being able to like, be the person that I know they want to be. And so yeah, a lot of house lessness, during during lockdown is really hard to find a home. But I did in LA and I moved to LA for six months. And what I witnessed there was just like the most rampant I don't know the most just like intense acts expression of class warfare, and racialized class warfare that I've ever seen. I've been to a lot of major cities. And I've lived in a third world country or global southern country. And I would say that New York and LA are right on par with that, in most of the parts of the city, and especially in New York, you can turn a corner and it's like, it looks like a civil war just happened. But yeah, so it was really hard to be in LA because the energy there's just so bad, like, it's so demonic, and just like completely, like, but at the same time, there's like, also, like, I am a medium like a psychic medium, and speak to people's ancestors, people's ancestors speak through me their higher selves, their inner children, their shadows, all this. And so being in LA also is really difficult, because like, there's so much genocide of the indigenous people that happened there that was just like very, very hard for me to not to not feel an experience. But I will say that, like I experienced a lot of a lot more peace than I've ever been able to in New York. And I think that definitely is because like I was they have much more humane living conditions there. So I would say that for me, I had a higher quality of life. Despite the abhorrent, abhorrent abhorrent like abysmal social issues that are present, they're in sickness and suffering that's just like, endemic. And then yeah, I had to come back to New York to go back to school. And also it's really just like, it's a different hustle out there just, it's just a different vibe. And I think when she would live in New York for almost a decade, like, I'm an East Coast girl, like, Um, and yeah, the, honestly, I wouldn't want to live there if I didn't have money because I also don't have a driver's license. So obviously, I don't have a car. And that is why I was able to see the things that I saw and just feel the human suffering. And yeah, the lack of the lack of a will to live and by live I mean versus just survive and complacency. And zest for life just really didn't exist. They're in the spaces that I was in, particularly on public transportation. That's so here, came back to go back to school because school went back on campus. Um, yeah, once again, like, I came here, I was not expecting it to be so hard to find, somewhere to live. And like, especially now being way more sensitive than I've ever been in my life. My spiritual practice is so important to me. And I need to have a home base and a sanctuary to call my own and cultivate my practice and have a safe space. It was so hard to find a place to live, it has gotten so hard since. I mean, like when I first moved on my own when I was 19. That was 2014. And back then, you could get like, the size of the room that I live in now was $700. I'm paying $975 for it. And you did not need to sign a lease. Most places were just like, yeah, month to month, that does not exist anymore. Not because New Yorkers don't want to do that. But because landlords do not allow it. The housing market is just belligerent like, I have never seen this city and so much pain. And I have never seen so much sickness and suffering as I have been seeing. And it's disturbing. And it's heartbreaking. Because like, this is my home, I don't have another home. Like, yeah, I grew up in Maryland, but that's not like, I chose this place. And I've lived here for 10 years, and I don't really have a home in Maryland anymore. My mom doesn't even live in this country anymore. So but um, yeah, I have no idea even what goes on there. But yeah. New Yorkers, I would say we're very community oriented people. I think I started to care network and in lockdown, I forgot to mention, that was a big, big deal actually started care network. We first were doing service for you know, the pandemic and sending out care packages and like collecting supplies and sending them out to people, especially working class and poor, queer and trans people centering bipoc individuals within our creative community, but also healthcare workers and children in the neighborhood of Bed Side. We helped to get the free fridges spread across the city, really integral in that project. And then, when the racial uprising started, we shifted gears to we still were doing the food stuff. But we shifted gears to doing jail support and supplying folks on the ground at protests with safety gear and like supplies. And yeah, I haven't seen the city and like [inaudible] say, like, I feel like New Yorkers are such such community oriented people that like, a lot of people are not doing well with the fact that we couldn't be outside that we couldn't be in community with one another and have connection with one another. I know from being in recovery, that a lot of people were bottoming out in their addictions and alcoholism. I also know that a lot of people were relapsing, a lot of people were dying, it was just a really, really, I feel like the way it feels now, in some ways feels worse than what it felt like in the beginning. Because at least then, it was a surprise. And now I guess it's like kind of like seven. But it just being faced with the fact that like, we are worth less than nothing, our lives are worth worth less than nothing. And that they are going to do absolutely everything they can to exploit us for everything that we're worth. And that's all that we are. It's just really painful. So I don't really go on social media anymore. I don't really like tune in to the media anymore.

