I was just given the most wonderful dream.
It was born of a truth so deep, I am still in awe. A deep truth, the mixing of me and Earth and Sun.
Am I being vague and coy with its contents? Delicious, I think I love being coy. I haven’t told anyone I know about this blog. I enjoy the shadows and the light. I enjoy putting myself out there and hanging back. I love it. I am an ebb and a flow.
My body is still tingling. I asked Earth “what is your plan? I bet you have one and it is great,” as I drifted to sleep last night. All my lessons and expressions of life pitter pattered me to this question. It was a relief to hold it, this knowledge – Earth has got this. Earth, a powerful collection of its own life with a story longer and more intricate than one piece of it could ever know. It is doing something with us, with it all. Is it scary to believe this, to forgo the conviction of doom? No, it is the most freeing thing. Is it something to write it down knowing I will put it out in the world? Yes, that is something.
But right now I sit in the early morning with drizzle in my ear and dogs near and reverberate from the gift of trusting Earth.
And that is it, trust. The core of it. Not pity or fear or dominance or… worry. These relational dynamics we were taught to express in all relationships, even the ones we hold with ourselves, the are… well they are reality but they aren’t truth. The don’t liberate or empower or hit so deep we become rooted trees in their presence. But trust, to trust Earth. To sink in and say – I am with you, for you, of you on this journey you are on. I love being here with you. I trust the mixture of beauty and pain you are, the give and take, life and destruction. I trust you want me here, I am part of you. I trust when it is time to release your energy from my body so you may share it elsewhere. I trust your story, your path and your choices are beautiful and dynamic. I trust I am here to be your eyes seeing and brain noticing you. I trust you crave the rapid learning and creating and evolution that is humanity. I trust your pain and your beauty, knowing it is your dance of life, yours more than ours. I am here to exist as you, with you, to be in wonder.
That is the truth that has got me growing roots and tingling in my fingers.
In my dream I was given the Sun. I have paid Sun little mind, focusing on my roots, on my home. But now I can receive its power. Now our relationship is known to me. In Sun, Earth grows. A ball of fire, Earth collects and receives its energy. In Earth, does Sun get to do something beautiful. Otherwise alone in the vastness that is space, it can travel all the way to us and become something. A magnificent partnership. Now I see how those two mix and dance to form all around me. Now I feel their magic within me. Delicious. Delightful.
Bam, bam, bam and here I stand released and alive. All expectations (well many) slid off of me to give me this moment. I didn’t know it would come but I was preparing for it all week. I was opening myself to and learning the idea that all I believed I needed to be was born from fallacy. Nothing to do with who I am. An obvious truth I have known for years. But let me write on it now because this is my connection moment. When on speck of knowing connects with many others acquired in my body and I light up with the whole truth of it.
One truth scattered throughout me is the knowledge we were built for something else. We evolved to live differently – in community, closer to Earth, interacting with other creatures. Our sudden progress, as it’s often called, ripped all that away from us. We are isolated, no longer flowing between silent, collective labor, intimate moments, rituals and meals always with our people and land. We are alone now. And we haven’t found new ways to meet these ancient needs. So we cope and are diminished.
But here is another truth I have been exploring as well – the expectations we have constructed are unrealistic. Think of them all – how we are supposed to show up and succeed at work, care for our homes, acquire items, acquire skills, be with friends and family, raise our kids, protect them from the world, care for our bodies, cook our meals, sleep, exercise, pets, appearance, inner balance… I mean it is a ridiculous list, with most of our time going to work. And who succeeds? I haven’t seen one person who I have felt succeeds in all the important things. In some of them sure, but never all. And yet, these expectations are our dearest possession. I mean that. We cling to them and they cling to us. I have known of their falseness for years now but still they plague me. I can’t shake them, not overnight. Still I undermine and ignore all the beautiful effort and love and care I choose and share in a day because I couldn’t engage in all that is important. Because truly valuable things didn’t happen. And many things only kind of happened. So day after day, I am insufficient. I become weary under this. I am worn.
Finally, the last truth cultivated and spread throughout me is the hum of my body. Slowly I learn my body deserves my time, my attention. My brain is not king and does well to practice release of control and dominance. My body deserves my deepest trust. It wants to and must be allowed to exist, express itself and be a bastion of experience and knowledge. A mystery to my thoughts and logic. A place of unknown and discovery.
This week all these years of slow learning swirled together into a freeing truth – we were not built for this type of life we lead, these expectations have little to do with who we are or what we can accomplish. I finally knew I truly was not capable of succeeding at all I deem, society deems necessary. I genuinely can’t. I am isolated, indoors, inactive like most around me. I was taught a list of stuff I need to do to be enough. The list is too big and it works well only for those who made it. Not in fueling their great balance and fulfillment but in maintaining their power. Focusing on the never ending requirements for a full life keeps me trapped and distracted. I am out of my power, letting it spill out of me everyday, most moments. It is our worlds structure right now, it works like a gear to keep it all turning. But I am lost, so lost.
And the answer isn’t that the list just needs to be smaller. I can’t trim the list. Trim what – caring for my dogs, sleep, work? All, all of it matters. So if it all matters but is impossible…
No, not despair but here I find my freedom. I am not going to be good at it all. That is impossible. I may not do many things well, I may not do many things at all. So if that is not who I am, not who we are, then what am I , who am I, who are we. And see there, there is the release, sitting happily in the curiosity and wonder. Who might I be today? I want to know that person, engage with them, flow with them through it all. Through labor and rest, joy and sadness, I am there living this life, witnessing, processing, learning as Earth taught me to do.
And you know what, my reader, this wasn’t a blip that flashed briefly and we all went on, life and I. This was a connection, my whole being illuminated with all points aligning. So I am bright with this knowledge. It likely will ebb again, to be added to and found again. But I am enjoying the light of it and know in some way, maybe small, maybe just one, I am permanently changed.
So let me enjoy my dream where I sat at a café table receiving sun and gratitude and shared it all in gentle ways to the beautiful pregnant women sitting across from me. Maybe she was me. Maybe she was all of us, Earth and Sun included.
-El An Gilman-