She lost her mind and moved to west Texas and found her happily every after dancing across the lavender sky like the tumbleweeds blowing in the wind. It’s a beautiful end to a scenic tour of ground zero. It’s a page in the annuls of my history, or an epitaph on the stones where my body will lie in the earth when this great experiment comes to an end.
The area under the curve is the plasma concentration we need to reach with chemotherapy in order to drive out the cancer. It’s a weird comparison to life but as I find myself to understand it, so much of our life is really lived in the area under the curve. It is the point of saturation, when we find for ourselves the right medicine to heal what ails us in perfect concentration. It’s the amount of space that we live in while trying to find the right curve and flow. It has been a season of having been rolled about and tossed over by the tide.
A few years ago when we found ourselves standing on the threshold of our dream we were terrified. or at least i was. We moved with gusto and then fizzled under the weight of expectation and fear. We found our selves disappointed and a disappointment in a season of lessons. We’ve been rocked by consequences long out in the field waiting to be harvested. We have been the wheat clinging to the chaff in the wind and we had been at times just floating unable to even find a whole breath of air. Texas has certainly taught me some things. It turns out that where the stars are biggest and brightest, and the night sky is lit up like a thousand twinkling lights at Christmas , grit is the fiercest teacher. Nothing out here survives without it.
What is weird is that stepping out on faith to throw everything I had at this dream has led down the biggest rabbit hole of my life and awakened in me this wrath of deconstruction. I had no idea when I answered the call that every thing I thought I knew about who is was and who I hope to be at the end of my days would be called into question. I never expected to be torn asunder by every single truth I thought I knew. When you reach a place of safety, that is when you truly start to heal. For me, that place of safety began in the very early days of sleeping on a mattress on the floor of this farmhouse and using the bathroom in the barn. It was the point where I had stripped away all the distractions, all of the inflated ideas about my ability, and all of the noise. I had to ask myself the most important question, How much was I willing to give for this dream? How long would I labor in its vision? Many questions were being asked of me and for the first time, I finally felt like I had room to breathe. I had a fresh albeit 125 year old house as a canvas to heal my soul. Room by room Im carving out the spaces in my heart that need work. In every seed in the ground or bee in the hive I see the future and I’m not afraid of it. I am not afraid. I have to say it multiple times even now to understand the gravity of the statement. I spent most of my life worried and afraid. I couldn’t sink into the slow quiet life. I could not still myself for fear that too close an examination would leave me wanting. I didn’t want God to be mad at me for entertaining a more comfortable palate. There were so many things being ripped apart at the seams. It is true that life can be a cruel mistress, and I’ve certainly dealt with my fair share of unjust dealings. I also feel that the journey has left me both uniquely prepared yet wildly undone at both ends.
I’ve spent years asking the hard questions. It’s been months of examining all of my so called self evident truths and tossing them in the blender. Sometimes the thoughts feel like how ants must feel in the sun under the excruciating examination of the magnifying lens. In the last five years I have been both tremendously sure of and hideously overwhelmed by my choices. But I have also been free. I have been left alone to tend my wounds and speak to my inner child. Together we have rambled along the country backroads and talked at length about our journey. We have put fingers in our gaping wounds, exploring the finest of details and learned to live in wonder instead of fear. I've been able to find safety in motherhood and love in my home and not feel scared that its all a fever dream, ready to be plucked from me at any moment.
I realize now that the deed to the land was the very thing i needed to feel like i could build something in this world worth saving and holding dear. I have learned tough lessons about family, ones I thought I was so far done and beyond learning. I’ve learned that second chances often still lead to closed doors no matter how hard you try to leave a crack. I’ve been able to explore my career and what it means to live entirely outside of it and treat it as a means to an end and not an identity. That has most definitely been a harder puzzle to piece than I ever thought it would be. So much of my identity is tied to being a healer and yet, so much of my own healing has been hindered because of the intense emotional energy it takes to be a healer. I’ve learned about my quirks and what makes me tick and what I truly need in a partner and a friend. My tool box feels equipped for the journey ahead.
In june of this year I really started examining my self worth. Loving myself has always been hard. I can see right thru the dirty bits to the gold in nearly every person around me, but being that open to my own energy has been at times an exercise in futility. No matter how hard i try, I often cannot seem to give myself the grace I so readily give everyone else, even the people who don’t deserve it . I often feel like I’m on quicksand in relationships. I never quite feel in step with social convention. I apologize profusely and have recognized that apologizing for just existing is a habit that is so hard to cast aside. Im certainly an odd duck. Im also extremely hard on myself. I think most women are.
