Soul Mosaic

So many times my husband would hug me, look at me with love, and tell me how precious I was.

I would recoil. That word…PRECIOUS…I could barely stand to hear it, much less consider it applicable to me.

“Precious” made me ill and afraid.

The emotions with no words, just paint

Right now, as I write this post, I have reached the place of embracing my anger and claiming my agency. It’s taken a lifetime to get here. And it is only recently that I’ve arrived at this place.

What was I like before this? And what finally got me to this point?

The dark rage

I noted yesterday that en route to my ritual bath session, tons of thoughts were flooding my brain. Lofty, cerebral things like discernment, reflection, love, and the power of the “Divine feminine,” all things suitable for the impending spiritual moments with God. And others – the scars I have never been able to shake, like fear, anxiety, grief, and rage. And of those, lately, mostly primal rage.

In my search for the “existential meaning” of my life, as well as just plain understanding why the hell I’ve been feeling this way, I’ve been reading a lot of spiritual and mythology books. So their images, themes, and characters are blended in with all of the above thoughts.

Themes of darkness — places like walking through the underworld, sitting in caves of transformation, living in the Dark Night of the Soul — felt like home to me. These were all connected to a search for purpose and rebirth, a withdrawal from the regular world where one could take stock in peace. And of late, that’s just where I wanted to be, in a dark cave peering out at the world, but left alone.

My friends, the crones

I have felt just like the main characters of those stories and have preferred their company. Old crones, the ones who might eat you, slice you with their sword, or save you, depending on their mood and your attitude.

How to write this part of the book?

I went to the Mikveh today, my recommitting to this writing project before beginning this last phase. So many things floated through my head as I drove there. Topics to cover. Trigger words. Questions. Intense emotions, especially lately, anger.

But I put all that aside for this afternoon and just went, knowing “something” would come clear. An answer of some kind would present itself.

Whether anyone else understands this kind of thing doesn’t matter. I am a person of ritual, and for me, just the act of “honoring and centering” somehow resets my psyche and my heart. For another, it might be incense and candles, music, whatever. Today, for me, it was the Mikveh pool.

As I sank below the water’s surface, I spoke the one-word prayer I carried there: Hineini...Here I am, Lord. I was opening myself up to the power of something beyond me, even as that is a scary thing. It’s that whole “Be-careful-what-you-ask-for” thing, because you just might get it. If you give God an invitation for an inch, would He or She want a mile?

Before starting this new phase of writing, I did what I did before I started writing this book – I sought God. Some may think it’s strange. That’s okay. It is my way of preparing for and honoring a serious work.

Rituals have power for me. They are a way to clarify my mind. Ask for help. And cement my commitment. Especially for a task I feel inadequate for, and am intimidated by.

For me, a particularly meaningful ritual is to visit the nearby synagogue’s mikveh. It is a pool of natural water that you immerse in while saying prayers, or just talking with God. I do this in moments of significant events or transitions, moments of grief or healing, or, in this case, new challenges.

As I enter the water and sink below the surface, I hold one prayer in my mind — just a one-word prayer in Hebrew: Hineini. In English, it means “Here I am, God.”

I cannot think of a more powerful prayer than to say – I am here, and I will do what you wish. It is total submission to the Universe…to the will of a Higher Power. It is surrendering this work for whatever God wants it to be. And it is my acknowledgement that I cannot do this alone. I am simply the tool. So, God, speak, and I will write.

There is freedom that comes as I float in that pool. Stress eases. And as I step out, I feel like that old self is shed, and I am ready to go forward.

So as I begin this new section…Hineini.

Note:

I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and return home for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.

Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.

“…there is no security in not knowing things, in avoiding the ugliest truths because they can’t be faced. There is only an oppressive, creeping dread that the thing no one has told you is too terrible to imagine, and that it will haunt the rest of your life when you find out.”

― Natalie Haynes, The Children of Jocasta

Looking at that quote, I totally agree with the first sentence.

As to the rest, the only thing that will haunt me is NOT knowing. THAT is too terrible to imagine. Instead, whatever I learn will set me free.

That Undiscovered Country

Finally – the book arrives at its destination: The Undiscovered Country…the “bottom line.” I could call it a journey through the underworld, a soul journey, whatever, but the bottom line is that it is a whole new place that I have not yet explored, and my heart has made it clear — it is time.

Shakespeare referred to the Undiscovered Country in his play, “Hamlet.” Books carry that title. Even Star Trek used it for a movie.

Where Shakespeare’s Hamlet spoke of it in terms of what comes after death, and some books use it to refer to past civilizations, in Star Trek, they were toasting the future.

For me, it is the past brought forward into the present to change my future…and maybe someone else’s.

With such a weighty mission, the entries for this last section will be slower in coming. I need to think, dream, chew on things. This last part of the book will be wrestling with file folders full of questions scribbled on strips of paper from thoughts catalyzed during the writing process. So, I need to sit with each one and “listen” to what it is telling or asking me.

So what to say about Mom?

It’s been said you die as you lived, and maybe that’s true, up to a point. I think it was for him. But sometimes, maybe, as you die, you finally reclaim your power…

She had been waiting to die since Dad had passed away. Yet she made her way longer…almost 9 years long. And over those years, she evolved. And became her own person even as she slowly declined.

She did surprise me with how she created her own life and routines when he wasn’t there to push her around anymore. And she didn’t fold. Maybe she just finally picked up where she had left off before she married him.

While there had been painful years of that frozen detente between us, those last 2 years as she grew closer to death were the best we’d ever had. And it was in her death process that maybe we reached some connection. At the very least, for me, being there with her through her death was a gift.

There is a sadness, though, too, an ache for me that has always been there, and will now remain forever – her “absence.” Time has run out now to ever know that mother’s unconditional love. And trapped within her battered psyche were the answers to questions I was never allowed to ask, and that she would never answer.