Guided through desert thickets Past abandoned couches And rough patches of bright sunflower faces I find my place
I can’t quite prove it Or anything really, anymore But I’m grasping at believing The ancient ones guided.
I place my hand on the still cool desert clay Sharp edges of shale pierce alive I kneel I ask permission
I ask permission
I offer
I wait.
I listen for them
Here in this circle
I listen for direction
The wind blows gently
It is my only evidence
Life in the barren lands of battle
Is quiet
Now.
I wait
I listen
There seems only to be silence
I tell myself to be patient
As the old well of grief rises
Bursting from lacrimal glands
Trailing wet and salty down cheekbones
Silence
Have I come
Thousands of miles
For no real reason?
Do I fabricate this entire experience
To make myself matter
To make myself…good?
Where are you?
Have you left me?
A penance of separation
Forever?
I feel the well-worn channels of sorrow
I feel the clutching in my chest
Like vines holding captive
I let them bind me
I let the tears of longing
Drip onto the dry earth
I sit
In this great, great Silence.
And then
The tears
Of shame, abandonment
Transform to rivers
Flowing rivers
Across this dry desert skin
Of apology
For all my relations
For this wetness
To matter
To…heal?
Sounds of chirping birds
Call out in the distance
My heart jumps
Hoping they will grace me
Help me feel
Help me heal.
The birds keep their distance
And I sigh.
But Bee, Wasp and Fly
Buzz incessantly near
And Ant
His bite makes me wonder
Of the small and subtle
Spirits of place, greeting
I allow for this possibility
I let myself believe
Again.
Around my body
The quiet thicket holds me
And I let the silence
The soft wind ruffling
The crawling and buzzing ones
I let it be enough.
I start to sing
I howl
I cry
I babble
I hover
I build a circle of stones
I adorn
I lay the corn
I lay the pine nuts
I let it be enough.
Me
The silence
And this possibility.
I leap over the great chasm
Of myself
I recognize my place
In the bigness of things
Even seemingly silent things
I let my grief
And these salty tears
And the ghosts of bloody battles
Hidden
Deep
Beneath
The
Weathered
Cracks
I let it
Be enough.
.
~Written for “Sanctuary,” a women’s literary collection soon to be published by Red Earth Press, ed. Pamela Eakins.
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I have been in the Salt Lake City area for the last few weeks, meeting Mormon family members for the first time, seeing where my 1800’s ancestors built their first homes and family after making the long journey in covered wagons. They were escaping persecution from others for their beliefs, and were seeking sanctuary to live in peace. Ironically, and sadly, the area they migrated to was already inhabited by communities of people–and in their unconscious “settling” of the land, these indigenous ones were persecuted and pushed out by the same Mormons.
This is why I lay down my heart on the land and made reparations. In my blood pumps the blood of those people who came, colonized and disrespected the indigenous of Salt Lake…the Ute people, the Goshute. The small amount of time and effort I put won’t ever equal the tragedies that occurred on the land, but I knew I needed to at least show up, eyes wide open.
Old ways of being and seeing our journey are no longer working, crumbling even,
around us.
Let us find a new way.
Let us use the magick…of re-membering…to open a road together.
Let us look deeply into where we’ve been, where we are and why we’ve come here.
Let us breathe new life into the story.
Let us open a new way,
At this crossroads,
Together.
.
I woke this morning, with this poem running through my mind. It is a first attempt at describing the work I want to offer in service to others, a way to verbalize the many strands of the web that wants to work through me. It is an offering called Re-Storying, and it seeks to help people look at their stories, especially stories around illness and shadow, and to see these stories in a new, more empowering way.
It has taken me a long time to feel confident enough to say I have something to share that will help others, not because I think I am a horrible person, but because I still struggle. Something in me feels like I somehow have to be perfect in order to be qualified to assist another through their darkness.
But I’m not perfect, and that’s okay. That’s the old story I am breaking free from, my own crossroads. Of whether to keep hiding what I’m here to give because I haven’t reached some sort of Holy Grail…or to step forward with my heart’s longing to help and to see what my perfectly imperfect life can lend others in their search for wholeness.
What I do realize is that I have taken a life that is filled with typically shame-inducing experiences and have managed to re-story it into one of deep initiation and sacredness. I have written about this in my memoir, Food Memories, but I have also spent the past twenty years actively living out and believing in that re-framing. I have chosen to not let the cultural projections of what I’ve been through, including even the Recovery culture, deter me. Don’t get me wrong…I have fallen over and over again into forgetting who I am and what the hell I’m doing here. I have wept and doubted myself and my attempts to re-member myself, my true story, in the sheer intensity of the projections that sought to tame me.
I am not perfect. But I do feel that my journey, and that imperfection is incredibly sacred. And that is what I think I have to offer, helping others find that in themselves no matter where they are in their life process.
I am Letting Go of the story that I am confused. I am Letting Go of the story that I don’t know what I am talking about. I am Letting go that I have nothing to offer. Or perhaps, it is indeed that I have Nothing to offer, that beautiful place of sitting in the not knowing and finding magick arising from it. I am Letting Go of the story that even Nothing, silence, presence is somehow unfit to offer others in their time of need.
Perhaps, like the Phoenix rising, there is a new story within me that desires to be told. One that includes accompanying you, and the remembering of your equally amazing and sacred journey, together. Even in these incredibly crazy times, can we find a way?
Let us open this road, together.
*Thanks for reading! If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I’ve referenced for this post, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:
For months The line of 50 Has been uncrossable But now, after proper reflection The Seven are added
.
