I used to be afraid of my own feelings, because they reminded me of my own powerlessness. But then I learned how to hold my fears with bravery, and found that I was able to peer deeply through my own window into the collective darkness. There, I discovered that my feelings, especially the most tender and vulnerable ones, were sourced from a powerful deep-knowing within me.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes states in Women Who Run With the Wolves:
If you don’t go out in the woods, nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.
This quote has remained scrawled in purple dry erase marker on a large, circular mirror in my creative space for the past two years now, and has been a keystone in my journey through life-changing self-actualization - constantly holding me accountable to listen to my heart, respect the knowledge of my shadow self, and venture forth with meaningful intent.
Nearly two weeks ago now, my New Moon in Sagittarius Rite of Self-Love commenced with making a custom tea blend for the 2019 Sister Space Apprentice program. The teachers who helped inform the energetic medicine for this tea blend were workshop facilitators from the 2019 Portland Plant Medicine Gathering: Andrea Thompson, Fern Tallos, Shayne Case, and Brunem Warshaw. And the plants themselves, of course, were also my teachers for this blend! The plants are always ready to remind folx that life is a system connecting us to one another, to own healing, and to collective healing for all life on our tender, wounded, beautiful, intelligent planet.
As I pounded open the hard and heart protecting hawthorn berries to add to the tea blend, I ground into them with vigor as a way to release the ghosts of self-doubt and co-dependency. I did a tea reading with my friend, Jess, a few days after this ritual with this blend, and she pointed out that the other side of co-dependency isn’t independence, it’s interdependence. The aromatic residual oils of frankincense and myrrh resins which had been ground in my mortar and pestle prior to this ritual insinuated their sacred characteristics into the dried, broken hawthorn berry fruit, sanctifying their healing purpose. These plants recognized their interdependence, shouting out to my senses to remind me of that dynamic.
By the end of this process rosemary, rose petals, nettles, hawthorn berry, marshmallow, and dandelion root had been carefully measured with intuitive precision and incorporated to form the Reconcile, Resource & Reconnect herbal tisane blend. I took a dropper full of the Fog Friend for Grief flower essence made by Monica Choy and brewed myself a cup of this new 3 R’s tea…with a small scoop of blueberry honey.
I used these potions as agents for my own healing New Moon ritual, and faced my West altar, the way of “water, heart, blood, and our emotional body” (Case). The first baby Heart Pillow that I made 10 years ago as an exploration into variant forms of love, comfort, and discomfort greeted me along with the big, juicy New Moon: Belly and Milky paintings I made with thick, and delicate drips of gouache two years ago. Sipping and smelling the tea, then holding my energetic heart center I called in affirmations of self-love: I love you, Tyler. I love you, Tyler. I love you, Tyler. I will always be here to love you, Tyler. Tears poured down my face. I cried from an overwhelming font of self-love. I cried to return my grief to the watery wisdom of the moon. I cried for my tender, giving heart. I cried for the heartache of all the lives dear to me that have departed this plane. I cried to release ancestral wounds and wounding. I cried for the parts of me that have passed on, shed like spider mother’s shell, no longer to be of service to the deeper knowing part of me whom is rising into her power. My deeper knowing self holds me in a protective container of love.
Once my font of grief and joy had dissipated, I faced my North altar, the direction of “earth, the physical body, the blood line, and the elders” (Case). There is a vanity at this altar that has been passed down to me through a few family home generations; my sister and I wore the wood polish down to the veneer splashing water onto it in our childhood bath times, pretending to be the Little Mermaid or playing bubble bath bartender for one another. l gazed at myself in the mirror, and was so struck by the beauty of release and self-love affirmations. So I took the photo you see above, so I wouldn’t forget how good it feels to steadfastly love myself and let myself be held in love.
The folx that shared in the 2018 Sister Space Apprentice program will readily recall how terribly emotionally detached I was for the first half+ of our healing time together. I was constantly holding back my tears; most everyone had no idea that I was even holding back tears! I was afraid to be vulnerable in my wounded-ness with a group of womxn I was tentatively learning to trust. Rachel Hines who founded the School for Creative Healing Womxn, at my request, finally helped me release the protective shells that were guarding my heart last Winter - my heart was finally broken open anew, and I was able to access my grief in streams of tears. I felt so much lighter, and so held in support by Rachel and my co-apprentices. But the work is never done. It goes on and on.
This apprentice group also had an extremely powerful intuitive, Carrie, who during a later session helped me discover that I was intentionally leaving my body so that my own residual grief could not be seen. She called me back into my body with the most beautiful and vulnerable story of a time that she had been very forcefully called back into her own body. Carrie is a powerful witch, and her loving sight has challenged me to let myself be seen, receive love, and give love. I love you, Carrie! I’m crying again as I type this, holding my heart and facing West, but I think Carrie can already sense that.
Crying is such a healing agent of release, growth, and transformation. I think of a friend’s gorgeous, painted self-portrait of themselves as a crying, bull-horned man, and I recall how those tears shared are, to me, a radical connection to the collective font of grief that we all hold.
Let’s keep holding one another in a protective container of grief, love, and collective accountability to show up embodied and present in our emotional bodies. We can wade protected and held through the watery darkness together, bathed in the ever healing light of this precious life.