Making Merry

I'm not feeling the Christmas spirit this year. I'm not one to cast blame and don't want to dwell in negative headspace. However, this year toxic masculinity and patriarchal rule have taken their toll.

What's a girl to do?

Reach out to Mother Earth. Touch her. Breathe her. Send energetic beams down through her layers, along the surface of her beautiful face, out to the edges of her horizons and the pinnacle of her atmosphere.

This last photo reminds me that we need support to grow. When we send out tendrils and latch on to supportive structures we are able to reach our highest potential.

May the new year bring fortification to women and our allies, that our wisdom, intuition, strength and hope will move families, communities, businesses, government and our world toward a healthier more balanced future. 

Thank you for being part of my support structure. 

after #MeToo

The triggering of my sexual assault wounds predates 2017 #metoo. My own reconciliation has been rolling out since 2015, and I'm still recognizing sexual experiences for the assaults they were. The avalanche of sexual assault accusations after the 2017 use of the hashtag #metoo should come as no surprise to anyone, especially since the election of our Sexual Predator-in-Chief. With 45 in office, a man who is a sexual assault perpetrator and denier, my old wounds began to fester.  However, without this aggravation the tsunami of injustices would have remained largely dormant.

The aggravation requires treatment. I am thankful for this opportunity and accept my role in healing myself. I'm learning to trust my body, love my body, to honor and respect her. Rampant cultural misogyny lead to fear/blame of my own feminine being. Now I'm training myself to love not only the injured parts of me, but the part of me that accepted, believed in and reinforced misogynist ideas about all women. That's the deepest wound of all.

Shortly after waking each day, I pick up my knitting and go in to the zone. While I float there in the amniotic fluid of creation, thoughts occur. Some challenge me, others soothe. Be they difficult or not, it is all part of the flow. I am learning not to over-identify with any of it. It's all fleeting, temporary.

Today's washcloth progress

Scarf for John. Notice the improvement since I started? 

He will be wearing a functional testimony of my progress

Forgiveness is transformative. Compassion is beautiful. Women are sacred.

Braiding Wisdom

Shifts occur when a person takes action. When I was in a swirling confusion of despair, along came my friend Kate Heiber-Cobb and the Braiding Wisdom course series. I've attended most of the sessions held in 2016-2017, and wouldn't be where I am today without them. Braiding Wisdom was the branch that snagged my collar and kept me from being swept away.

It was through Braiding Wisdom that I met my friend Lavender, who inspired me to write daily gratitudes. Both Kate and Lavender helped me see who I wanted to be - a woman, grounded in nature, connected to lunar cycles whether I'm ovulating or not. All the women at the Braiding Wisdom classes were a part of my opening, by being their humble, beautiful selves in a circle of inquiry and authentic sharing.

I'd lost sight of who I wanted to be.

I knew my healing wasn't going to come through my primary physician. A fine practitioner she is, but allopathic medicine treats symptoms. I'm after the underlying causes. I understood, when I got quiet, that it was through body work, earth work, spiritual seeking and community I would find my way to a healthier happier me. I will take a prescription if I have to, but my goal is to do this organically, in harmony with the natural world.

My life has been serially focused on what others need/expect of me. I feel like a toddler, trip-tumbling forward. Some days I'm overflowing with potential, others I'm a vacant lot, parched and dry. I try to honor what is and not beat myself up when the way forward isn't clear. Those days are tough.

I knitted this morning, dropped John at work and took Reese to Governor's Island for a walk. It was a windy frigid stomp, but I was gifted with a new path, one I'd never noticed before. It led to a pine stand, one of my favorite places to pause, breathe and be.

I've been obsessed with noticing exposed tree roots. I love them. They're a metaphor for the work I'm doing. I observe their tenacious paths through turf, soil and rock. Their gnarled interlaced systems  go unnoticed, while feeding and supporting the above-ground growth. Today it was a tree clinging to a rock ledge that caught my attention. The root system was a marvel of grim determination against all odds:

I will visit this tree often to offer encouragement and admire its beauty.

Here. Now.

I am lucky to be here. I don't want to hide behind a mask of perfection, pleasantries, polite small-talk, etc., any more. Authenticity is the challenging new paradigm I seek to manifest. While it sounds impressive and empowered (and it is) it's also surprisingly awkward.

This year, beginning in May, I participated in a 6-month course called Master Your Awareness: A Toltec Way of Knowing. Early on in the course participants were asked to identify what masks they wear. These masks, strategies we called them, developed over the course of life - to understand, cope with and make sense of a confusing and complex world. My main strategies were: Pleaser, Isolator, Distractor, Victim and Savior (there are a total of 15 or so). As you would imagine, it's not easy delving in to these - turning them over, probing their origins, fathoming the scope of their influence. Yet delve we did. In a supportive circle, the group worked to hold space for each member as we mined this territory together.

What we learned was, the strategies we'd been employing were impeding authentic connection. If I wanted to leave behind this outdated mode of relating, I had to grapple with and release the strategies that I'd not just become accustomed to, but had woven tightly to my identity. At the stage of life I'm in, newly postmenopausal, I was ready for an overhaul; a new way of being. This was a gift I wanted to give myself.

Prior to my Toltec class, in March of this year I gave myself another fabulous gift, an Emergence Dream Retreat with Toko-pa Turner. I've been following her Dreamwork for years and the content she covers - the crafting of her words - rings like a bell in my heart. The dream retreat was central to my transitions this year as I learned to capture, listen to and understand the language of my dreams.

But, there was another gift waiting for me, one I hadn't expected. What Rainbow, my Toltec teacher and therapist, and Toko-pa helped me discover and nurture, is connection with Mother Earth. I've relished time spent in nature for years, and the rejuvenating power of it has nourished me time and again. What's changed is my relationship with Mother Earth. I've gone deeper, opened more fully to her - found her welcoming spirit, her unwavering love, her magic. It is through connection with Mother Earth that the mind calms, the heart opens, and perceived boundaries dissolve as I allow my energy to merge with hers.

 [before sunrise on the marsh]

Our Toltec class concluded in October, the weekend of my birthday/re-birthday. Since the end of the group I've been able to pause, listen to my heart, knit, write, and ask myself what I want to manifest. The time I make every day to spend in connection with Mother Earth is central to my authenticity. She knows me. Accepts me. Holds me.

She is me. I am part of her.

We are one.

Not awkward at all.