July 31 24: Looking 'it' in the Eye
covered in shadow dipped into the abyss
Hello!
I have started writing this at 8:15pm July 27, 2024 as the sun sets over the western mountains. It is way past my bedtime but if I don't allow the words to flow through now while listening to FleetwoodMac they will keep me up all night.
It's taken me several days to finish writing, pick a title, edit and curate images from my available paintings. Not to mention working up the courage to hit ‘send’ on a post so personally daunting that I have barely ‘looked it in the eye’ until now.
Enjoy!
EDIT: I have expanded the original Your Practice section to include more information on the practical application of looking ‘it’ in the eye. I have included it at the end so you can fully experience today's letter without the preconceived concepts that may change how you experience my story. There is indeed a method to my madness. *chuckles* ENJOY!
The Call to Live Deeply
Sweetest Grass Roots Devotionals is about making a promise to devote time and give sacred space to our healing, our internal processes. I share my practice with you in hopes it inspires you to create your own. To show the way with words and images steeped within my subconscious tea brought to life on canvas, in songs, stories and spirit journeys. How to live more deeply within your awareness and connection of the microcosmic world, and in turn our macrocosmic universe.
I wish I could promise you that every letter I write will contain perfectly organized subjects with perfect grammar and punctuation that obviously connect the dots for you. This is a promise that I simply cannot make.
What I can hope for… is to bring you along on my adventure into spirit, to show you how simple it can be, and to share in the beauty of my liminal spaces while you learn how to find your own… to make available sign posts, trail markers, bread crumbs and pin cushions.
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Because I will not pretend to know your journey more than I know my own, I write within my experience as woman. Please change as needed for your experience on this journey… for such teachings apply to us all.
Grab a cup of tea, plate of scones and sit by the window listening to bird song while you read… for we are going on an adventure!
Love, Light & Shadows…
Isabella, Pups & Family
Weaving
I feel DEEPLY. I always have. As a child, I was chastized and shamed for it. Why couldn't I be normal? Normal back then was to be seen but not heard. The expectation that hit me first as a child and then as a woman. I wonder if this is why I kept quiet about how my mind and body were fracturing?
I know more now. I now know I was having seizures in my brain stem. Not epilepsy; the testing showed that much when I finally asked for help. Still, we are not entirely sure of the cause, and just barely aware of how to treat symptoms.
I am entirely sure of how the severity of symptoms has left me feeling ashamed, out of control, terrified and lost.
Tonight, I found a few journal entries I had written at the beginning of what would quickly turn into my own personal waking nightmare. I cried. I thought this was something I should've been able to fix.
Oh! How horrible doctors and emergency personnel made me feel when I was begging for help, begging for someone to save me because I felt with every fiber of my being that I was dying.
You know. When you're that close to death, you feel it in your core, in your depths, you know.
Everything slips from your grasp. Time, relationships, your sanity and connection to consciousness. Certainties you learned as a child about your place in the world disintegrate and you have to start over from scratch. Nothing makes sense anymore and the whole of it becomes dark, covered in shadow and dipped into the abyss.
The Flower Unfolds
Revolutionary Act
Return to our souls.
The stars burn brightly
Lightly of dust we will shine
Beads glow in the moon light.
Seeds planted will grow Returning to our Mothers
Reaping what we sow.
The lock clicks softly Within the palm of our hands
My eyes wide open.
Sitting in our hearts
Feeling the cosmos expand
Hidden doors open.
During this time I depended on the rosary. Not the official Rosary prayers that you will find in a Google search, but my own special invocation of The Mother.
I called her to sit with me in the darkness and hold my hand, to place her rose-stained mantle around me, to fill me with her light and grant me the miracle of life.
I sang songs in her honor, I called, pleaded and begged while sitting in a river of tears looking up at the moon and stars, or walking unconsciously for mile upon miles around my kitchen island.
She came. In the darkness, when the world was spinning out of control and I filled with terror and dread, she came. She held my hand, spread her mantle of roses over me, held me close whispering “Just hold on,” while stringing a halo of stars above my head for protection. She granted me the miracle of life and has continued to do so. She promises me there are no end to the miracles she can give us, if we only take the time to converse with her and ask for the miracles we need.
The string of beads I made for my petition was not an official Rosary design either. It was made up of bits and pieces of old necklaces I had made, memories, stones, glass baubles, metal and crystals strung up on thread. I wore that necklace right through in less than a year.