Nausea acidic hurl Sloshes to and fro She doesn’t want this The fermented bubbly excuse For an oasis in the desert
.
Why is it That 100 is so damned difficult The feeling of fullness so terrifying That absurdities, ones that Don’t Really Even Matter Rule the breath filled day?
.
Once again the Seven join Despite what illogical regimen surrounds Once again Bootstraps are pulled Victimy box dancing child Invited to
Get Up Off The Floor
Why does the forgetting commence? Surely depth, some great alchemical equation
*Thanks for reading and following my journey. I now return to the Void to see what next arises :}
**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I’ve been referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:
For the next two weeks I am choosing to explain my re-enactment in prose form. These are my last two opportunities to re-experience the ending chapters of my memoir, “Food Memories,” and I’d like to say more than a poem can about them and my process :}
This week, I chose to re-enact the memory of me going to Rite-Aid to challenge myself with an ice cream cone for afternoon snack. This wasn’t a long-ago memory, it was just a few years ago in 2016 that I decided to put myself through day treatment to help me with eating issues after a long time struggling alone.
In the memory, the dietician suggested I choose something that brought back good memories, to go purchase and allow myself to enjoy that. If you’ve been on this journey with me from the beginning, or have read my book, you’ll remember that Vanilla Ice Cream was my first food memory, and was one particularly filled with joy. So it was this food that I wanted to challenge myself that day.
What ended up happening in the original memory is a full-body freezing response to some sort of unknown sexual trauma. It surfaced as I stood outside of the Rite Aid, licking the dripping white liquid, feeling it run down my hands, feeling people in cars passing by, watching. And what snapped me out of it was a crow, hopping on the telephone line above me, catching my attention.
Fast forward to this weekend, when I chose to go to the neighborhood Rite Aid to re-enact the memory.
As I was planning to head out, a friend asked if I wanted to connect, and I said I was doing a few things if she’d like to join me. I chose to let her into this experience, trusting what it would bring.
I met her in the parking lot, as as we walked towards each other I saw she had something in her hand. When she came closer, I recognized she was carrying a picture of a crow. “My friend said she wanted you to have it.” She smiled.
I didn’t think much of it at the moment, except that it was a sweet gesture from someone I didn’t really know.
We walked over to the Rite Aid and entered the whoosh of the automatic doors, the coolness meeting our skin. My friend excused herself to look for another item while I went to order my ice cream. I saw the “Chocolate Malted Crunch” flavor I also loved as a kid and for a moment wondered if I should get this flavor. I decided to stick with Vanilla for the memory’s sake.
I stepped up to the counter and there was a family of four treating themselves to various cones and scoops. They were all “overweight” body types in the societal judgement of things, except for the little girl that was with them. The clerk serving them was also of this type. I noted this as a possible synchronicity to explore.
But what was also occurring while standing there waiting was this weird hidden shame feeling. The family was acting jovial and cheery, but as I do not fall into that body type I was feeling all of these kinds of comparison, self-judgments, etc, in the field. I am not sure if it was mine or theirs or what. I just felt it.
Another thing to note.
As I approached the counter, I noticed that the clerk wouldn’t look me in the eye, and was fidgeting a lot to avoid direct contact. Again, not ever sure what is mine and what is another’s, I approached him with gentleness and tried to make the interaction as clean as possible. I tried to engage him about what its like working during the summer at the ice cream counter, the rushes, etc (I did this too at that age). He didn’t seem to understand me, and was fumbling. Again, I tried to send good energy to the whole situation, to not create as little embarrassment/weirdness as possible.
That interaction complete, I met back up with my friend and we went for a walk in the gardens outside while I ate. I was a bit nervous of what might happen outside, if I would face a synchronistic sexist comment or situation that would remind me of that day in 2016. But I did not. I was simply surrounded by plant and human friend, strolling in the sunshine, eating an ice cream cone like a “normal person.”
I did struggle with whether or not to eat the cone at the end, and deciding that the ice cream was a big enough challenge, chose not to. (Later I thought about it and realized that this used to be my favorite part, eating the dribbly creaminess and crunching cone all together…I had a full on craving and visual experience of how good that was…and wondered why I didn’t remember this in the moment.)
My friend and I sat in a park afterwards and talked about spirit encounters, Brazilian psychics and agnostic ideas for balance lol. It was a good day.
In reflecting about the experience, I thought about how it both related to the original memory…as well as how it helped me heal/deepen into it. While it wasn’t crystal clear as in some memory re-enactments I’ve had, I do feel there were interesting bits.
Crow, once again, being with me, seemingly helping me to stay present.
The viewing (and possible empathic feeling) of people’s self-judgments about their bodies, about enjoying their senses, as if I was getting an opportunity to see what my own shadow energies around my body and sensuality shame were…from a distance. Without it totally taking me over, immobilizing me.
And then the fact that I was not alone, that my friend met me and was with me. She did not eat with me, but she was with me…which is a rare thing: me eating with others around. Letting her see me want/desire something, letting her see me purchase it and eat it with joy…this was healing. The fact that there wasn’t a gnarly sexual issue that came up was refreshing too. The fact that I could enjoy this, simply eating an ice cream cone without drama, was refreshing.
Thanks, crow.
Thanks, family.
Thanks, nervous server guy.
Thanks, friend.
And thanks, Rite Aid Vanilla Ice Cream.
.
Ps. Next time I’ll eat the cone.
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*Thanks for reading! Please join me next week as I re-create the food memory, “Egg Salad Sandwich.”I’ve been re-enacting these memories chronologically from my memoir, and this will be the very last one!
**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:
Letting Go 