Cultivating wholeness

Emerging from entrenched patterns of thinking, I am pleased to be able to tease apart essential truths from what is now compostable. Gazing back at a murky scramble of emotional pain and confusing experience, the embedded spiral thread of my authenticity becomes the DNA link between my history and my future.The victimhood I've become aware of can rest on the riverbank, exhausted from the effort to be seen and saved. I cradle her daily, and, more certain of her safety, she is integrating with me, trusting me, and guiding my awareness. She knows where underlying roots and rocks distort the stream, steering my vessel on a truer course.

[ meet Milo, my sock monkey ]

When my young traumatized self flew out of me, thrashing and wailing, pointing to all the injustices I hadn't recognized as such, my awareness tipped toward all the wrongs, throbbing with shame and dismay. Today, having patiently stirred my pot while adjusting the ingredients of my brew, the complexity of my being is manifesting with a balanced palate of flavors.

[ my cliff-side tree in March ]

I can recognize again the beautiful sweetness I've tasted, the sparkle of love I have received and given, the exquisite sensuality I have savored with lovers over the course of my life - all tempered by a dash of bitterness, a pinch of the brackish, a note of sour grapes.  Returning to wholeness, joyful memories outnumber the traumas by an overwhelming margin, a semblance of homeostasis is available again. I can return to my regularly scheduled programming.

Except, my programming is no longer what it was. In fact, programming is the last thing I want to return to. What I am returning to is my center, a place I am creating anew each day, attuning my being to the rhythm of nature, honoring the seasonal and cyclical, observing what is, adapting to the song of her. Trusting my intuition to lead me in harmonic resonance, the music of my life has become more improvisational, less strident, more nuanced.

[ I see an anatomical heart here. Do you? ]

 I'm feeling ready to play again. Yay!

Contractions

I'm still here - making progress in fits-and-starts - regressing - moving forward. That is the pattern of birth, isn't it? Sometimes blissful, others jarringly painful, my movement toward authenticity continues. I don't want to go back, that is certain. It's the uncharted way forward that freaks me out some days. But I have regained trust - in myself, in what I know, in who I want to be - which is all I hoped for.

[ Pip next to my latest completed projects ]

I'm still knitting, though with less fervor and at a calmer pace as-of-late. I've tried to cast-on a new project twice now, and both times it looked wrong. I swear I was casting on the same as every other damn time I knit a fucking washcloth, but both attempts failed and I had to pull it apart and pause before starting over. Rather than berate myself for my failure, I'm pausing to witness my goings-on. What is the barrier I'm facing?

I trust I'll figure it out and find the way forward.