Vie Darling 49:37
I mainly like I found a place to live with a psychopath. And that just really brought me to my knees, also, but I was so desperate like I was looking for an apartment for a month and a half, staying on people's couches. And that was really difficult because like it's a global pandemic and rates were rising like People were getting sick again, like. And so it was really hard to find places to stay. It was really, like hard to find place to live where I don't have great credit I've been, as I said, on my own since I was a teenager, I don't like, my parents are. They don't help me they couldn't even though they want to. And so like, I didn't have the credit, I didn't have them. I did have the money. But I was just so desperate and like I didn't feel safe in my home, I didn't feel safe outside of my home. And thankfully, I've just moved somewhere that feels a lot safer. It's not a permanent thing. But I guess like what I'm getting at is like this idea of like, no safe spaces. Like there's really just having to cultivate that sanctuary within my own body. And it's unfair. And it's like, unfair to me as somebody who's like, High Priestess, Major Arcana energy, but it's unfair to everyone, it's unfair to everyone in it is more of that colonialism to keep us from being in union with the planet. And to make us insane, because that's what it's done. And so yeah, my day to day is really fucking chaotic, big, dark night of the soul, big, big, big, big shadow work, big shadow work, but so much better for it so much better, so much lighter. And that is 100%. Because I have a program of rigorous honesty, I work a 12 step program. And that is shadow work. And that is, you know, I do believe that when that program was created, that it was channeled from the Divine Realms, and from the spiritual realms, because one, I already believed in all of those practices. And when I read them, I knew that it was like stuff that was like I believed in was true. Like, across the ages, this was wisdom across the ages. And all I needed was the community. So another aspect of what my day to day looks like, in early lockdown was just like being in recovery meetings, three to five hours of the day, constantly, constantly, constantly. And that is what kept me that's what kept me sane. That's what kept me grounded and able to be on the other side of all of that, because it's not over but to be on the other side of all of that. And definitely be more what one of the more well, people that I know. For sure. So

Kit Heintzman 53:09
I'm so curious, what does the word safety mean to you?

Vie Darling 53:12
Yes, just give me one moment. Okay, I return? That's a great question. Wow. Great question and really hard to answer. I'm looking for my charger. I really hope that I brought it, really hard to answer just because for so long, I didn't know what it meant to me because I'd never experienced it in my life. I was born into unsafety because my parents were also inheriting a lack of safety. Because they're boomers and Boomers generally did not have great parenting simply because people didn't know better back then.

Vie Darling 54:12
My laptop might die, in which case I'll hop on from my phone.

Vie Darling 54:16
People didn't have great parenting back then they just didn't know the things that we know now. But my parents are also victims of 30 years of civil unrest in my country. My grandfather on my dad's dad was assassinated in 1980. Both of my mom's parents were murdered. My dad was, yeah, my laptop's gonna die. I'm gonna switch over to my phone as we speak. But my dad was held in prison with both of his with all of his brothers and

Vie Darling 54:59
Okay, Okay, I'm gonna put my I'm gonna put my air pods in. But yes, so my dad was a political prisoner all of his brothers and uncles, anyone that they could get their hands on from my dad's family. The Elgin prison murdered, many of them got my air pods connected. They murdered a lot of them and they literally the day before. Yep, says it's connected. Is it really though?

