RITUAL HEALING

I've been away for a few days; took a respite from the responsibilities of home, from the non-stop political news with which I'm a bit obsessed, and went west -- all the way west -- to the shores of the Pacific Ocean where the bright sun shone down providing welcome autumn warmth, where the long expanse of deserted sandy beach recorded my footsteps, wandering in aimless wonder at the vast and powerful waves crashing into land, and where driftwood logs gave comfort to weary legs as I sat and contemplated the task I was undertaking.

I was not on vacation exactly.  I'd come to a "Mending Our Broken Hearts" retreat.

It's been just over a year since I left my once beloved church home.  I've written about this before:  http://myviewfromhere-donna.blogspot.com/2015/08/stepping-back.html

and especially http://myviewfromhere-donna.blogspot.com/2015/11/end-of-era.html

Every time I thought I was well and truly "over it", something would pop up that would re-ignite the hurt and rage I felt about the whole debacle, or as one friend has termed it, "The Great Unraveling".   More than anything, I longed for peace from the ongoing resentment, hurt, and confusion I felt about what happened and my reaction to it.  I needed so much to put it behind me and move on.

The retreat was a time to create sacred space for doing ritual.  I truly believe in the transformative power of this type of work.  I've done a ton of experiential personal growth work -- beating on pillows or screaming in rage to express a well of inner anger; acting out "scenes" to access deep feelings about incidents in life that still nag, talking to someone to whom things need to be said by imagining them in the chair across from you -- or choosing a volunteer to play the part of the listener or other "actor(s)" in a life drama; doing trust falls, being held in a group cradle, being sung to...

Yes, I know many of you may be laughing and finding it all so "woo-woo" silly.  My guess that most of the laughter and judgment comes from those who have never done it, never experienced the power of intentional healing through experiencing any number and types of rituals that you can feel in your body, healing the heart and the soul.  This is not "talk therapy" where intellectual "a-ha's" may come up..."Oh!  I never thought of that!"  Experiential personal growth work doesn't rely on puzzling your way to insight while sitting on a chair talking.  It shoves you off the cliff, challenged with love and skill, until your heart finds wing.  The relief is palpable, the healing cleansing, the tools gained invaluable.

This retreat wasn't as dramatic as all that, but it was a time for creating ritual and a time to find closure and renewal.   We gathered on Friday, got settled, walked on the beach, spent time in silence.  Then we made a plan for the weekend -- the group created the flow, decided on how the rituals would unfold, set an "agenda" of sorts.  After dinner we began a round of "checking in" by speaking about what we wanted to heal and to leave behind; what were the "stuck, hurt places" still causing us pain.  It was very moving to hear how deeply felt the hurts were.  There were tears, anger, exhaustion.

Saturday morning there was a time of exploring the Enneagram Types -- similar to the more popular Myers-Briggs personality test.  I love these things because they are so accurate in explaining the differences in how people respond to common or shared experiences in such different ways depending upon personality type.  I was able to see so clearly how my own Enneagram Type, my own personality traits, and childhood experiences led me to feel so deeply hurt by what had transpired, why I (and not others) could no longer remain in an environment from which I felt so alienated, and even how my own journey of "leaving" was for reasons often quite different from others who'd also left.  And, I saw that others were not "wrong" to remain, just acting from a different set of basic needs and personality constructs.  (NOTE: Whether great or small, these early emotional "wounds" of childhood never completely go away and continue to inform how we respond to life, ever the more so if we are unaware of or deny them.)

In the afternoon we all set to work creating our "letting go of the past" ritual.  We had brought along things that represented that which we wanted to let go of -- for me it was agendas, emails, reports, lists, rosters, organizational materials, testimonials...lots and lots of written materials.  I cut these into pieces to be burned in our ritual fire on the beach.   In a time of silence we also created a group collage of photos and words that represented that which we were leaving behind.  Attached to this were long pieces of woven yarn, one for each of us, that we would cut, to represent "cutting the cord" to the past.   We gathered up all these supplies and headed to the beach.  A fire was built in a hollowed out place near a large stand of driftwood.  We took turns adding our papers to the fire, sending the work I'd done with so much care and hope into the earth as ash, the flames burning hotter as the fire grew larger.  Some said words appropriate to what they were letting go as they added their own fuel to the fire.


At the end of this burning, we suspended the collage over the fire.  So many images and words there
spoke so strongly to my experience of both the joys and sorrows, the gratitude and grief, I felt toward my church experience that tears flowed as I read the words I'd written, expressing my deep gratitude for my time in that community as well as my deep disillusionment with it.  I spoke of my desire to let go, to move on, and finally to wish the community well as they move into the future too.  Cutting that cord was a profound moment, and almost immediately I felt a sense of release and freedom from the emotions that had been pulling me under for over a year.  I felt my heart soar.

After the fire was put out we spent another hour on the beach, some walking, some sitting in silence, allowing this time in a wild and natural place to continue to heal.  That evening was also a time of individual contemplation, quiet conversation, a time for stargazing as the sky lit up with the Milky Way and familiar constellations, reminding us of the vastness with which we are surrounded.