"Wearing the beads, holding them, it gives me a life line to hold onto when I am spinning. The Mother's Words, 'Just hold on.' Just hold on." -- Nov 26 2022 Journal Entry
All the while, spending every daylight hour hiding from the truth we didn't understand yet. Pretending to be normal with the phrase “I am fine” and a smile on repeat like a broken record. How ashamed I felt about the terror and inky black abysmal darkness that descended every night.
Ashamed of not understanding why I awoke from a dead sleep unable to move with my head pinned to the bed like a moth to a board. My heart pounding on a neighbor's door like it was being chased by a murderer. Blood pressure out of control, blood sugar too low. Muscles spasming, lurching, legs rotating like helicopter blades threatening to snap my lower spine. Vision fading, room spinning, unclear of my gravitational position while laying in my own bed as my seizing brain stem shut off my eyes and ears. Panic, terror and dread sliding down either side of my spine confronting every chakra known to woman and then some. Pooling in my pelvis, my womb, where it found it's home before trickling down like a stagnant stream into my legs and feet. Unable to speak. Unable to scream.
By the time I could move again… to all of you who answered my panicked phone calls at 2am, or came over and sat with me until the symptom cascade evened out and I felt reassured. Who talked me through it even when my speech failed and I stuttered almost incomprehensibly through what I wanted to say. For those who ran me to the emergency room and sat with me when it looked like a heart attack and stroke. To my hubby who listened and changed his work schedule to be home with me at night. Thank you. My gratitude beyond measure. I remember. I remember.
"My room became my ship… my Baba Yaga hut on chicken feet…" -- July 27 24 Journal Entry
A large part of my re-learning connections relied on the works of Maia Toll, Clark Strand & Perdita Finn, and Dr. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes. They gave me the very real tools that I needed to re-weave my lifeline and reconnect to the world.
First within myself, and then around me to rebuild foundational parts of my brain up from scratch. I didn't realize it then, but Maia and Strand & Perdita's tools and concepts took me back through the stages of childhood from infancy forward. What we experience and learn in those stages of growth promotes brain development and solidifies our reality of and connection to the world. The ultimate in cognitive physical therapy.
Clarissa became an old friend who brought to life the stories that became my container. Just barely holding my seams together while we worked in the garden with Baba Yaga composting and setting skulls atop new fence posts made of femurs. Learning how to sing sacred songs while roasting marshmallows and making smores in the desert with La Loba. She has a sense of humor you don't quite expect. Swimming in deep waters with Sedna, learning how to care for our emotional souls and playing with all the creatures in her ocean, while the cytokine storm raged above at the surface. My sisters held me softly, safely, while we waited for the doctors to heal my broken body.
Your Practice
This idea and concept of 'Turning to Look it in the eye' is an age old practice of soul reclamation. As we heal our second chakras to find happiness, joy and pleasure in life once again, we have to stop where we stand.
What are we carrying on our backs? What fear lurks beneath the surface? What event has stolen our lives from us?
When I first wrote this letter I didn't have the words to describe why sharing this personal experience was so important. That by giving words to an event that held power over me, I took my own power back.
I also work with my therapist, so know you can have a helper for your own process too. You're not in this alone.
Once upon a time, I was told to remove the emotion and personal experience from the teaching. To simply be left with the kernal of wisdom that applies to everyone else.
To me, this isnt any different than removing an active chemical compound from an herbal remedy and packaging it for commercial use.
This method does not take into account the subtleties of supporting compounds in the rest of the herb. How one component may soften the side effects of the active ingredient, while another may help boost its effectiveness. It doesn't take into account the surrounding context for the healing to take place, or the warnings that may only be found in the complete experience.
In other words, in my humble opinion, the miracle of a practice is removed. The visceral is pulled away and 'it' is scrubbed clean until it shines.
My practice has always taken place in the roots and soil of wisdom. She is not clean, shiny or new. She is deep in the muck and mire of living life. It is how she moves through the swamp mud, and thrives because of it, or regardless of it, that marks her power.
When Wisdom stops where she stands in her experience to 'Look it in the eye,' she does so with the purpose of reclaiming her power, letting go of her fears and having the courage to face forward once more to truly live life.
