I start with an image
A superb mare expressing
unequivocally
exquisitely
freely
the nature of her power.
I hear the pounding of her hooves on soft dirt,
her strong rhythmic breath ignites mine,
her muscles play under her shiny coat,
her dark mane flies as she stretches her neck
leading the course of her sudden outburst of power
The earth beats in the core of my bones
while she flies like the wind.
She is my inspiration.
A few weeks ago I had to review a part of me I had managed to avert for a long time, successfully I thought. I had clues but refused to see them under this particular light. These moments often had me wonder: why did I cry when thinking about certain people, places and memories? why the recurrent sad tears? why were they comforting and strangely odd?
I must be a very sensitive person was my convenient conclusion.
In hindsight I find myself hilarious!
The uneasy nature of these tears challenged my idea that I am a strong, independent, self sufficient woman ... and bothered me enough to ask for help, thinking that I would find understanding and support. I did not anticipate help coming in the form of strong reprisal and confrontation. The surprise that emanated out of this unexpected scenario was that I had to face yet another unbecoming side of me. At first I felt exposed, embarrassed, ashamed and furious with myself for not having been able to overcome or at least hide this trait.
Now I am excited to realize, once again, that I am as dark as I am light, that I am as destructive as I am creative. Admitting that I waste an unnecessary amount of my energy covering up what I already know about myself and refuse to own, was a relief. I could recognize what I find so upsetting when I face what troubles me about the world, and the convenient denial and shedding of personal responsibility I practice when I don´t like what I see and know.
So have I awakened your curiosity enough?
I found myself forced to see that I am also whiny! That I use self pity, victim-ism and blame to avoid owning up to my more intense feelings of hate, revenge, resentment, weakness, rage. Showing my refusal to go back to old places of powerlessness and submission, of concessions, when in the name of love, I settled to cutting off from my true nature and power.
The way I know now is that this love is sought after with great sacrifice and earnest intent. The love of a child, a teenager, a daughter looking for ways to please, ways to conform and meet with her own ideas of what is expected of her. With this map of love in hand, I see how these ripples reached siblings, friends, colleagues and romantic relationships. I find it is a small version of love, a love that has no-body because I used it as a currency to cut myself in pieces, to please and manipulate others, to disengage from my own self and natural responsibility.
The following weeks I spent digging, like an anthropologist interested in finding out old ways of behaving and functioning socially. I was interested in digging up by-laws and contracts agreed upon in times of unconscious treaties. My discoveries led me to psychic agreements that spoke of twisted and entangled love lessons, made with the fear of facing bare banks of icy and condescending indifference; from failed attempts to keep at bay the sting of lethal decrees and final judgements.
Once in possession of this rusty and ancient material I co-created, I pondered on ways to dissolve the ties that I have used to recreate my misery and poison the ground on which I build my relationships. In my meditations, writing and dreams I found clues about rituals that symbolize the cutting off and letting go of early promises that kept me bound to archaic clauses.
As I claim my right to be all that I am, an ally comes forth in the shape of a beautiful mare.
She finds her way to my drum and I find a beat that sounds like her when she is unbridled and gallops alongside the wind.
I claim my right to be furious,
to be intense,
to be sensuous,
to be creative,
to be truthful and
powerful in the ways of Love.
I claim Love as my nature calls it
I claim Love as a power of my own
I claim Love as a galloping horse
Unbridled, joyous
and free
