Hello beautiful human,
The last post I published here, over two months ago, I wrote
When I look out my window I see there is a slight breeze out there today—not much. And yet, I feel internally a stronger current blowing me in an opposite direction. It blows clean and fresh and crisp and I must take time to listen for it.
That was at the end of October. I may or may not have suspected, but I was about to be carried away by that current I listened for.
Welcome, Reader. I welcome new subscribers at any level. If you aren’t ready to pay for a subscription, but you feel gratitude for this post and want to support me, you can Buy Me a Coffee (and leave a note! I love reading what people share! I try to respond to everyone).
While I don’t much go to church there are certain days in the church calendar I like very much and Epiphany has to rank near the top. Officially in the story, Twelfth Day, January 6, is when we celebrate and mark the Kings showing up. The Three Wise Men. A little after the fact, no doubt bewildered at where they find themselves. Perhaps (surely) not really understanding what they find when they do arrive and no doubt their appearance is also a surprise to those already assembled. It all feels a little like a scene in a Terry Pratchett novel, ripe with humor and humanity.
I relate so hard. And here I am publishing on the 8th. Late to my own party.
Someone I love very much is living his life out loud over on another social media platform, publishing his ideas, experiences, moods and thoughts as his life goes through a period of deep metamorphosis and emergence. He’s documenting and publishing it all. Like the dragonfly, breaking into new shape right out in the sunlight where anyone can see, and welcoming comment, conversation, exchange as he does so, all part of the process. Deeply individual and socially defined at the same time.
The last couple of years have been a little like that for me, here. As I’ve recovered myself and sought to find out who I am now post-divorce, in this new chapter, new town, new life. I’ve been clocking the shifts and sharing them in real time, here…until two months ago. That clean, fresh current of air began to pick up. Became a whirl, abrasive and cleansing and I listened…and landed in a new place.
It’s only by metaphors like Oz and dragonfly that I can explain to you—and to myself— how it is I now find myself a full time graduate student at Northwestern University, embarked on a program to get my Masters of Arts in Counseling and become, in two and a half years’ time, a licensed professional counselor.
Like those three peeking in at the barn door, I feel a little bewildered still. And very much arrived.
I’m just at the very early outset of the first weeks of this adventure, but we don’t waste any time. This week I’ve read about seven different articles on shame. How is it different or the same as guilt or inferiority, whether or not it’s helpful to feel as an emotion, how we can keep it from becoming toxic… personal reflection, scientific study, and everything in between. Although I’m very much back in the ivory tower of academia, the topic feels completely relevant as we read the headlines. I feel shame at what the US is doing. I feel shame when I witness how ICE is tearing up communities and inflicting violence on neighbors. I feel shame at my inability to stop any of it, or impact it.
Shame is uncomfortable to live with, we can go to great lengths to avoid it…I’ve decided this morning to sit with it. Acknowledging that this is a national experience inflicted on us, brought about by us one way or another. We’re all gonna need a lot of help to face our culpability and our inability and heal—whatever that means. Whatever it will look like. We’re not here by accident. What did you do? People will ask us at some point. Maybe it makes sense or maybe they won’t understand it at all when I say, I went back to school to become a mental health counselor.
What does all of this mean for this Space? Substack feels noisy to me. The world feels noisy. I coined a word the other day: blatherage. The age of blather. So much incessant noise. The violence—exterior and interior—of randomly revolving from Stranger Things to gun violence to news of friends’ marriages and kids to kitten videos to ICE to Golden Girls/Friends/I Love Lucy to the latest toxic incel insult to … on and on and on in an unending scroll…
I get lost in it the same as anyone.
I’d like not to feel lost here.
I’d like to keep and hold this as a Space for grounding, breathing, and self-recovery and -discovery for me and hopefully for you as well. And…it will have to change to reflect my own scouring and transformation. I’m not as I was. My goals for myself and for this Space are not what they were. January gives me a month of reflection to consider what and how change and transformation might emerge in ways that feel hopefully gentle to all of us.
When the asteroid hit eons ago, the dinosaurs didn’t die but they did shrink…and changed into chickens. Mammals, puny, sheltered in trees and survived to eventually become lions, horses, elephants.
We are hunkered, we are in the tornado. Witnessing and cowering and shouting and getting ready to evolve. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for…but what does that mean?
We are blinking at the barn door. Not because we’re scared, although we may be sometimes and with good cause. We’re bewildered and surviving. We’re doing what we can, as it occurs to us.
So there’s my invitation this morning as I take a moment with my shame, to ground and breathe (maybe you want to breathe with me?): What can I do, in this moment? What small step can I take, where I am and as I am? What feels like right action, for me, now?
Whatever answer arrives for you, I think we need it all. Baked lasagna, soup, painting, protest, calls to senators, songs to children, naps, poems, graffitti, new hair, loud music, whispered affections, books, seeds…what calls you? It’s the season of Epiphany. Something new and full of hope is already arrived I guarantee it…but it’s not very big or loud yet. And it needs our gifts.
What do you hear when you listen?
xo
S
I believe our world needs new stories. what if those stories lie curled within us like seeds? This is An Inviting Space to experience where and how we might discover, recover and nurture the secret, magical gardens of soul day by day. Starting where we are, as we are.
Your support is welcome, and your attention and time are true gifts. Thank you.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.