Wander 7: Who is Calling?

A Note for Next Time:

The NEXT BLOG is YOURS. For the next New Moon wander on July 20th, I invite you to send me your own wanderings—however you wish to express them—be it a writing, an artwork, a photograph of some place that can be posted. A couple of these have come my way already—thank you—and I’d love to have more folks share. When you send, if there’s a specific wander post you’re tying it to, please note it for me, and any other info you’d like to include. Please send them before July 18th if possible—but feel free to send always. 

Post-Full Moon Wander

I am late to this Wander. I had some things I needed to put down before I was able to complete this. Perhaps it was the Lunar Eclipse on this Full Moon marking the day of our government’s birth, and our understanding of ourselves as a nation of people on a certain land, who hope they are beholden no more to tyranny of old ideas.

The tyranny I wrestle with, and who was winning heavily last week is the perfectionist critic of myself. In the guise of trying to be good, she sets out impossible and contradictory hurdles in my psyche, my body. Sometimes I can see these hurdles for what they are and can gracefully take steps to avoid them. Other times a part of me wields them like clubs and I thrash and succumb, unable to get out of the trap. I know my rights, but I can’t seem to access them, and she doesn’t seem to care in these moments. It is an internal brutality. It exhausts me, and disconnects me from what I wish to value and cultivate—this part of me that feels she must carry a weight of the world that is impossible. She asks me commit to an eternal inadequacy.

What is different now when this happens than when I used to live my life completely in this cover is that I know it will eventually end. I trust that eventually the part of myself entrusted to Spirit will find a way to breathe and quiet these hurting voices within. I don’t know how long it takes sometimes. Sometimes it has taken years, sometimes only days, but she is powerful and she is connected to the deepest resources. It seems that becoming a mother—something I felt I was never cut out to do—has dredged up another set of perfectionistic heirlooms that I must sort through.

I have been finding this acted out in my wanders in the yard here. The house I lived in from 5-18, and now again at a fast-ending 36, was built in 1857. As a child, I remember being told to put shoes on outside because of the broken glass that would sometimes appear there—I am not very interested in wearing shoes. Over this spring and summer, I have been finding more and more shards that the earth seems to be pushing up. More than I have ever seen—exponentially increasing. Blue, white, clear, brown, green, ceramic. Most of them not very interesting—a few that merit a second look and feel—but mostly just very sharp pieces of glass, discarded in a different time, now revealing themselves, ready to cut. At one point I decided I would consciously collect them. It seemed like a way to embody looking at the broken history and currency of racism in this country, in myself. It may have been a little forced. I wanted to see too if something new could be creatively done with them. But when I look at the bowl of shards I have collected, or at them spread out on the bench, I don’t feel inspired. I feel like they are just broken bits of sharp glass from a home built in an economy of enslaved people, sharp pieces of glass whose reflection is distorted reality. And I feel like this process of Earth pushing out these sharp pieces that are not her in her natural state is how this time is pushing up all this pain in me. In our country. It is easy for me to get overwhelmed by all the glass. And to forget the Force and the Beauty that is pushing them up, moving tectonic plates, so that there might be a recreation.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to visit land that my family has been stewards of for a long time. For the first time, Robin encountered creeks, breezes that move a whole forest, and the feeling of living outside 90% of the time and 10% indoors, as opposed to the other way around.

There is more to say about this place, but for now, this is the wander I wanted to share:

This week’s invitation is to wander with a part of yourself that is asking for attention—maybe this a child part of you whether they are showing up as protector, saboteur, sadness, irritation, isolation. If it feels right, go outside with them, let them lead the way. Or perhaps you sense they are asking just for some time with you, or to paint with you, or to lie in bed and take a nap with them. See what they need from you. As my mom has told me over the years, Love with children is spelled T-I-M-E. 

As I sat there in a rocking chair, baby asleep, family departed, and with the shards of self criticism sticking out of me, I started verbally stating my inadequacy to the tasks at hand out-loud. I began to describe the little girl of me who wants to be good, to be impossibly, and (undesirably!) perfect. As I talked she slowly came into view, standing a little ahead of me. As I continued to describe her, I felt my heart pushing out the shards further. Her true image emerged. She ran to me in the rocker and I held her. She felt so good. She ran into the field and took off all her clothes and beckoned me to come. I was smiling but told her “I love watching you, but I’m too tired to come.” And then something happened. Then I had left my clothes behind and was out in the field, with this tired and changed mother’s body, running laps around the field, doing cartwheels and somersaults.

Today I find my body bitten from head to toe. Whether from this ecstasy or another walk in the woods, I am imagining each a place where the shard was plucked out.

Remember to send your thoughts for next time.