Listen for the sound of your heart…freed and freeing

This, a line from this morning’s opening poem–"What to do in the Belly of a Whale"–comes after drawing a Soul Tarot card, receiving The Devil for consideration today. A beautiful card, actually, with a golden tinted sky, easing into grey; a huge chain with a pair of wire/chain cutters, and a belly-spotted dove in mid-flight, eye on the chain but free. What chains are being cut today? Listen for the sound of your heart… 

Blessedly, I slept soundly last night. A gift, given I did not sleep well the night before. The day’s coffee date with Lisa yesterday morning had not seemed worthy of much internal-angst, but it apparently was. I was antsy from 5 a.m. onward, arising to tend to my sourdough starter, the strawberry shrub I’m making, then…aimless wandering with what to do, how to settle, before the 10 a.m. meeting.

I hesitate to use the word ‘meeting’ when getting together with Lisa, of course. It’s never felt like that before. But it was just that–a meeting. I was not sure what to expect, nor even why she suggested getting together. Our lives are so different now. We have so little contact anymore. I don’t quite know how–or if it’s genuine anymore–to be with her. 

Listen for the sound of your heart…

My heart is easier this morning. Relieved.

Of course it was so very familiar to be with her, to catch up and recognize our rhythms of sharing. My boisterousness begins. I try to draw her out. She refuses. She returns to listening for more from me. Eventually, she shares some minimalist things about herself, but mostly her outer life. Things not too intimate, not too vulnerable, not too risky. Or real, sometimes it seems. I think my heart will always miss the Lisa I got to know in our deepest soul journeys together. Amidst husband’s fragility, children’s lives, grandchildren’s lives, the Lisa I know is no longer nourished nor nourishing for her, I’d guess. I miss the Lisa I knew.

Who is also a Lisa I no longer need for my own soul journey. It felt ‘close’ or a bit wearying, draining, as we spoke with one another. I, too, was invulnerable, sharing only those things I knew would be ‘safe’ or mirroring of things she’d receive well. Little depth for either of us, it would seem. It arose in me a couple times to mirror that both Brian and I would be uncomfortable getting together as a couple, now that Chris had handled his own toxic-staff situation in utter disregard of his family, of her. Both Brian and I are fiercely loyal...to Lisa, it is now...and not very good at pretending to get along with such a perceived betrayal. But way never opened to say any of that, which is probably for the best.

There was an interesting moment when she perceived my ancestral lineage healing work in alignment with her own extensive engagement with her family. I think she needed to find something between us that could arguably be both soul-work oriented and similar. I nodded to her perception, and can even feel the similarity she needed to feel. So be it, whether it is or not.

In sum, I’ve done the chains-cutting work here, nudged into awareness by the tarot card for the day. I do feel myself the belly-spotted dove, newly freed, eye on the chain but arising and away. I like that the chain doesn’t feel cloying or surrounding of the bird. It’s a linear chain that the cutter has nicked in one link. A weakened chain, in other words, not completely severed. That feels genuine.

Let Lisa go into her flows of things.

Stay true to my desire to have little contact with her husband, with her with her husband.

Let her family be as they are–growing and moving.

Smile that she’s finally finding herself bonding with a dog (Roscoe), because she’s rescuing him from a darkened, anxious life. This is the sacred work she does, after all. Dogs. Humans.

I am thankful and released…

I Have More Tools Now...

I awaken this morning, a bit shaken from whatever coursed through me last night, late, as I planned on heading to sleep. I’d not had any alcohol, nor was I aware of being particularly hormonal, i.e. yearning for sexual connection, union. But my body did land me in some unexpected hungers, a drive I’ve not experienced in years, perhaps decades. As I stir slowly with my second cup of coffee, having listened to Pray As You Go’s selection today–Hear the Plea of Your Servant–I realize I have more tools to learn from this rising than I ever did when I was growing into an adult woman. It was reminiscent of dark nights when I was an adolescent, late elementary school into early high school, before I ritually disassociated from the sensations.

