Being Displaced

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I knew I was somewhere beautiful, but totally unfamiliar. Last night, I arrived at this rustic and elegant home in Woodacre, CA after winding in and out of the red woods and rolling golden hills of Marin County, for a 10-day house and cat sit during a dear old friend, Kristin’s, vacation to Maui. There were so many details to track regarding the eccentricities of Maudi’s and Jasmine’s personalities and care, and nearly 15 years of catching up with Kristin on careers, relationships, and spiritual insights. There wasn’t nearly enough time, but I felt our connection as strongly as I ever had. She reminded me of someone, perhaps several people, in my life now – or perhaps they all remind me of her. When I was in college working my first waitressing job, I looked up to her as the grounded, courageous 23-year-old who had traveled across India alone, lived in intentional community, and been so willing to love and live in the right place at the right time, knowing when to let go. In that respect, I found her little changed and a kindred spirit at what feels like a crucial point in my life. And on reflection, I wonder how many of the dreams that have stayed with me over the years began as seeds she planted in me.

As the daylight streamed in the curtainless windows, setting a sparkle on the evergreen branches gently draping outside, I knew she and her husband David were already gone. I was hesitating to leave my little mother-in-law cottage and return to the main house to find breakfast, see what Maudi and Jasmine were up to and try to get them to warm up to me, and find my bearings in what will be my new short-term home. On entering, I was immediately dazzled by the warm light flooding from the skylights onto the rich, golden hardwood floors and inlaid furniture, colorful paintings, marble countertops, and cushioned patio. I walked silently between the rooms, almost breathless, feeling as though I were floating, suspended in a deep ocean with bits of plankton dust floating past. I felt weightless, empty, and yet incredibly warm and light. “Yes,” my spirit whispered, and a bubble of emotion rose to my throat.

One of Kristin’s many gifts is in astrology, and even though she had to pack and rise early, our conversation compelled her to print out both my birth and event charts. As she traced the symbols and lines on the two wheels, the story she told was straight out of my core. As I so often experience around a true intuitive or in my own deep meditative or dream states, what she revealed was what I already knew, but free from all the complications of my mind and fears of my heart. She validated the path I am already on, and stripped away the anxiety and tension that has been creeping up on me over the past few weeks – the struggle between an eternal spirit that is determined to unfold at its own pace and a diligent mind trying to minimize risk through practical compromise. This morning, my weightlessness was the grounded relief of clarity.

I have been going through a major transformation over the past couple of years. The old volcanic phase disrupting my sense of self is gradually giving way to a new phase of dissolving, which will grow stronger. My former sense of self is disappearing. This brings with it empowerment and opening, an energy that will be familiar to me because of my natural sense of affinity with the boundary between myself and the other world. The shadow side of this transformation is the sense of feeling lost, even despairing. I could try to create structure and make life decisions, but those efforts would not come to fruition. My time now is about being able to hold space for this sense of empowerment and find channels for self-expression.

There’s a pragmatic part of me that scoffs at the idea that my personal journey on this earth is being tracked and influenced by the stars, but this is one of many astrological readings I have received over the years that was spot-on. On the 10-hour drive down from Portland, stretched over two days, I let my mind wander wherever it wanted, and it went in two directions: towards career and towards romance. My preoccupation with both was as it has always habitually been: how to take the best action now towards a long-term goal. Despite my intention not to date during this transition, compelling men continue to appear in my life, and the process of seeing them clearly and revealing myself authentically has been complicated by my compulsion to assess their suitability for me and my life when I cannot articulate who I am or where my life is headed. And my intention to simply invest in the people and activities my body is drawn to has taken on a frantic tinge as I watch myself trying to turn moments of resonance or insight into a new career and find myself back in that loathsomely constricted mode of making lists and charts and goals.

I could take a few classes and read a few books about change management that the people I have talked to have recommended. I believe them when they say I would be good at it. I am even coming to believe I could handle the stress of honing a new, complicated skill set or starting my own consulting business. And it would be a good way to apply my gifts to a worthy cause, as well as bring in the money and prestige that comes with being a professional. Or I could follow the spark in me to commit to food justice, intern at a local urban farm, lead field trips and teach classes, and share my passion for delicious, healthy food while linking community members with their green neighbors. I could even supplement my income with selling my ceramics on-line, facilitating workshops on the female hero’s journey, or taking on some contract work in my field.

All of these possibilities hold an authentic spark of my spirit and yet every path I consider with a timeline farther out than the next few months sets a raw voice inside of me screaming and writhing. I want to name her Resistance and power past her like reasonable adults do in pursuit of the dream she distracts me from. I can’t bear being seen as a lazy, directionless, freeloader, and my pride winces every time someone asks me what I do for a living and I try, and inevitably fail, to cast my soul-searching in a professionally respectable light. I was raised to be conscientious, responsible, and self-sustaining, but my every fiber is resisting being boxed between the frigid walls I have grown accustomed to erecting for security. I will not live my life curled up and sobbing at the mercy of the world anymore. And now I understand why.

Perhaps this empowerment Kristin referred to is not about “powering through”. Perhaps it is more like “powering down”. If my soul is flooded with golden relief to drift suspended, why can’t surrendering to that and letting myself dissolve, no apologies or justifications required, be empowering? I have already released the comfort and security of my marriage, and the status and trajectory of my career. I continue to release friends new and old to pursue their separate paths, and my relationships with food and sexuality are being dismantled. If I accept that my current task is disintegration, that this is the glad sigh of my soul, can I also release my home, my community, my country?

For the first time in my life, when I am alone away from home I find a deliciously liberating and fertile space free from everything that has formerly defined me as well as the complusion to name or describe what has not yet formed. I feel a deepening sense of being grounded in something that moves with me everywhere, independent of my shifting feelings and the people around me. It is friendly and patient and rooted and wise. After years of feeling like I was ghosting the halls of my life, the walls squeezing in to eject me painfully from a world and an identity I was clinging to, I believe a time is approaching when I will chose with grace and ease the path of power, and trust that when I am called to build again, I will know with equal clarity.

Nancy

“Go willingly, or be dragged.” – unknown