This is today's Sweetest Grass Roots Devotional moment of wisdom I had hoped to impart on you by sharing my own story and the very real practices that brought me through it. With this letter, I am stopping where I stand and looking 'it' in the eye to reclaim my power.
How will you choose to reclaim yours?
Sift through Today's Resources below. What resonates? What do YOU want to work with? You can choose one or two, or work with them all. It's your choice!
Following the breadcrumbs: As you read this work, what percolated up from your subconscious? Emotions? Thoughts? Images? Does my work inspire you to create one of your own?
Journal Prompt for Secret Messages: Choose an idea, word line, or entire phrasing from what I’ve written here and write down everything that comes up for you in a free-flow without censorship. Go back through and circle key words and phrases from your own writing. Is there a secret message hidden within your subconscious? Within your Soul?
Take it one step further, and continue to journal about how that secret message makes you feel. Do you agree with it? Disagree? Why? Do you have a friend who will welcome bouncing the ideas around so you may see a deeper well within your Self?
Accessing Spirit through Creation… Words, Artwork, Jewelry, DIY Rosary or Prayer Beads. Create a more physical practice through Yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Nature Walks and more! Pick one or two for your practice today and see what happens! Don’t forget to journal about it so your future self will have a road map on challenging days.
Today's Resources
Line “…to make available sign posts, trail markers, bread crumbs and pin cushions.” : Refers to all the different sign posts and trail markers that you might find in fairy tales and wisdom stories. Bread crumbs famously found in Hansel and Gretel, and following the pin cushion comes from my family’s deep dark forest roots across the ocean.
Poetry/Quotes: Unless otherwise stated, I wrote it :) IEM 2024
My Journal Entries: Dated 2022, 2024. I mostly included the poetry and spiritual references. The entries that featured how I thought I should be able to fix myself were simply too painful and personal to share.
The main poem was written when I was working with Maia Toll's book, The Night School. I was between lessons 4 and 5 when I drew a card from the moonlit deck challenging me to write a haiku poem. I haven't written a haiku since elementary school. Such a simple thing to do that brought so much insight.
My Paintings:
The Moon copyright IEM 2019.
The Madonna: Every Woman copyright IEM 2011.
Spirit Mountain copyright IEM 2010, signed as Moon Eagle.
Global Sisterhood: Working with the Yawanawa tribe of the Amzon learning sacred songs and mediumship.
Maia Toll (book): The Night School
Clark Strand & Perdita Flynn (book): Way of the Rose
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes (book): Women Who Run with the Wolves
Of course, everything and anything these fabulous women have written will be helpful to your journey!
What We’ve been up to
Starting to Re-Read:
The Black Company Series of The White Rose. Its slow going, as I've seem to have lost interest after the first book.
Still Actively Reading:
Earth Acupuncture: Healing the Living Landscape by Gail Reichstein
Wood Becomes Water by Gail Reichstein
Eastern Body, Western Mind by Anodea Judith
Watching:
Supernatural on Netflix
Listening:
Enya's: The Memory of Trees
Practical Magic: movie soundtrack
Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac
Quotes:
“When people are willing to engage their body, mind and spirit without holding back or trying to control the outcome, shift happens at a quantum level. Somewhere deep inside, cells and molecules and tissues learn to completely reconfigure themselves, leading to exciting changes at all levels of being.” - Gail Reichstein, Earth Acupuncture General Life:
I am learning how to work with the Living Landscape of my yard to create a sense of renewal and balance; to reconnect in a conscious and purpose-filled way.
I am starting with a grove of trees that I've tended for the last several years from infancy upward. The area has become grey with neglect due to my lack of function, and I hope to remedy this as I come back into myself as well.
Shadow sparked the interest because she has an absolute fascination with that part of the yard, but it doesn't feel safe for her to play there. So we will make it safe for her. Just another alert she has given me for the work we still need to do together.
As I converse with trees and bugs, I am starting the energy shift internally. Hubby and I will be moving furniture around in the house to fit within the Feng Shui model.
This weekend is mom's birthday. A reminder that she is no longer with us. Since she was the first one to introduce me to Feng Shui, it feels a fitting way to celebrate. And maybe cake. She loved a good Black Magic cake too.
See Gail Reichstein's books in Today's Resources if you feel a call to connect with your home and land in a similar way. Her books come complete with easy to follow instructions.
Love, Light & Shadows,
Isabella, Pups & Family
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