ESSAY
Ravyne Hawke/Lori Carlson — My Intro for Illumination
Allow Me to Confuse You for a Moment
The Confusion
I am both Ravyne Hawke and Lori Carlson. Ravyne Hawke (pronounced Raven Hawk) is my Cherokee name and the raven and the hawk are my spirit guides. I explain how this came to be in this article. She is also my online persona and my ofttimes melancholy muse. The I who does all the writing, is Lori Carlson, and this introduction will be about this me.
Believe me, I’ve heard it all before: If you write under your own name, why not post under your own name? Quite simply — I don’t want to dishonor my Cherokee name by leaving it out of my life. It is important to me and gives me guidance. I also don’t want to dishonor myself by leaving my real name out of my work. That too is important to me. Hence the rub and confusion for many.
Who is Lori Carlson?
I am a 50-something poet, fiction writer, art dabbler, Spiritualist, LGBTQ and Mental Health Advocate. Lover of Nature and animals. Mother to two finicky cats (Izzy and Shugs) and a Husky named Max. I’ve been married for 19 years (this October) and live in NE Oklahoma. My roots are in Virginia where I grew up and lived until 2005.
I suffered childhood, teen and even adult trauma. This is perhaps why so much of my writing is dark, sad and a required taste.
Writing has always been my #1 priority. I cannot imagine a life spent doing anything else. I do not write to be published or make money. I write because I must. It is an inherent part of my being.
I gave up marriage (early divorce at age nineteen) and children (two miscarriages before I was 22 — I got the hint) to pursue my life’s goal — going to Hollins University (got a late start at 25) and getting a Masters. I achieved that goal while working two customer service jobs. I also spent a total of seven years in college to achieve it. My father called me a professional student. He was right. I would have remained in college forever if I could have afforded it.
In 1999, at the age of thirty-three, just a little over a year after finishing school, I had a nervous breakdown. It came unexpectedly. I was sitting at my station, doing my customer service job when I began shaking and crying uncontrollably. Thankfully I was not on a call. By the time my supervisor found me, I was curled up in a ball under my desk, still shaking and still crying. This began a thirteen year mental illness crash for me. I was in and out of hospitals, on so many different meds and had attempted suicide multiple times. I was also married (2001) and this was not an easy time for our marriage. It wasn’t until 2012 when I was diagnosed with uterine cancer that I began to have the will to live. I still have that will today, eight years later. Suicide is no longer an option for me.
As I said previously, I’ve had a life filled with trauma. It is that trauma that I write about most of the time. I attempt to make sense out of what happened to me without playing the victim or pushing blame onto others. I do try to write more about my mental health and spiritual journeys these days, even if some mournfulness seeps in. I hope my words — whether in an article, personal essay, or my poetry — can help others gain an understanding of their own lives.
©2020 Lori Carlson. All rights reserved.
I want to thank Dr Mehmet Yildiz for Illumination and for giving all of us a platform to write about our lives and experiences.
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Lori Carlson writes poetry, fiction, personal essays, creative non-fiction, and articles. She focuses on Spirituality, Life Lessons, Self-Awareness, Relationships, Mental Health, and LGBTQ+. She is the Owner/Editor of Promptly Written and Not For Bedtime Stories. You can find her older stories on her creative writing blog, Ravyne’s Nest and random ramblings on her personal blog, A Delicious Torment.