Vie Darling 56:00
Can you hear me? Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah, but the day before they were intending to kill my dad, they like play Russian roulette with them and stuff. And but my grandmother who's indigenous, was able to negotiate to save him. And some of his brothers. And yeah, my parents have never recovered from that, mind you. They also had really, really fucked up childhoods anyway, despite the fact that they had a lot of money. So when I was born, they had their coping mechanisms of exorbitant spending, and my dad of alcoholism and my mom codependency. And, yeah, so I was born into chaos, and unsafety. And I believe that, like, I just cried all the time as a kid. And I believe it was because like, especially as a baby, I could not handle the feelings that I was experiencing secondhand. And my mom was also very depressed when she was pregnant with me. Well, she's been depressed as probably her whole life. But anyway. So I didn't know what safety meant, I thought that it meant other people. Then I realized that it meant the opposite. And I thought that it meant solitude, not having to like not having to worry about conflict, because I was alone. And I didn't have to worry about that. That was not true, either. So now I think that is like abused as a kid and also living in poverty and alienated just very much other. And as much as like, I was misdiagnosed with autism as a kid where they told my mom that they thought that I might have it. It's pretty common to misdiagnosed little female children who have ADHD as having other things or not having anything at all. But then it was, like, you know, once again, my mom was just like, Fuck you people. Like this is racism. Um, and yeah, I just always knew that she felt something was wrong with me. I knew that like, my cousins didn't really like me. I think I thought I knew that I was not going to get my needs met, especially social needs, unless I pretended to be someone I wasn't. Because I knew from a very early age that I was queer. Also somehow watched the Matthew Shepard story when I was like five and like, I guess I just internalize it. It's like, that's gonna happen to me. Because I was really obsessed with like, gay media as a kid and like, really, like when I found the logo channel, I was just like, What is this? But I definitely internalized like, I can't be myself, or else like I could literally I could be abandoned. Like my dad, I didn't I my dad did leave my family and I didn't see him for 13 years between four and 17 and is afraid of being abandoned. I was afraid of being neglected because I was being neglected. I was afraid of being physically abused. I was afraid of, Yeah, just like not getting my foundational hierarchy of needs met. Um, because that was that was, I was used to that and so never had like an idea of like, safety for me meant moving to New York getting away from my family because they were the problem. And then I just continued pursuing unsafe situations because I was so used to that and I just didn't know any better. So I guess like sci fi, for me really just means that I can be my full unadulterated self. And even if conflict comes up, we don't treat each other without the flake foundation of unconditional love and integrity, which is to me, My God, my goddess, my higher power. That force that pervades the natural universe, to me is unconditional love and integrity. And, you know, conflict can arise. And we still act really spaces because Bell Hooks says, like, there can't be love and abuse at the same time. That just doesn't work, there can be a lot of care, but there cannot be love. So yeah, I have found people who like make me feel safe, I can be completely myself. And when I step on their toes, or they step on my toes, it doesn't mean that we just throw each other out, it means that we you know, process and figure it out. Get to a healthy, a healthy, emotionally and spiritually mature place within ourselves in order to communicate, and problem solve, and resolve the conflict instead of pretending it doesn't exist, which is dishonest, and means that you don't trust them, and you don't feel safe enough with them. So I guess safety is also being able to trust people being able to count on people. Sometimes, guys like, well, I can trust you to not show up and I can trust you to harm me. But um, yeah, I can count on people to be shit and just like be abusive and fucking, like, harmful, but that's when my being a safe space for myself comes into play. Like, can I maintain safety by exercising healthy boundaries, to distance myself to a safe space where I can love this person unconditionally. I don't, from a distance, like I don't need you to not be an abuser. Because I can still see your humanity, but the base parts of your humanity that are ran by fear and ego. I don't have to engage with them. So I don't have to. So I'm not actively being triggered in my humanity to hate deal. So yeah, I guess that's like, that's what safety means for me is like, trusting that I can experience unconditional love and integrity in a space. And that I can actually move towards self actualization. Because I don't have to be afraid that the other tiers of that hierarchy of needs are not being met.

