The patterns of myself, a patchwork garment with many hidden pockets. The last two weeks have been an unearthing of buried material, continually confronted by parts of who I am that are so deeply held, it is difficult to find where these pieces were sewn in. I am no psychologist, but a student of what seems to be Jungian psychology by nature, fascinated by shadow and consciousness, archetypes and symbolism, and to be clear, what has led me to explore these concepts and theories within myself has not been book, but first by the relinquishing of mind and a surrendering immersion into body and earth.
De-armouring and getting soft seems key to allowing what is underground to rise up into light, when rain drenched soil and spring’s new sun meet and a seed breaks open, pushing its way out. Seeing what we have covered up and been blinded to when it shows, can be excruciating. The difference in perception of watching a seedling sprout in such seeming gentleness, is you are not the gardener but the seed itself splitting open. You are emerging into new form from something last season, you cannot stay in the shell of what once was.
This is reckless transformation with the grandeur of nature’s precision. Life knows the way, it knows how to evolve its many splendid lifeforms to fulfill their purpose. I wonder if birds know the chaos of change? Do trees weep as limbs break and how do fungi feel in drought?
I am curious, have you noticed any parallel in your personal experiences, internal and external that reflect the larger collective experience? What has been weaving through politics and international war and economics, that is also threading through you? Do you see it? How, what is happening on a global level is made up of energy that also exists in you and me? Every human made system and structure, every agenda and action, comes from us. Each individual human makes something, and it all adds up, creating a larger form.
The shadows of war, I have found in myself, a dark and furious place of anger that was built upon a foundation of pain. A wound that never healed, a place inherited from generations before me, a place added on by early childhood grief that was never touched with love, but denied. It’s as if all our childhood wounds that were left alone are now festering for attention and we see it as bombs in Gaza, the speech of a presidential leader, hateful uprisings of white supremacy, in domestic violence, rent prices, land deforestation—I cannot take on the world’s trauma, but I can come back home to myself and heal what has been hurting for centuries.
One of the most difficult parts in facing these underlying patterns is shame and the barrage of inner voices that demand that it is safer to find fault in another, than to see the self clearly and feel the pain of potentially being anything less than acceptable. But the deeper truth is that these parts, these pieces, have always been wanting acceptance and are fighting for it. They want to be known. What happens, when we see something clearly, for what it is? Can we look into the eyes of our own making?
Can I love all her tender rips and tears?
This is what I am asking myself.
Last night, I dreamed I was in a car with a friend. We were driving near a body of water, illuminated in moonlight. I tell her,
It has taken me thirty-eight years to love myself. To stop hurting her, to touch her skin with such gentleness, to speak to her with invitation and care. I am only now learning to love myself.
It is a teetering motion, back and forth between power trips of control, desperately clinging to some form of familiar even though we may know the pattern’s effect of harm or complacency, and the letting go into some kind of trust that does not strip away sovereignty but allows receptivity for change, however it wants to happen.
Be with adversity to transform.
I read this today as I walked past a student board scribbled with classmate’s wisdom.
Yes. Be with this. The adversity. The adversary—the one in me that is crying for her freedom, her peace, her survival, her autonomy, she is not the war itself, but the hand stitched girl who did not know how to live in this world, without a fight. Can I see her, with the devotion of loving awareness? Because in this, this being, is where we begin to collaborate to create new designs, making new choices, not for our demanded rights and striving, but for our evolution.
“We are the choice behind our vision
To commune in the heart we befriend both light and dark
The archetypes of old giving in for a way untold
The earth, seas, and skies are kind eyes upon this life
See the children rising as one
See a new family, hand in hand heart to heart within their sacred land
See a new home to give and receive, wild and free, our spirits unleash
To dance, to sing to pray to honor and bow to each awaken day”
“A Way Untold” by Sam Garrett
“There's no more pretending
You can't measure in this room
Just walk through the doorway
Just follow the tune
I see your robe of patches
It is perfectly arranged
Here there is no worry
Letting go of shame”
“Without Expectation” by Trevor Hall
Video Song Credit "Moments of Clarity" by Zen The Beat
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