I had finished my quick-review-viewings of Season Three of Outlander, finally getting sleepy enough to turn off the light. [I have been occupying my heart-mind while I await Brian’s return and our continued journey through Season Seven, in preparation for Season Eight’s first episode dropping on March 6th]. As I turned off the Outlander episode at the “X” on Prime Video, the screen of viewing options came on. With some curiosity, I clicked through a couple waves of shows. One caught my eye because of an Outlander reference, nickname: Lady Jane. I think the show is called My Lady Jane. Brian had watched the first part of episode one, so I scrolled through the listing of episodes, to see how many there were, in how many seasons. Episode Three listed its contents including a spanking. That was strange. Curious, I clicked onto it, scrolling through the scenes until I found it.

Something in me awoke. A physical response. I could feel my clitoris enlarge and the heat in my womb rise.

This led me into a variety of ‘safe searches’ on Prime Video. Was this a thing? Movies that had spanking as a list item? It wasn’t long before 50 Shades of Gray appeared on the listings. There is even a low-budget documentary on the phenomenon of the show. I clicked on that for a time, feeling the sensations deepen. 

The familiar curiosity about sensation and the self-loathing, the shame, began their dance I remember so well from my earliest physical-maturation years. I took the opportunity to relieve some of the ache. It didn’t take long. But it also didn’t evaporate entirely either. I found a video clip of “the best scenes from 50 Shades” on YouTube.com. I watched some of them, fast forwarding through a lot of it (which didn’t show too much anyway).I then turned off the screen and attempted to go to sleep.

The images danced in my head, simmering with the ache for something. Yes, something, not someone, anyone. Just a drive that coursed through my body, demanding attention, reprieve, action. This is what always terrified me so when I was growing up. It was like something had me, and I was to enact a variety of things onto my body in order to alleviate the drive.

Knowing now what I know about sexual union, the sacred dance of human bodies with one another, I can say this ache or drive doesn’t have to do with that. It only requires action-upon, without any being-seen. Seems to prefer not being seen. A furtive enactment upon my body until the drive lessens enough for me to relax into sleep.

Because it did always arise in the dark, in isolation. When I had a lot of quiet around me such that images could begin to dance within me, my imagination. Today, with more tools at my disposal, I can welcome this shadowy thing with a bit more curiosity, fearlessness.

There is a power-over character to it, for one thing. Makes me wonder from where in my lineage this energy lives in my cells. Like this wave of sensations that comes upon me isn’t very mine, but my body is playing it out, bringing it forth to be healed, tended. The shame, self-loathing, comes from this power-over character. I am playing out an always-need-to-be-strong woman’s fantasy of some sort: needing to feel safe while surrendering to another’s desires, will. I hold so much, digest so many others’ emotional weathers, that I’ve not often been able to acknowledge this secret-yearning to myself. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel safe and loved without having to do anything but let go? Surrender? Even submit into the power of another? 

I don’t live in that reality of security, trust, however. Whether it’s my need for control or that the men in my life are regularly seeking the mothering they never received, I do not know that kind of freedom to surrender with men. My body lives mostly in the reality of a defended life, a life defended against sensations that might lead to being-used even here. Which then pushes my body into that as secret fantasy. Feeling desire rise when a woman submits to a man’s desire, regardless of her own. That seems to have a long pedigree in patriarchal dynamics, sadly. This is what makes me think it is lineage-energy, not solely my own.

I finally gave up trying to sleep, experimenting with physical sensation once again, for relief. I found some relief, accompanied by more shame, self-loathing. But release finally came–as I came–and then, past midnight, I finally slept.

So I awoke with a sense of “what was that?” Something so familiar to my earliest years, but so foreign to my present life. I don’t experiment or explore physical sensations anymore, alone or with Brian. He and I rarely find our way into physical intimacy anymore, and I’m not even that sad about it. I experience his desire as draining of my own liveliness, a need for mothering more than a sharing in partnership, physical play and connection. Who wants to sexually play with her own son after all? Not me. His conflicted relationship with his own body--health concerns, some new fears, old overwhelming shames he's had imposed upon him--makes it too hard to feel connected with him without being drained myself. I often feel he wants to escape his own body by entering my own.

But these hermitage days have given me extended quiet and opportunity for some of the depth-material I don’t often access to arise, emerge, return. This morning, I can smile at the mysteries of my own body, with less fear. I don’t know what last night’s slippery slope was for, but I can welcome it consciously today, allowing it to be whatever it was. I can trust myself to explore with care, and play safely enough without shame. I have more tools at my psychological-physical disposal than I have ever had, after all.