Kit Heintzman 1:03:59
There's been such a narrow conversation about what safety is in the sort of biomedical context of COVID. With that teeny tiny definition in mind or framework in mind, what are some of the ways that you've been trained to keep yourself safe?

Vie Darling 1:04:16
I'm definitely an active member of my 12 Step community. Because if I relapse, all bets are off. And I will find myself back in the harmful situations that I was in before. And I've been thinking about this a lot recently, actually, like, even if I didn't die because of like chemical poisoning, or like taking bad drugs or something like or an overdose or something like I could have been murdered. I could have been hit by a car, I could have fallen onto the train tracks, like anything like that could have happened. And I think that's really important because there's a reason why rates of like, people behaving alcoholicly been locked down when up. And it's the same reason why or it's on it is the foundation of the reason why liquor stores and bars were allowed to stay open in locked down when I don't know, things that would have been helpful to people's mental health or not. Because a lot of those things don't exist because they don't provide

Vie Darling 1:06:02
Yeah, a lot of those things, because they don't provide capital, they provide a wellness that late the money elite do not want us to experience because that, I mean, it's just the Marxist stuff. I'm not saying anything that anyone doesn't. Anyone who's ever taken a sociology class doesn't already know. But so yeah, the lack of safety. It's just for exploitation, like point blank period, it's about exploiting us, it's about as a natural resource, hugely, just the same way they exploit the planet and rape and pillage this planet, so to do they do that to human beings, and all of us are indigenous to somewhere. But I think that's really important for people, especially white people to understand when we talk about anti indigeneity. Because, you know, colonial the colonial structure that we live in today is over 2000 years old, it started with the Holy Roman Empire, it didn't just start like, it didn't just start 400 years ago. So that indigeneity was robbed of the tribes of Europe. And then it was robbed with everyone else. And I think that like, that warlord mentality, that survivalist mentality has just like become, as I said, riddled in our DNA. So they know how to exploit us [inaudible], you know what I mean? And also, like, just the same way that they breed and train dogs is the same way that they did to enslaved peoples. You know, it's the same stuff that they did to the indigenous Americans, the same things that were done in Europe, like, it's, in order to keep us to control us, and to exploit us as a natural resource of this planet, as indigenous people to this planet. And that's so that they can get money. And I don't know, that's fucking insane. That shit does not make a shred of sense to me. But at the same time, I guess it doesn't really have to all that really, like matters, I guess, to me is like, do I keep myself safe. And that means divesting as much as I can from the false matrix of colonialism, and not just decolonization as a practice as a practice for myself. But actually, re indigenisation, which is something like I didn't have that word so much until like my cousin said it this weekend. But it's something that I didn't realize I was doing. Since, you know, since I was 17. And I realized, like, I don't fucking have insurance in New York City, and I have to start figuring out how to, like, take care of myself, I guess ever since I started using in high school, but either way, I think I think I answered the question. I don't really remember what it was.

Kit Heintzman 1:09:24
You did perfect, I promise. I want to thank you so so much for the generosity of your time and the kindness and vulnerability of your answers. Those worlds the questions I know how to ask right now, but if there's anything you want to share about your experiences over the last two years, more generally, please take some space and do so.

