Farming, Writing, and Resentment

We were walking around the retreat leader’s pretty gardens, sneakers squishing in the mud as we took a stroll between rain showers. Somehow, the conversation had turned to preparations for apocalyptic emergencies. I wasn’t feeling it.

As our leader shared her knowledge of needing to block off your doorways and stay indoors for at least a week after a nuclear explosion, I wandered away to look at a vibrantly-blooming forsythia bush.

“That isn’t the timeline for me,” I thought. “I’m staying in El Mundo Bueno, where we don’t need to know that stuff.”

It reminded me of an oracle reading I’d received two summers ago, from the same priestess who led this retreat. I’d shared how I hated the idea of a complete collapse of modern society, because it felt like if that happened, there would be no place for my skills as an author, writing coach, and retreat leader.

We’d all be reduced to trying to survive.

I’d have to become - oh horror of horrors - a farmer.

Not that I have anything against farmers. I value them highly. I’ve been vegetarian and sometimes pescetarian for my entire adult life, and fresh local eggs and veggies are the best. But it’s not where my talents, skills, or desires lie. I hate getting up early. I don’t like to kill things, even plants. I’m allergic to a lot of outdoor things. It’s just not my wheelhouse. I’d rather do what I love, follow my callings, and pay someone well for organic produce.

It’s at this point that Zeke, my spirit guide, taps my metaphorical shoulder. He reminds me that I wouldn’t have been given these callings if there wasn’t some way to fulfill them. I get that.

This makes me think of my childhood desire to become an author. It felt natural and obvious. I loved reading from a very young age. I wrote in tiny notebooks. I had elaborate imagination games, and imaginary friends to share them with. Looking back, I can see that I was attuned to magick before I knew what it meant.

I’ve often reflected on how grateful I am for three vital gifts my parents gave me: not being raised in an organized religion, reading whatever I chose, and living in the woods. I was solidly grounded in Nature and stories.

At least until school and society got their hooks into me. I was a smart kid, and this was the 1970s and 80s, so I got placed in first the “gifted and talented” program - which was actually nourishing to my creativity - and then the college prep track. Our family was lower-middle class, and it wasn’t common to attend a four-year college, but from early on, it was assumed by all of my teachers that this was the path I’d take. Most of the other kids in this track were from middle- and upper-class families, so they had the ski vacations, Izod shirts, and electronic gadgets that were often not in my family’s budget. This made me aware of the lack of money and its importance. I grew ashamed of our mobile home and didn’t want to invite my friends over. I overlooked the bounty of the woods and fields and nearby lake.

When it was suggested (by teachers) that my desire to be an author wasn’t practical, that one “couldn’t make money” by writing books, it made sense to change my plans. I decided to become a journalist, like Connie Chung and the other glamorous newscasters I saw on TV. I applied to Emerson College in Boston, known for its excellent journalism program. My high grades got me in, but as a shy and overwhelmed sensitive kid, I didn’t have the extracurricular panache to stand out, which meant I didn’t get a big scholarship. I had no college fund to fall back on. It made more sense to attend the University of Maine, for purely financial reasons.

I don’t regret going there. I learned a lot from some excellent professors. I met my husband Quester on campus. I found my hippie, New Age people. I had a spiritual awakening that has served me well. After graduating, I enjoyed a first career in public radio that taught me many valuable skills that I still use today - and I got to do some traveling (to industry conferences) that inspired me.

But I think that I still hold some anger and resentment at being drawn away from my callings and my creativity for so long. My first book was published when I was 43. Where would I be now if I’d started two decades earlier?

Yes, there is something to the notion of needing to gain life experience before writing well. But I’d always had a strong imagination. What if I, like my own kids, had been homeschooled? What if I’d never squashed my creative ideas in favor of delivering “the right answers” on tests and in essays? What if I’d honed my passion for stories, and had never taken that college class in creative writing with the cynical professor who thought she was helping by being harsh and discouraging? Where would I be now if I’d gone all-in with my writing from the start?

I’m a 4/6 in Human Design, which means that the first part of my adult life was meant to be spent in observer mode. Having a “practice career,” I can see in retrospect, was a useful way to achieve that. There was less pressure to be the best at it, or to honor it as a true calling, and there was space and time to explore my nascent spirituality.

Crafting my second career has been an intense process, one that wouldn’t have been possible while actively raising children and developing my own coping skills for living life as a highly sensitive, neurodivergent person. It’s for the best, the way things unfolded.

And yet. There’s still resentment. Anger. Even rage. When I catch a whiff of anything that might prevent me from continuing on this path, with the time I have left on Earth, it pisses me off. I don’t want to be a farmer, a homesteader, a journalist, or even a lottery winner.

I want to succeed at this sacred calling, to and beyond my wildest dreams.

I want the new society to support and encourage us: the artists, entrepreneurs, and free spirits.

I want it for myself, yes, but also for all those like me.

I long for all of us to be supported in following our true callings, whatever they might be.

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