Sunday morning we lazed about, taking our time over breakfast, reading, laughing, sharing a lightness of heart and spirit.  Then it was time to do the "moving into the future" part of the retreat.  Ironically, I had a led a day-long workshop at my church three years ago called "Creating a Personal Mission Statement" and had volunteered to lead this as part of the retreat.  I condensed it into a couple of hours and facilitated us through the various steps of finding our deepest desire for healing what might be an old wound or longing, writing a "statement of purpose" for our lives, and finally crafting a personal mission statement that one can use as a daily guide to determine if we are living  life with intention -- making the choices and doing the work that truly feeds our soul, keeps us in the flow, and heals the world by healing our own tattered hearts and living our best selves.

By late Sunday afternoon I felt a joyous exhaustion.  I felt happy and light, focused on the future, and relieved that every time I thought about the church and "The Great Unraveling", I felt neutral -- more grateful than angry about my time there; a degree of non-attached curiosity about what would be next for that community; wishing the best for those I still care about who remain there. I no longer felt the tethering pain, anger, humiliation, and shame that has been my emotional response for a year.  I felt rather like thinking about high school; I felt some amusement, cherished some happy memories, and acknowledged some sad ones, but all from a distance -- from a different time in my life.

Sunday night we went out to a casual seafood dinner and then gathered to laugh with abandon at the silly female-centered humor of a movie called "Sisters" with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  It felt good to just be goofy.  I slept like a rock and got up Monday morning to pack and say goodbye to the beach, feeling deep gratitude for the experience and eager to drive back to my home and to reunite with  Hub who had sent me off with such gentle and hopeful wishes for a healing journey.  And it was.

At least, that's the view from here....©

PS...Having written this yesterday and just re-reading it, I feel I must add a note to those who I know read this blog and still attend this church.  The "leaving behind" does NOT include friends and those I love.  Those relationships are precious and remain so.  I'm leaving behind the emotions about the  institution, the organization, my time there as a congregant and leader.  In fact, I feel even more tenderness now, after the ritual, for all we shared together.

INNER ADVENTURING

We got together with a bunch of dear, good friends on Saturday night.  We call ourselves "The Tribe".  It was a potluck gathering full of amazingly good food, lighthearted conversation, and lots of laughter.   Over dinner the conversation went in the direction of people sharing tales of their outdoor adventures -- the things they love to do, where they've done them, where they hope to do more of it.  Hiking, biking, camping, snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking, skiing, snowboarding, boating; travels done or hoped for in the US, Europe, South America, Central America, SE Asia, China, India.

Regular readers of my blog will know how quiet I could have been during this conversation.   I do not particularly like outdoor adventuring, nor traveling.  This puts me in a club of severely limited membership in the Pacific Northwest where passions for these things seem to be a given.  (I fit with the bookstore/coffee shop crowd, who also are a common sight here, but most are just stopping by there in between adventures.)

In order to participate in the conversation, I joined in with my usual self-deprecating jokiness about my lack of Adventuring Gene, with a throw-away, dismissive comment aimed at myself about all of the things they love as something I would never do.  It was funny.  I laughed.  Everyone laughed.  I knew I was violating my therapist's admonition about putting myself down, but I thought I had a good handle on it.  Still, I ended up feeling like the "odd" woman out and not altogether great about it.  But not terrible either.  I thought I'd pulled it off.

Later in the evening the conversation took a turn toward touching on "the divorce".  Not mine and Hub's, but mine with my church.  (Again, I've written about this before, so I won't go into the details here, suffice to say, we split up last August.)  It has been a hard ten months since we parted.  Many don't understand why, many don't care, some hope we will reconcile, almost none understand the depth of hurt and introspection that has gone into diving deep inside myself to figure out how it happened, where I was culpable in the conflict, how we all might have behaved differently, whether I made the right decision, and why I cannot go back to a "partner" I still see as a bit dysfunctional, and with whom I have less and less in common...or at least not a common vision.  I'm trying to move on and find connections in a new and healthier way.   There ended up being maybe a teeny tiny bit of passion around expressing this at the social gathering.  I may have used the "F" word.

Debriefing with Hub the next morning, I allowed that I still seem to have a lot of pain and anger around the divorce and I need to do some more inner work to heal that negativity.  I said that the way I live my inner life, with my constant rumination, seeking to understand situations, other people, and mostly myself on a deep level are every bit as hard as climbing a mountain trail, dammit!  My "adventures" are of an internal nature!

The analogy struck a chord with me.  I realized I have nothing to feel inferior about, nothing to apologize for, if I don't do the "nature challenge" others so enjoy.  My challenges come in the form of deep personal work and the summit I am aiming for is increased self-knowledge, inner peace, compassion and "capital L" Love.

Feeling inspired, I sat down and wrote this poem:

THE ADVENTURER

I ford the river of tears

Climb from the depths of despair

Stumble over jagged rocks of doubt

Lose my way

Each step forward a small victory

Each boot stuck in a muddy rut another defeat

Clouds gather, burst

Cold sleet runs down my neck, chilling me to the bone

Will I ever see the sun?  Hear the birdsong?

