What would I think of me if I were a reader of this collection of writing? I think I would see part of the story, the part shown, and I would assume that story was complete. That the writer is mostly illuminated as the pages reflect.
I have believed this many times, entering an interesting dance with those sharing their wisdom. I both benefit greatly, slowly and also diminish a little – feeling so far from there, from where I could be, where they are.
Is it my greed for answers to be simple and permanent. Is it that I grew in a world so oriented to possessions, I can’t truly appreciate wisdom and magic as transitory and shared. They are of life and only passes through us, they are not ours, we didn’t create them and we can’t keep them, though we may care for and grow them. Wisdom and magic are just like life. I suppose that is because they come from life.
Last I wrote to you, I was lit up with being not enough. I felt free from the pursuit of enough, the expectation of it.
I said my moment of knowing would pass. I would continue my journey, the consistent-ness of it. Always, if I am lucky, just a little forward. Still on this path in this jungle, flowing through brush and weariness, pausing to bask in dapples of sun. I suspected I had moved a little forward. I had been each day prior, but that day, the day of illumination, my scenery changed some. I must still walk, that doesn’t change, but I see something new around me now. I see possibility.
Oh, I apologize, I came to write you of my stumble, to report a moment when I am not my beautiful ideals but am weary and feel broken. Yet you inspire me so. And the music is right and the day is crisp. And my scenery has changed.
Cry as I might from despair in my body that I am not sufficient and worse, feel caught in needing to be, I am far enough in this journey that the despair isn’t complete. I don’t fully buy it. I honor my moment of exhaustion. I respect the tangle of thinking, unhealthy and false as it is, as a reality of our world. I allow the crumble but I also know better. My body senses this will pass. It always has. My mind, a piece of it, trusts there are brighter perspectives in the coming trees and birds, just up ahead I will see the moss and breath deep, just a little more for sun or rain and I will open arms wide.
I can’t say today I will forget the pressures and challenges of this modern life. That today I will only focus on being alive. I can pray to Tree for this, letting it in a little. But I can’t leave the reality of me for it.
But the reality of me sits deep in my journey. I have ventured far into the jungle. The same branches and vines tangle me, effect me but I don’t panic. I am no longer lost in them. I have seen them before. I will see them again. I will move through them and out of them and into them again. My body, my mind remembers this now. As I cry and eat red kiwi, feeling failure weigh down on me.
I used to think being was only the good of life. The good was my goal. The good feelings and choices. Good circumstances and standing. But I was denying half of the magic in Earth. Life is growth, life is decay. They are bound together, not tragically but wonderfully they dance and sustain each other. Life gives to death and death gives to life. To deny the destruction, was to deny myself. I tried to run and hide from what I am. I eat the meat of tortured creatures. I reap the rewards of slave labor. I take the land and banish critters. I destroy. My cells are built from the taking of other life. No, it doesn’t need to be so horrific, so unkind but it is for now. And horrific or respectful, life fuels life. I am fueled by other life.
I always feared evil lurking inside me. The church taught me that well. But it isn’t evil and it is real. Darkness, pain, destruction are all within me. To accept that, to accept their importance and truth, allows me freedom to move within myself and explore. My secret corners that ooze something foul don’t scare me quite as much. Love is always richer in acceptance and wonder. Fear doesn’t block my reception of the life and beauty within me.
Or it does, but less so. And today I sit firmly in the less so. To be present in life today isn’t about just joy and wonder. It is also about being full of the mess of now. The mess of being a modern, city dwelling human.
So I won’t rush away from this day that is harder, where my mind feels weaker. I part sigh, part deeply breath and hunker down to my level. I let the pain come. I let the tears fall. I breath again and ask what might be done to care for the space I am in. Any gifts I have to give, any weights to release.
I won’t be my amazing me today but, then again, I still think this is all quite amazing.
-El An Gilman-