From the time we are born we are shaped into something meant to be pleasing to others. It is Hard in all of the noise to be at peace with yourself and figure out who you really are. I think its a little like that scene in the runaway bride where Julia Roberts character is trying to figure out how she likes her eggs after years of just liking what her partner likes. When your choices and how you present them mean your survival as a young child you learn to do what pleases others for your protection. That then becomes your lens thru which you view the world. That indoctrination is way harder to undo than anything a cult or a church can slap on you. It’s the idea that women exist to be in service to the world. And in a way, as those who create a portal for life, we do in some way always serve, but we are also beings with our own desires and dreams. We shouldn’t have to give up everything about ourselves to accommodate just this one aspect of our humanity We are individuals who should be regarded with the same respect as our male counterparts. For centuries our lives have been for the male gaze. Looking up a the stars was never encouraged and requires a different kind of bravery. I have also thru my children started to view the version of the world they are creating to live in and embrace the languages of love the are trying to speak into existence. It has really in a lot of ways brought an interesting perspective to how I identify myself, even if I still live in my mind in a binary construct, I’m certainly not afraid of this future. I am learning to shed the truths of yesterday and live fully in acceptance and love. I only hope for myself to just keep growing, even when the ground seems to be shifting and they sky sliding by from dark to light at an alarming speed. The farm has become my proving ground. within its bounds I get lost to time. I can ground myself in new dirt.
I have found that i needed room to move around. I needed a safe space to lay out the full spread of my existence and evaluate it. I needed time to put pen to paper, to write poetry and create. I needed time to expand my mind and figure out what i actually wanted from this experience. Under its tutelage I have seen my children flourish and grow comfortable in this stripped down version of our previous lives. When I look at us as a family unit I am proud to know that my kids love spending time with us. They genuinely enjoy us as people. If I accomplish nothing else on this side of the earth I will own a truth I never experienced with my own parents. Just that small slice of awareness is worth every effort I put in to get here. It doesn’t mean I have it all figured out, far from it. There are still storms that are very scary and lightening strikes wildly close to home. At the end of everyday I still have more questions than answers. Sometimes its a daunting realization to feel as though for all your work your no closer to nirvana than you were when you started. Every book read, poem penned and communication with spirit only sures up the fact that I still know so little. I do however, see the dream materializing. I just have to keep going. I just have to keep reminding myself that I cannot Wait until every detail is fleshed out before moving. That is not how this is supposed to work.
When I got up on the morning of June 13th I had a bee in my bonnet. As a family we had been thru so many changes and a few tragedies to boot. In that month alone I had been scared out of my mind over the health of my husband, and definitely scared in light of all the political darkness for my kids and worrying that this world they were trying to build full of hope and light was falling into ruin and despair. This next generation is fierce lot though, and I have every confidence that they will not go gently into the night. I needed to convey to myself, and everyone who needed encouragement that what we have to offer the world is enough. I needed to wrap myself in the reassurance that everything I was working so hard to build would be enough to sustain us. I found a box of things my friend had sent me, a package of little pride flags and some Christmas lights and set out to install a little bit of happiness.
It has always been important to me that my home is a welcome mat and place of rest. I never wanted it to be a showpiece. I want it to be quirky and cool, bright and cheerful. I wanted it to be a place where you can put your feet up on the couch, and feast in our friendship and bounty. I think a lot about how my grandmas house was comfortably messy, cluttered with her love of art and books and far to homey to be pretentious. I’ve guarded the sanctity of this space fiercely. It is my healing place and it have never wanted it tainted with judgement. It is the one place on earth where I can be fully myself, and I encourage everyone who lives here, to enjoy that same kind of freedom.
It takes courage to follow our dreams. It is a hard road to accept who you are in a world that wants to categorize everything about you. Sometimes it feels even to heavy to exist when your constantly trying to examine what is wrong with you and how you measure up to the folks down the road. Im just a girl who is a little rough around the edges from the history I’ve written. My home will always be a reflection of just that. It’s a hodgepodge of all the versions of me that I’ve met along the way. Please enjoy the happy enhancement of my happy space and know that more content will be coming soon. I’ve kinda been in a funk but I’m starting now to see a break in the clouds. I still hum to myself “what a long strange trip its been” but I’m content to know that we have come so far, and even though there are mountains of projects to complete, It will get done as long as I don’t allow myself to lose sight of the vision that brought me here in the first place. Being a slave to the judgement of others is certainly not on the damn list. Before parting I wanted to share a poem I wrote about this place and what it has meant to me on this adventure. I do want to say that mental health has been a struggle both during the pandemic and the aftermath. I’m finally feeling better and am getting to a place where the work of transformation on the farm can begin again.
This is my healing place
A vision in the shamans dream,
The sway of prairie grass is my dance.
The whipping wind my orchestral accompaniment.
The moon above illuminates the darkness.
The shadow expands and retreats under its tutelage.
The horse folk are the mirrors of my soul,
thier eyes reflect the parts that need shifting.
They thin the veils of illusion and show you who you really are.
In this tribe we share fire together
we warm our bones in the sacred circle.
This is my healing place , this is my home.
A battleground hard won in the years of drought
A place where reaping and sowing are the only worthy religion.
The healing place cradles the mother wound
And brings broken children to the prophecy
Tears water the land, salt of the earth they say.
Sadness and loss may have been the journey , but the holy space cleanses all things.
Joy in the east come morning and the healed becomes the healer
I wish to be ready.
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