Why do I suddenly care about the origins of stains on streets? Can't be water— the sun would scorch it and they would disappear. Am I poet like the dream-teller told me? I don't know how to write poetry. Is this it? Does it matter? Does it matter where the stains on streets come from? Just tells me there was life.
Nikki, The Soul Reporter
The moon turned to snowflakes
The night a woman’s rights were taken. ~ a dream I had
That was the dream the night before RvW was overturned. The sun, to my left, and the moon, to my right shared the same panel of sky. I stood in a boat, on the ocean, near the shore. I was mesmerized by the moon, for the sun was just a faint, dull circle shrouded in gray haze. The moon, also shrouded but not in haze, but within a shiny half black and silver cavern. I could not take my eyes off it. And then the moon crystallized, transforming into giant, majestic snowflakes. A mist began to overtake land and sea, and the tide turned; chaos ensued and I had to get to shore. But the point was the snowflakes.
~
At the request of a therapist, I’m again, picking up the book, Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I reread the introduction. In it she lists symptoms of a woman who has lost her Wild. I have the majority of them, but this one captured me: “…or intertia because that is the safest place for one who has lost her instincts.” I opened my journal and wrote: I have lost my fucking instincts! Last time I truly had those was in my early 20’s. I was with a child, but without a man, and not tainted, domesticated or yet fully reactive to my childhood trauma.
Not only have I lost my instincts, I’ve lost my creativity. It reminds me of season 4 of Stranger Things. Eleven has lost her “superpowers” (of course given and rediscovered to her by “man.”) Like a miner I am digging, seeking in the dark where I lost my superpowers. Was it one event or the slices and cuts of many….? I am also asking, is it too late? In Stranger Things, they keep seeking, digging and fighting and face the darkest spaces and entities just to understand, restore balance and help the people.
The reading of “Wolves” is naming the longing, the awakening of my Wild and also the resistance and push back to what oppresses it. I’m seeing how deeply I have blamed myself for the inertia that caused the weight gain, the depression, the silence, the relationships I am still in and the books I’ve still not written. I’ve been domesticated, altered and suppressed by the patriarchal culture— maybe not specifically and overtly, but generally, collectively and covertly. Inertia, then, was and often still is my safe place.
But I am awakening, beginning little by little to open my eyes, seeing the oppressor for what it is and seeing the impact it has had on me, on everything and everyone. Yesterday on my walk, I took the “short cut”, over a wooded bridge across a marshy area. I stopped and noticed the red-winged blackbirds in the reeds, the cattails bowing like patrons at a queen’s parade and the water, murky with green algae film. On the surface it looks stagnant and toxic— inert. But, who or what but Life itself knows what is present below, what organisms are a vital part to all of Life.
I have become swamped. Heavy, murky, seemingly lost my way and can barely move. Within my own inertia a self has been formed, a self safe and hidden in the murky waters, afraid to move too far from the swamp. Stay too long, naturally toxins, disease and self-defeating behaviors flourish. But open my eyes and really see where I am and start to smell the stink of unmoving water and start wiggling my fingers and toes, and becoming mesmerized, not by something more in some other place beyond myself as I did in my youth, but mesmerized by what I know is already present, and becoming the snowflake inside the moon. 🌙
~Nikki, The Soul Reporter
This almost had my daughter peeing her pants. We are going through stuff, and pulled my dream boards out of the back room where they have been parched by the hot California sun. My dreams are parched by that same sun.
From Toastmasters to Hit TV Show. Maserati. House on the Vineyard. Published books.
As my daughter would say, Big Whoop.
I’ve spent years reaching outside of my life for something more, something bigger. Isn’t that what all those happy, successful people tell us to do…? Live your best life they say and fill the airwaves with images of glamour and continual bliss and ease.
I’ve been through enough since chasing my best life to know it is now about reaching into my life and pulling out what is already here. No more reaching out, chasing illusions and someone else’s idea of what is a best life. Only reaching in, and letting it breathe and paint the way.
The Soul Reporter
Source: r.ebay.com via Annette on Pinterest
I called PODS yesterday. I spoke with an interesting man. One of the things he said: dreams are dying for people. It seems ours did, and that’s why I’m calling PODS to move back home. But are our dreams dying or are just changing to better fit who we are now?
No need to answer here, as I am not looking for sympathy or advice. I know the answer. The dream is not dead. It is simply changing as we change.
I spoke with a friend recently. A few years back we were both in the same boat- especially financially speaking. He found a corporate job. I chased a dream. He seems to have found stablitiy. I found loose ground, and have been slipping ever since.
One of the pleasures of friends is they are mirrors into our own lives. I remember when I left to chase my dream, we both believed I’d find gold, or at the very least opportunity, which would prove risk always finds reward. I am going home with no gold. Or at least not the kind of gold I thought I might—the kind of gold that would ensure I’d never go back home.
I’ve been consumed with the brokenness of this dream, and when I spoke with my friend, it hit me again. But, I came through that brokenness quickly and landed in a place of no regrets. Actually, in a place where I am quite proud of what I have endured. I don’t know what any of it means quite yet, but someone recently said to me: This is all going to make sense someday, probably sooner than you realize.
I’ll keep you posted.
The Soul Reporter
The Soul Reporter 