Its just as well I had the session with the Maori astrologer in June this year. In her Jungian language, she warned of rough seas from July though to October, and that it would be wise to find shelter out of the cities, far from the noise, traffic and intensity. To commune with nature.
The western cedar house in Mullumbimby was the perfect hide-out for the winter months. I had spectacular days at Brunswick Beach whilst the whales migrated south, days of sun and squalls, days of multiple rainbows and pods of dolphins surfing transparent waves in perfect unison. The days which most arrested and shocked me were clear sky days when I strolled along the breakwater, the Brunswick River flowing in to meet the sea, days when this ocean-river water ran luminously clear to magnify the different schools of fish racing along the rocks, suddenly herded by a dolphin cow with her calf, a flash of deep grey.
The two of them came back a few days in a row, swimming right up to a delighted couple lolling in the delicious water. And on my last trip to the beach where the river yet again granted me the clarity of an aquarium, a sea eagle dropped down to catch a fish and soared up and into the coastal forest.
What tremendous blessings I had for those six weeks, to be that close to nature.
The astrologer had warned that I would be faced with a choice during this time – I could either keep doing the psychotherapeutic work I did or finally turn towards and honour my creativity. Knowing that I had been avoiding writing something comprehensive for years, The Book that had been stewing away on the back-burner by now nursed a nasty burnt crust, it had waited so long, probably twenty years. So I seized the rare opportunity of time off and enrolled in a ten month online writing course.
And this has been my companion since the 25th July, the daily ritual of following the teachings and taking chances on material that seems to want to be written. Some days the discomfort wrings me out, but I know myself well enough that I simply have to show up and write something daily, I must and I will, and I am bound by the investment I have made and am far too tight to squander the money I have paid for this course!
Some days I read what I have written and my confidence is renewed that I can actually do this. Other days, like the last few, are far too bleak, and the material feels dull and that it has a limited shelf life.
Thankfully, our course is peppered with encouragement, quotes drilling into us to simply write everyday. So I do. The last few days I have felt nauseated by the novel, and missed the spontaneity of daily observation. And I have missed my blog, and the medium it offers. So, back I am in blog-land, perhaps not daily, but certainly, I love the platform to interact with the world that it offers. A kind of scrap book of ideas.
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I mentioned that the astrologer said there would be a choice. It came hard and fast and my fondness for earning money magnetised me. At the very last minute, I was offered a week’s work, to facilitate a workshop, which is what I do. And of course I said yes, even though I didn’t have the right clothes, nor was I in my usual crisp working frame of mind. I was somewhat woolly, but I have extensive experience and proficiency in this work, so I said yes. Not knowing that I was pulling on the cord that would ring the bell, the death knell to my career.
Dramatic sounding? Perhaps, but let me tell you that since the 8th July, nothing has been the same. I had no idea that one could feel like this, that one could end up in the shower, something like this:
The hot water rained from the showerhead and she let the silent tears glob out and mix with the chlorinated water. “I’m all broken,” the thought nearly came out loud, but she didn’t want her mother down the hallway to hear her.
“I’m all broken and I just can’t handle anymore. I get so flooded by company, by people, how am I ever going to manage letting anyone love me, letting anyone in? My nerves are frayed after three months off and I’m shattered.” A little girl in a 43 year old body. “Restoring furniture, quiet, in a cool old shopfront or garage, now that sounds appealing, but my head hurts, my neck feels twisted and this lump, here, at the base of my skull, this lump of muscle is pulling all of my bones out of their rightful places.”
She cried and let the sadness take form in the tears and snot, felt the pain ease in the left side of her head, and a valve in her heart that had been gathering despair empty out, pour out the weight and let it wash into the water that connects all waters.
“Better. Better for letting it move and come out of the body,” she whispered, as she towelled herself down, the thick blue cotton soft on her thin skin. Able to function now, without donning a brittle surface that would crack at the first dialogue and either splinter into dangerous shards or icicle coolness, the door to her heart near frozen.
“Better.” It was just now, only now that she had to deal with. Only now.
They call it Burn Out. It’s a good term, apt. If you can picture a human form, then see the nervous system alive in it, perhaps see it in fluorescent green so that you get a sense of the phenomenal speed and variety of ceaseless activity is entertains, and then imagine all the peripheral endings singed, burnt, so that the neurological traffic hits walls, creating shortages, you may even hear a metallic voice blurting “system overload” or smell electrical burning, but that would make it funny, which sometimes it really has to be.
So one’s capacity, let me own it, my capacity for life is different. On a bad day I would say its impaired, damaged, broken. But perhaps its just different. My sense of presence in very expanded, now that I live this slow life, I see colours more intensely, I get messages from people’s bodies when I massage them, so yes, something has been broken, cracked, something has fragmented, but perhaps this is what is needed when we have constructed a concrete shelter around our being. That its needs to dissemble, so that we can feel again.
I like the tenderness I feel. I am making friends with my soul. I am listening, I take time every day to be with my soul.
In the last week my divine friend R suggested I find the original hope that I held BEFORE the shock of being human kicked in. Before the trauma, the attachment, before the story. And my original hope was that I be treasured, loved, held and protected. Which is what I would love from a man whom I am calling in.
And I am thrilled to be finding in myself, to be treasuring my own heart, making decisions that value and protect me. And I guess I would never have done this had I said no to that last minute workshop, that smashed me up against a wall I had never met before.
