I'm sorry for the delay
It's been over three months in the making and I've finally found what I wanted to say
It’s been some time since the publishing the last post and it’s not through the want of trying, as I explain below. A little baby has captured my heart and brain, I’m in a tender place but I’m slowly finding some normalcy. This post feels scary-brave, I wrote it after a 4am feed so it’s about as unfiltered as I can be.
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Meander
My phone has slowed down since the last update, apps freeze, Safari pages take yonks to open, and the camera sometimes stares into a blank black void. My phone has never been more me, a handheld version of my baby-frazzled brain that has been irreversibly updated and my faculties are struggling to catch up.
It’s a cliche to be a new mum who’s exhausted, elated, nervy, in love and drunk on nappy fumes, but the cliche serves a uniting purpose. The knowing smiles to other mums on the street, friendships fortified with tips, listening ears and open hearts, and a fresh perspective on the mother-daughter relationship (“Ah, I didn’t realise you went through THIS”). But under the cliches I wonder if there’s a shared darkness of sacrifice that the the act of birth pushes us into, a realisation that for all of our human and mammal evolution, we have placed ourselves on the line to give birth to life. As my body readied for my daughter’s arrival and especially the days after, I felt myself go through some kind of collective subconscious tunnel, reliving through flickers of resonance the vicious pain and searing beauty of birthing, the millions of women’s lives lost, the untold transformations that come with being taken over by an animalistic force. Those steely, protective corners of my heart were unlocked, and boundless tenderness poured out for women, at first for women who birthed and literally lay themselves down with a drop of control in an ocean of primal life pushing them on. And then my love went further to include all women because I had the sense, I still do, that we all carry these unknown lives, untold stories in our bodies, in our chromosomes. We carry in us the cellular ability to push and be pushed. I’m staring at the word push, my iPhone suggesting the word ‘pushy’ and I’m thinking on how push is just another word for force. We are a force of nature and we are forced by nature.
It’s 5:29am, she’s sleeping, swaddled in her bed after a night in my arms. I’ve wanted for so long to write about pain and beauty, starting something before the big push, redrafting, deleting, rewriting but I couldn’t touch what I really wanted to say. So maybe this is all I have to say about it: that feeling pain, the physical, the mental, emotional and collective pain is the key to unlocking a beauty, a beauty that arises from the wound and licks it to not only make it more bearable but to taste it so that the wound is no longer alone, it has undergone a metamorphosis. I read the other day about a transformation that conjures up a resonance with the dependent relationship of pain and beauty: the butterfly. Despite the caterpillar releasing a hormone in which its cells self-destruct and liquify its muscles, fats and other matter, the butterfly retains memories and learnings of the caterpillar they once were. The butterfly remembers what was, how its skin became too tight, how it had to give itself to the prompting of its being to transform this constriction into an unfolding, expansive creature. What an apt metaphor for our own pain to beauty journeys.
My favourite quote is one that took me a long time to understand: “The beauty will save the world”, a six word composition by Dostoyevsky I read a few years ago in Italy. The world, my world, your world, our world filled with wounds of past, present, future, become not only bearable but filled with transformative meaning not in the turning away from, but the turning towards what is forcing us open whether we want to accept it or not. The other option is to turn away, which may be necessary until we’re ready to stand within our pain, but in the chronic ignoring I found out for myself that my feelings become calcified, life becomes anaemic, devoid of range and zest. In the turning towards, this tasting of the delicious, rancid rawness, I feel something I didn’t before and I know I have meaning, I know I have a purpose. There is a connection to a greater force, higher power, universe or/and God. Beauty has saved me yet again.
It’s 5:58am. She’s still sleeping. My heart is breaking and overflowing.
Recommended listening
I listened to a heartfelt, insightful talk by my Gestalt colleague and ordained Buddhist, Vidyapala about faith and suffering within the context of Buddhism. I was struck by the similarity between pain and beauty, and finding meaning. I highly recommend giving his talk a listen.
Wonder
The next time you see a butterfly, allow yourself to be absorbed by its colours, movement, and form without analysing or labelling (recall a previous post on I-Thou and I-It). Where do you sense the butterfly in your body? When you feel satisfied with the is-ness of the butterfly, recall how the butterfly is what it is because of its metamorphosis. Can you take a moment to reflect on how you are who you are in this moment because of your own pain to beauty transformation? If you wish, bring to mind one painful experience (not one that still feels unresolved or is still traumatic) and feel how what is important to you has in some way grown from this.
Reflect
This poem has moved me for almost a year now, the tenderness and fortitude of becoming a warrior. It speaks to my own suffering, followed by the numbing, followed by even more pain, before turning towards and becoming stronger, more vulnerable, more alive.
How I Became a Warrior
Once, I ran from fear
so fear controlled me.
Until I learned to hold fear like a newborn.
Listen to it, but not give in.
Honor it, but not worship it.
Fear could not stop me anymore.
I walked with courage into the storm.
I still have fear,
but it does not have me.
Once, I was ashamed of who I was.
I invited shame into my heart.
I let it burn.
It told me, “I am only trying
to protect your vulnerability”.
I thanked shame dearly,
and stepped into life anyway,
unashamed, with shame as a lover.
Once, I had great sadness
buried deep inside.
I invited it to come out and play.
I wept oceans. My tear ducts ran dry.
And I found joy right there.
Right at the core of my sorrow.
It was heartbreak that taught me how to love.
Once, I had anxiety.
A mind that wouldn’t stop.
Thoughts that wouldn’t be silent.
So I stopped trying to silence them.
And I dropped out of the mind,
and into the Earth.
Into the mud.
Where I was held strong
like a tree, unshakeable, safe.
Once, anger burned in the depths.
I called anger into the light of myself.
I felt its shocking power.
I let my heart pound and my blood boil.
Listened to it, finally.
And it screamed, “Respect yourself fiercely now!”.
“Speak your truth with passion!”.
“Say no when you mean no!”.
“Walk your path with courage!”.
“Let no one speak for you!”
Anger became an honest friend.
A truthful guide.
A beautiful wild child.
Once, loneliness cut deep.
I tried to distract and numb myself.
Ran to people and places and things.
Even pretended I was “happy”.
But soon I could not run anymore.
And I tumbled into the heart of loneliness.
And I died and was reborn
into an exquisite solitude and stillness.
That connected me to all things.
So I was not lonely, but alone with All Life.
My heart One with all other hearts.
Once, I ran from difficult feelings.
Now, they are my advisors, confidants, friends,
and they all have a home in me,
and they all belong and have dignity.
I am sensitive, soft, fragile,
my arms wrapped around all my inner children.
And in my sensitivity, power.
In my fragility, an unshakeable Presence.
In the depths of my wounds,
in what I had named “darkness”,
I found a blazing Light
that guides me now in battle.
I became a warrior
when I turned towards myself.
And started listening.
by Jeff Foster