It had been thirty years since I’d sewn. My husband of five years has mended my clothes when he couldn’t stand looking at the button missing or loose seam. My Mother was a seamstress and my Uncle a tailor. I took sewing in Home Ec in High School. At seventeen I worked as a seamstress to an upholsterer, learning the upholstery trade. (At eighteen I quit when I realized that the naps the upholsterer took every afternoon on one of the couches we were working on were a foil for his opportunity to masturbate while watching me working at the sewing machine.)
Everything about sewing is a doorway to childhood that I have never looked through as an adult, much less walked through.
An antique pink satin nightgown that was an antique when I it wore at eighteen, a black silk skirt I’d put away twenty something years ago intending to make something came to hand when I went rummaging.
Immediately I knew this was the material to make Medicine bags for my sacred items with. Taking apart the old clothing proved to be a valuable teaching in patience, design and fabrication…the pink nightgown in particular was a work of art.
As I sewed on my own Medicine Bags it came to me that I needed to sew my pregnant daughter in law one for the cards I gave her last year. Then I saw I could make one for my four year old grand daughter to introduce her to the idea of women carrying sacred feminine energy/medicine. Then I knew I needed to make Medicine Bags for three women friends by way of introducing them to the concept of making room for, nurturing, celebrating, and announcing relationship with Divine Feminine energy. And so between the sewing machine and my meditations and dreams the guidance came in over a two/three week period that this would be a Womens Winter Solstice Ceremony.
I had committed myself to an act of beauty that required me to gather a group of women to sit in a sacred circle during my vision quest fourteen years ago. Now I see that those intentions have come together with the means through building a meditative practice this year. As I’ve moved between physical preparations, meditative preparations, journaling and dreaming about the process this last month I have been awed and humbled by the gift. I hand delivered invitations to Ceremony to each woman, and each accepted the invitation.
This is the fifth year since I completely let go of celebrating Christmas in the way of this culture. (There was ten years of walking away from Christmas celebrations leading up to this last five years in which I hadn’t yet made peace with Christmas) I didn't realize when I began that new way of walking that it was leading me to now when I would be able to access knowledge about how to celebrate the winter solstice in new/old Earth centered ways.
The day after we completed this beautiful Ceremony I was deflated. Instead of walking around on bubbles of joy as I might well have been, I was somber and detached from the accomplishment. The first thought that came to mind on awakening was about the woman who had sat across from me in the circle. I knew without doubt that she had let power wash over her without taking it in. As the day progressed my gloom deepened as I sensed this was yet another self worth, rather lack of, story. Meditation brought no answer, no comfort.
It wasn’t until the next morning I realized what a perfect mirror I had been offered from across the circle. I could see clearly that I too was abdicating and shirking the very power I had generated. My concern for what this would mean to the other women started tearing down the wall that was standing between me and my joy. The first brick I touched said, “Who do you think you are?”
The brick was stuck to my fingers. For all I moved to let it go, the metaphor stuck. That’s when it hit me like a brick wall…my body holds a belief in unworthiness. As soon as I start feeling my stuff, strutting my stuff, owning my power my body remembers what happens when I “act natural”. My body mind will only allow so much joy before shutting down the whole show with fear.
The wall of “who do you think you are” has roots in my body that had been triggered big time. The results of the beatings that I received in childhood have yet to be released from my physical body. I have released them emotionally, mentally, even spiritually. I am now in the process of releasing them from my body. Is it any wonder I have had a difficult time grounding myself, coming back into my body after ceremony?
Release means remembering.
I can still feel the longing I felt as a child to be comforted and held, rocked and crooned to after the beatings, verbal, emotional and physical. I was devastated when Dad comforted Mom after she beat me, and didn’t/couldn’t comfort me. That was a moment when I formed another life denying belief and made the decision to run away from home for once and for all. There was never place nor time to lick my wounds and so my grief grew, taking up residence in my body. I got older and understood it wasn’t supposed to be like it was for us, my siblings and I. It could be, should be so different and what in God’s name did that look like anyway?
I walked some of this out through the soles of my feet today, remembering the countless distressed foot steps I took as a child. I remembered lying to my grade 4 teacher when she asked me about the new bruises I carried when I came back from lunch. I remember that the pain in the neck that has been plaguing me for years is based in the hundreds, is it really thousands of back hands, slaps and punches to the head and neck area that I took. I remembered being eleven years old running from a beating, without shoes and coat out the front door into the deeps of an Ontario winter. I remember hiding so I wouldn’t be seen and further humiliated. I remember when the shivering stopped and I started to fall asleep. I remember waking to my bed shaking from the spasms of my Fathers soundless sobs as he sat at the end of the bed. I witnessed his grief but no one witnessed mine. I remembered why I have always felt there could never be enough for me, should never be enough for me.
I honour the strength and courage and love my body has shown in carrying this burden. I declared myself, all parts of me, ready and able to release and be with any further grief that comes up. I will look for counsel in meditation.
I am fidgety and restless as I prepare to travel within. It required a careful walk through my body, relaxing from tip of toe to top of crown and every inch between. When at last I saw my inner fire a sense of desperation was with me too. I looked and felt around for a set of Divine Arms to fall into. There were none. The desperation is in my voice as I call out to my body mind to join me at the fire and speak. At first I couldn’t tell what was being said…it was as if my body mind was muzzled or muffled. I spoke of my mission to share the burdens that body mind had been carrying. I heard myself whining as body mind shuffled unwillingly into view. As I was able to distinguish detail I broke into sobs over the shameful state of my body mind. She was twisted and contorted out of human shape, covered in human excrement. She didn’t want me to know she smelled so bad.
I moved to hug and hold body mind. I began removing the feces. We cried together. I asked how else I could help and saw myself massaging body mind with my hands and a feather alternately. I apologized to body mind and sobbed harder when she immediately forgave me telling me she loved me. As soon as that love washed over me I felt myself held and rocked as I held body mind. I heard those Divine Arms answer my unasked question with the words…we couldn’t come to you until you gave us to yourself. We’ve been here always. My sobbing deepened, this time with a sense of joy. I massaged body mind smoothing her limbs into comfortable, natural positions. I was massaged, releasing many bodily aches that were the sights of wounds from beatings. My physical hand found Lady Love, my crystal healing wand and She danced circles and spirals over my chakras, passing from hand to hand, moving fast then slow, aligning and cleansing the four directions of my being. With my profound gratitude comes a profound fatigue signaling the end of this journey.
I’ve intended to write a Solstice piece for months. As the time approached the muse vanished, until now. How appropriate that I bring this old year to an end by clearing debris that I may walk into the New Year unencumbered by walls built in the past.
Gaia is the Living Cadence that carries the vibration of peace...
May you hear Gaia's song on the winds of change and let your heart sing with her.
(from The 11 Intentions Pathways to Peace by Lynda Terry)
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