Look up at a sky so blue, so clear that all pain is lost in its vast expanse?

I keep the vision close to my heart, the possibility of healing, the promise of joy.

One more step forward, one more slide back, heart muscles aching, breath ragged.

It is a lonely journey, the curved path treacherous, ascent steep

I long for sleep, for rest, for peace

It comes in welcome respite ‘round the night fires

Where other faces emerge from the dark, brother traveler, sister wanderer

Stirring the dying embers, finding warmth, feeling strength return

Awake to another day on the trail ahead

Perhaps this is the day

Perhaps this is the hour

Perhaps this is the moment 

When the summit is reached 

And all the world will lay below me

Dazzling like the jewel that is my life

To live, to love, to be.

****

You take the outer journey, I'll take the inner.  I'll meet you where our paths converge.

At least, that's the view from here...©

STEPPING BACK

Oh me, Oh my.  I do not like conflict.  But sometimes it's unavoidable and then I'm not afraid to face it head on.  It takes me awhile and I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, then I just get to a point where I feel I've done all I can do and have nothing to lose by falling into the fray.  I feel both liberation and loss when that happens.  Because I know for me something's gotta change.

I love my Unitarian Universalist church, but it hasn't felt very church-y to me for awhile.  I've been in some form of leadership position there for a very long time, active and visible and trying to help create a growing, thriving, welcoming place of personal refuge, spiritual growth, and targeted activism.  My focus has been on organizational structure and transition over the past few years.  There is a joke amongst UUs that trying to move that group in one direction is like herding cats.  We are an independent, anti-authoritarian crowd who rely on the democratic process in decision-making, but are not above a good protest when outcomes don't agree with our way of thinking.

I feel like we've had one controversy after another over the past couple of years and we are currently embroiled in a brouhaha that is slipping into way, way too much of my personal life.  Its tentacles are reaching beyond the actual "issue" and now even the response to the original issue is becoming the problem.  People are choosing up sides and I can't take it anymore.  Well, I don't want to.

A couple of weeks ago, when all of this sort of came to a head for me, I was visiting friends at their new beach house and one evening our conversation centered around our spiritual practices and what we want in a spiritual home.  It revealed to me that most of my actual spiritual practices have little to do with Sunday morning worship.  Meditation, yoga, writing, and my current addiction to the Outlander book series (HAHA) don't happen in the confines of my church.  It gave me pause.

Then, the following night we explored this statement: "If you don't know where you want to be in five years, you are already there", meaning, of course, that without a goal/plan/dream, nothing will change.

We each talked about our personal goals for the near future, which led us to realizing that if we are not already living toward that goal, living already each day in service to our dream, we are missing the mark.  No magic wand will wave and put us in our own personal Nirvana in five years' time.  I won't magically be in terrific cardiac health in five years if I don't get on the treadmill today.   Whatever the goal, it starts now.

We talked about what actions and activities touch our "essence" -- those moments when we are what is called, "in the flow", when chronological time seems to disappear and we enter "soul time", lost in pure joy and spirit.  For some it happens when listening to, singing or playing music, for others when painting, or gardening, or running, or hiking.  For me, again, I am lost in my Yoga practice, meditation, and writing; also when gathered in fun and laughter with close friends and family, and I would add lately when doing crafts with my granddaughter.  No church building or committee or controversy over policies, politics, or personalities required.

This past week I resigned from an important leadership group at my church and have declared I will not accept any leadership position in the foreseeable future beyond continuing to facilitate the WISE  group for women over 60 years old, which I've done for five years.  This is not a tantrum.  I'm not party to or personally involved in the current controversy.  I have an opinion, but it's not public.  It's just that in my capacity of leadership I was being drawn into the quagmire, losing sleep, dealing with side issues and seeing some people I have admired and some I have called friends behaving with surprisingly questionable wisdom and appallingly questionable outrage.

Going back to the beach house conversations, it was clear that this church stuff was dramatically impacting my ability to have opportunities to be "in the flow" -- to make choices about how to spend my time and energy, touching my essence.   In five years' time I'll be nearly 70 years old.  I know how fast five years flies by; how fast a lifetime flies by.

I recalled Mary Oliver's brilliant poem, "The Summer Day" and its stunning closing words:
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


I thought about my "one wild and precious life" and how much of it I've spent fulfilling commitments.  I took my concerns about "bailing on my commitment" at church into meditation; some would call it prayer.  My decision became crystal clear:  I will waste not one more sleepless night on policies and procedures, conflict and controversy not of my own making or of my personal responsibility.  I love my church; I love my community there.  But my sense of personal integrity around honoring a commitment I made to be on that committee felt like a burden -- and an obstacle to following my heart.  I was out of integrity with myself and if I didn't stop this pattern, nothing would be different in five years' time.


Stepping back is not stepping out, but it is stepping into a new way of being with a church and a community that has been central to my life for 23 years.  Liberation and loss.  Yes, that about sums it up on this sunny Sunday morning as I sit at my writing desk...in the flow, if not in the pew.

At least, that's the view from here....©