“Let your heart and mind meet amiably in the middle. Find the sweet spot at home, and invite high-quality goodness in. Shoo trouble out the back door, with a cheerful heart and a sincere goodbye. Settle easily into yourself.”
I was having some difficulty this morning settling on my focus for this post, so I decided to draw a card from my Field Guide Deck by Lori Pollock & Julianna Bright. The quote above is the companion text to the card that I drew (the illustrated card is represented above here in today’s post photo).
Whoo hoo!!! I drew the Yarrow card! I have had this deck for maybe 6 months, and this is the first time that I have drawn this lovely, gentle card. I always think of yarrow as the Warrior plant, so it was especially wonderful to draw a new interpretation of their medicine into my life today. Perhaps now is a good moment to reassign it the role as Gentle Protector.
Over the past month+ I have been delving into a new job working mainly with young girls, and I see it as an opportunity to share and be vulnerable with them, accompanied by my expanding new tool bag of full-hearted compassion. I was working mainly with adults for many years, which poses its own unique interpersonal challenges. Similarly, this new work is not all easy, and I cannot perfectly rise to each challenge in the moment, but I am trying to remain present for it all: “Settle easily into yourself.” Yeah, wow, that’s a tall order, but I’m here for it.
I cannot solve every problem or discomfort for the young people that I work with, but I can facilitate and hold space for them and listen. I have worked with small humans before, and while the general vibe of my interpersonal tool bag is similar in many ways to ones that I have used previously for work with youth, something is radically different. “Let your heart and mind meet amiably in the middle.” I still want to be the perfect guide, but now I know in the moment that I am not. With that realization, I hold compassion for my journey while I provide understanding for the journey of each child that I am spending time with from week to week. I wonder what we can teach each other this week.
I think now of ways I can carry the spiritual medicine of yarrow with me in these new learning spaces. Gentle Protector, will you walk this new path with me, and assist in affirming some new boundaries for myself and those with whom I make space? As we walk this new path together I envision myself creating new opportunities to hold and protect my own pain, shame, and frustrations around being imperfect with a more gentle and tender grasp - less white-knuckled clutching from a defensive place of intense fear.
“Shoo trouble out the back door, with a cheerful heart and a sincere goodbye.”
New patterns, paths, and present-ness take time. The new tool bag isn’t fundamentally different in shape, size, or weight, but I think I see each tool in a new context now. I’m ready to start believing that I deserve to, “Find the sweet spot at home, and invite high-quality goodness in.”