Vie Darling 1:09:46
Yeah, um, a lot of people in lockdown started doing DNA tests and getting really interested in their ancestry. I don't think that that's a coincidence. I don't think that it's a coincidence either that I really started developing and honing my skill of mediumship. And being more able to let people unlock during that awakening that I spoke about, and 2020, like people's ancestors would wake me up out of my sleep to give them messages. I don't think that that was an accident. I don't think that it's an accident that more and more people today are identifying as Starseeds as witches. As like, you know, I don't know, whatever they do identify as an ethereal being, it's not a lot of people that I know who do. But as like, you know, Earth Angels, like so much stuff. And like, it's not a mistake, however, I will say in regards to certain factions within the spiritual community, that are really violent, and use spirituality to promote division and cause harm. And also like, honestly, I'm just gonna say those people are being exploited. And it's really sad. It's really sad that their desire to be on the right side, not even the right side, the side of love and truth and integrity is being exploited. And they're being manipulated, especially people who are just awakening for the first time, because of the lack of news literacy and media literacy, the poor education systems that don't teach people how to do effective research for themselves, and to have critical thinking skills. And frankly, I think that these factions that have become so popular, I don't even like using the name. But these factions that have become so popular, it's psyops to delegitimize and discredit people who are extensions of and reviving indigenous ancestral lineages, because it's not just like, oh, other Africans, or whatever, that like things are like indigenous descent, people like American indigenous, like a lot of Irish people, a lot of Celtic people's ancestors come through me to speak to them. You know, like that, that's that type of Europe specifically, but there are so many different types of people just don't know about. And I would really encourage people to just start looking into their ancestry and gently probing into that with care and compassion for oneself, and the humanity of their ancestors, regardless of what they did, because we're the only ones who can rectify the wrongs of the past. And all of us have an ancestor who did something that was heinous, my grandmother for one, and you know what, I love her anyway. And she did what she did, because she didn't know how to do anything else. You know what I mean? Like, my parents did what they did, because they didn't know how to do anything else. Their parents, the parents before them. You know, I did what I did when I didn't know how to do anything else. Because of that, not because I wanted to cause harm to myself or others. As I was fucking insane, I was insane with colonialism. And I was insane with like, substance abuse disorder, and like, complex PTSD, and like, untreated, ADHD, and, you know, for more than anything with colonialism, which is enough to make anybody crazy. So I just really want to encourage people like fucking, don't hate science. It's so awesome. And it's so helpful and like, don't hate research. Like, if you can't read because it's really hard. And these times I get it, YouTube, learn about credible sources, develop news literacy, develop media literacy, be able to be a free thinker and also to exist to ideas can be true at once, like someone else's perspective can be true to them, and it's maybe not my perspective, but it's their life journey that they're on and it's my life journey that I'm on and that's what really matters. So, yeah, I think the psyops thing is really just terrifying because like, you know, one of the like, messages I keep getting is like, Mad Max shit, Mad Max shit, like there's a storm coming and that's the kind of stuff that [inaudible] before I would have thought like, no, like, that's crazy, because when I first heard it in 2020, I did think it was and now in 2022, I'm just like, Yo, I don't know where the fuck I'm gonna go. Because my country is on the brink of disaster as well. But like, I, I have lived to see modern atrocities that I never ever expected I would. And I can believe that anyone will do anything at this point. So I don't know, I just pray that everybody like, does their best to remain safe. And I also would say like, we all have our personal matrices. And it's like, I have so much peace despite the fact that all of this is going on. Because I already know the foundation of it, I don't have to, like, be in caught up in it day to day like, I can't do anything about most of it, all I can do is try to be the best version of myself that I can be an example, lead by power of example, not try to change people, and hope that my light can light something in somebody else. And little by little, we start to light up this very, very dark, dark time that were existing in. And that's, to me, that's the change. Like, it's not going out in like, killing people or hitting them with our cars or like, I don't know, destroying things like burning down the world. Like that has its place. Sure, but I don't for me, I know that my journey is to stay well enough. Because the revolutions, healers, revolutions, teachers, for fuck sake, the revolution needs somebody to still be there on the other side of it. To be able to cultivate life and true civilization underscores civil you know, so yeah, I just thought, like, that's really a thing what I've learned in the past few years, and it feels like it's been a lifetime like God. I said so much. And there's so much more but like, that's how dense the past two years has been for me. So yeah, that's all that I've got, I think.

Kit Heintzman 1:17:13
Thank you so much.

Vie Darling 1:17:16
Thank you Kit. I really needed to just say all of that stuff, and just speak honestly so thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you found me.