a beautiful & tragic story, pt. II

radical yoga for times of transformation

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author with daughter, spring 2023

Well, I hope I didn’t scare anyone away with my last post.

It seems there are much more concerning events taking place, out there, in white houses and along coastlines.

Nothing quite as interesting though, as this murmuration of birds, migrating from cottonwood to cottonwood along the horizon here, where I watch turkeys and doves, in turn, roost in these treetops. How do they know when to move, holding together like that, in such unity?

Starling murmuration over southern Israel, photographer unknown

Migrations have been heavy in the field lately. Going back, back, to long disrupted paths of ancient nomadic peoples, scattered like dust in the wind by billion dollar highways, boundary lines and outdoor shopping malls. Enormous herds of bison split in two by railways full of men gone mad with greed for that yellow metal in the hills. Underwater rivers, vanished and polluted, along with the vital information they carry, replaced by black tar and sluggish waste ponds that no one seems to mind… Earth’s migrations have long been disrupted.

In fact, this is what led the Kogi people of Colombia to leave their hallowed mountain homes in the jungle in recent history - their pathways of connection through space to sacred sites around the globe had become unnavigable, polluted by airplane exhaust, satellite intereference, electric grids and more. Their psychic or more-than-physical “migration” had become disrupted and so they had to physically leave, to tend the sites that keep the world alive. This is why we see them at sacred sites, in environmental conference halls and cultural gatherings across the planet. They could no longer migrate their consciousness across space. And they needed to speak up about it.

People seem to be scattering as the earth shakes herself up into a new evolutionary form, birthing new questions:

Where (what?) is Home?

Who are our People?

What is the Path?

A dirt path in the middle of the forest, photographer Hans Isaacson

What I didn’t mention in part one of this beautiful and tragic story, was what happened as I wrote like a madwoman there at the kitchen table beside my mischevious daughter dribbling bits of chicken to the dog on the floor. As the wave of emotion seemed like it would all but consume me, I wrote and I wrote until finally the words wrote themselves: Stop. Just feel this. Allow it. Say Yes.

Rupert Spira, author, ceramisict and teacher of The Direct Path, talks about this opportunity of welcoming “unpleasant” emotions. It is not the rage, he says, that makes us suffer. It is not the overwhelm or the grief or the frustration that make us sick. It is actually our resistance to those emotions that makes us suffer.

So, sitting there at the kitchen table with my tiny adorable mischevious daughter, I just stopped. I said, okay, let’s see what this is.

I said YES to the ball of grief-rage-overwhelm. I closed my eyes and just sat there. I let it in. I looked at it. I let it consume me. I watched its waves, and temperatures, the deeper layers. I just watched and watched, without reacting, without pushing it away or making a story or blaming someone. I welcomed it, totally.

After a little while, I could see how speckles of joy were permeating the layers of emotional complexity. There was actually joy in the grief, as if grief was another expression of joy. There was joy in the overwhelm, as if overwhelm, too, was an expression of joy. And a little while longer still, the enormous tidal wave I was trying so hard to avoid (because, I must! continue parenting, keep calm, regulate my nervous system, feed and wipe and clean, smile, entertain) just totally vanished. In its place, there in my chest, was just this clean, open space. Just, spaciousness. Quiet. Open.

✧
everything
about woman
is
multi-generational
✧

We can scoot through life without really facing the deeper chasms and glaciers, the scars of our soul that shape the landscape of our inner worlds. We can avoid it, if we try, and probably suffer a great deal in that avoidance. But there is so much to distract ourselves with these days, we probably could go many, many years (lifetimes?) without turning to face the great pain that lives inside us.

But what I’ve found through becoming a mother, if I care at all about the future of my ancestors, is that I must behold, in wonder and with courage, those mighty chasms and glaciers within my own soul, without running or turning away, or, I will invariably pass them along to the next generation.

So I offer this practice to you, in these times of radical transformation, when each one of us is coming to the edges of our comfort zones: sit with it. Allow it. Each wave, as it comes along, allow it IN without resistance, let your welcoming of it reveal deeper truths about who you are, where your home is and what your path might be.

Thank you for reading this edition of Wild Leaf. May it be of benefit to you and yours. If you like what you read, consider becoming a paid subscriber, or, if you don’t want to pay a monthly subscription, you can always, Buy Me A Coffee.

Much love,

Leah