Audience of One
In late January, I began sharing an old text on Substack. I didn’t know what I was doing. But people responded. So I stayed.
I quickly saw that many young people surrounded me.
They carried the same despair I knew decades ago:
self-doubt, anxiety, even fear of the future.
Some jump from prompt to prompt, hoping their views or subscribers will jump too.
Forty or fifty years ago, there was no subscriber count.
We spread our work through handmade magazines, copied in cheap shops. Everyone tried to connect with everyone else. The more people you knew, the better—a different system, but the same echo chamber.
I had no future before me. The only thing that kept me going was music.
But there was a problem: to grow in that system, you had to do what everyone else was doing—just better. I never wanted that. Even as a young man, I reached for ritual, for real darkness. But most were content with the shadows they saw in Interview with the Vampire.
I was quickly “out of the game.” What I brought to the band broke it.
While the others sang about dark forests, I wrote about a CPU’s confusion. About a WW2 soldier, trapped in a sinking submarine. It wasn’t common back then. It wasn’t welcome.
My band took my ideas and removed the rot. I started hating my work.
I was depressed.
But I had to follow, there was no plan B.
I wrote about what others refused to feel.
And that’s how I disappeared. I left them and fell into a black hole.
I burned my old writings. Photos with me and the others.
No one came to help.
The place I lived and the people around me only confirmed this: I was just a random body.
I stopped publishing and worked in silence.
My desk is filled with unfinished novels. Some of them are miserable.
I released a few albums. Then stopped that, too.
I studied classical composition and wrote a few pieces that were never released.
I decided I was never meant to be an artist.
So I got a regular job.
Nobody cared for my runes. Or herbs.
Nobody read my poems.
Nobody heard my sounds.
My world was small.
And broken.
At home, I screamed into my 4-track recorder. I worked on the voice until I heard what was beyond. But no one else would ever listen to this.
It was all for nothing.
And for me.
That’s when I turned to a Zen art.
No success. No outcome.
I wanted to do something without a goal.
Make art without art.
Over time, I began to feel whole again.
I returned to my heathen ways: carving runes, gathering herbs, chasing old stories.
Later, I wrote. Sometimes music.
But only when I had to.
After nearly two decades of practice, I understood:
I don’t need to publish to be an artist.
My idol, Lovecraft, didn’t live from his art either.
He would rather starve than sell himself.
I have always been where I was meant to be.
My art is for the audience of one.
My rituals are for the few who wish to learn and carry them onward.
Traditions like these are not meant for a broader audience.
Now I’ve returned to a place like Substack.
I’m publishing again—but not for the same reasons.
No despair.
No need.
Just to confirm that I’ve healed—or to finish the healing.
I didn’t expect to find so many young voices haunted by the same pain I carried.
Like Fuke, I want to strike the bell with full force.
Not to warn, but to wake them up.
I want to shout:
You are good enough.
Your art is good enough.
Don’t get lost in the echo chamber.
But would they listen?
Some believe they’re made to live from it.
And the world feels unfair because they can’t.
But it’s that very hunger—that rejection—that stops the roots from growing.
Ritual of Runes
It made me wonder if I should bring my rune painting to Substack more often.
I have painted for a few special people before—
but not during the ritual.
I’m still learning how to share sacred things in this Medium.
But I want to ask a few of you:
Do you need a rune?
Not as a symbol—but as support.
As fire.
As memory.
If so, send me a few words.
Let me feel your struggle or your question.
I will meditate.
Burn the herbs.
Paint the rune.
And I will record the ritual—
not as many performances, but as one shared rite.
Several runes may be painted in one session,
each with its moment, each with its name.
If you’re willing, share your ritual name—so it may appear in the rite.
You may also ask for a rune on behalf of someone else.
Just tell me who it’s for, and what must be remembered.
I will hold them in the ritual.
In return, I ask only that you witness it. And tell me what you felt.
For those who found me
If you’re reading this, you were meant to.
This list isn’t public. These words aren’t recycled.
You are sacred.
And I’m listening.
Reply to this e-mail, and I will respond.
Yours, Aurelian Ashmore