This week I sat down to write and restarted 3 different times; each time it felt like I couldn’t fully define what was trying to form inside me. I have so much to say, but trying to express still feels sticky sometimes.
My voice has been quieted for years: suppressed and pushed down to fit into a life—a relationship—that was never meant to fit. Sometimes when I sit to write I can still feel the words working their way up from the bottom of my stomach, lodging at the back of my throat.
Four weeks ago I was sitting in a ritual of cacao and meditation, and I heard a voice clearly tell me start writing. I hadn’t written creatively for nearly a decade. For most of my life writing was my art; I wrote poetry and stories to help me move what felt stuck and bound in my body.
When I heard this quiet call back to writing it felt like air being blown into my chest; the impulse moved through me quickly and I started scribbling poems and stories, filling my notebooks for weeks…
Something in me started shifting.
For the past nine months I’ve been fervently healing my heart; working with practitioners and therapists to unravel the complexities of what I’d experienced in my previous relationship. When I started writing poetry again, it moved the stagnancy through my system in a way therapy hadn’t. Like I could pull the heaviness out of spaces I hadn’t yet had the capacity to touch; it was medicine.
I sat down a few days ago to write my weekly article but the words weren’t coming. In my experience, very few good things come from forcing, and I think some things—big things—just need more time in gestation. Some things need more integrating; to stay tucked away and protected in the quiet a little longer.
So instead of forcing words that weren’t ready to be written, I decided to share one of my poems.
This poem is one that I wrote about the day nine months ago when everything changed. It was the kind of moment so significant you try to recall it a thousand times to wrap your mind around it, because nothing after it stayed the same.
It was the day before my 38th birthday. I’d packed up my most important things—some clothes, my books, my journal, the artifacts that make up my altar—and I left. I drove away from my home, my partner, our dog, our life.
This moment had been divinely forming for a long time, and truthfully it didn’t feel like I had any control over it; something bigger than me had wrapped me into its arms and finally said, “it’s time”.
That morning there’d been another explosion. My nervous system rattled and worn, I left for the day and receded at my parents’, tucked into the corner of their couch under a heated blanket, frozen, unable to think or move.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
The next day I felt broken, hollow and haunted by memories of the last eight years and I knew: there was no choice left, it was time. My heart sat heavily in my stomach. Guided by a force I couldn’t explain, but trusted, I drove away.
That night I gathered with my dearest women. I walked through the door of my friend’s home and the tenderness was deep and visceral. There were candles, soft lights, blankets, and pillows all over the floor. I was greeted by seven pairs of hands and seven hearts. With the fierceness of an army and the softness of the Mother. These women took me in and wrapped me in love and silk.
Seven of the most warm and powerful women I know, waiting with open arms; they nourished me, fed me, loved me. They’d invited a local sound healer and as we gathered together she played the healing frequencies of music directly over my heart. I could feel the layers of my pain and frozenness gently melting away from the warmth of the vibrations in the room. It was magick; a kind of coven.
And it felt as though I’d fallen safely into their arms, cradled into a cocoon. That moment was like walking through a door— with the strength of these women surrounding me I stepped across a threshold I had to cross, and into an initiation that would one day become my new life…
This was the beginning of the deepest descent I’ve experienced so far. As women, these descents have to be walked alone but we need the protection and support of other women to feed us when we’re hungry, love us when we’re in pain, wash our hair or bring us blankets.
Women coming together weaves a special kind of magic and power; the healing energy becomes tenfold. Being wrapped up in the love of women is different.
And it reshaped my heart.
I wrote a poem about this moment, because what I’m finding through this process is there are certain things that heal and reconcile our hearts and souls in a very specific way, and poetry is one of those things. Poetry can take moments that are otherwise ineffable, and illicit imagery that lands uniquely for each person who reads it. Like a soul understanding— a “yesssss. I’ve felt that too”. And then somehow, our unexplainable experiences make more sense.
And what is better than feeling heard, seen and understood? It’s the fundamental ingredient that makes up our humanness: “I belong, I’m understood, I’m a part of that too”.
So here is that moment:
Fallow—
(definition: plowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility)
They wrapped her tenderly Stitching together what had come undone Her skin, thin and fragile Decaying like leaves A militia of a thousand women Wove a web around her heart Blew songs into her lungs Sheltered her like the branches of an old willow tree She laid her body on the ground Petals dropping like tired tendrils Finally, fallow had come It’s safe now they sang, time to put it down
My weekly recommendations—
Book: For moments like these or anything in between, there is a bible that always sits at the side of my bed, called Women Who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. She brilliantly uses story and poetry to portray the wildness of the female psyche. Every time I read it I gain new insight and wisdom. This book has gotten me through some pivotal times.
Podcast: An interview from On Being with the Irish poet John O’Donahue. The way he speaks about beauty, love, and nature captures its magic in a way I’ve never heard before.
Person: Sarah Durham Wilson is one of my teachers who has changed my life. I took a course with her shortly after I left my relationship, and with her guidance and her council of women, I walked an initiatory journey she calls “From Maiden to Mother”. This course helped me learn to Mother myself, and grow deeper roots. Find her website here, and her Instagram here. She is a force and an incredible teacher.
Music: The song Don’t Blame Me by Taylor Swift. This song brought me back to life four weeks ago! If there’s anything that’s as cathartic as writing, it’s dancing. This one got me good:)
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J. xo
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