Wounds and the Meaning of Wholeness

What comes with acceptance

Poetry

From Gregory Orr and his book Selected Books of the Beloved

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Journeying

“I guess I just really want to feel better. I want all of this to get better someday. But, honestly, I’m not sure it’s worth talking about.”

“I’m glad you said that. And I do think we should talk about it because I really don’t think it’s going to happen.”

After several days spent deep in the recesses of my head, depressed, anxious, trying to solve the problem of me, I went to the pool. When I got in the water, the wrestling continued. I hurt, and I wanted to know why because then I would feel better. Answers came, usually beginning with the words, “you should,” “why don’t you try,” and “no, that’s wrong,” but not the promised release. Every few minutes, my brain did manage a little bit of space between myself and the place “I” was. I could see myself drowning in thoughts, swamped by emotion, and I could remember this dark hole as part of a pattern, a pattern that would eventually shift. And then I’d be back down inside of it all again, yelling, pleading, “I just want out; I just want this to end; will this ever end?”

I’ve been here before. This is old territory. So when I admitted my anguish to my Spiritual Companion¹ during our session later that afternoon, I felt shame at giving voice to these emotions again. Why did I still experience such deep troughs? Why hadn’t I risen above, or meditated my way out of them? In her reply, “I really don’t think it’s going to happen,” she admitted what I could not: the pattern wasn’t going anywhere. To be honest, I had already noticed this truth hovering in my peripheral vision for months. I’d ignored it because it frightened me. If I accepted that the darker, threatening parts of myself would continue to return, I would be lost to them. I would finally succumb to mental breakdown and never be able to claw my way back to sanity.

But, now, another person, whose opinion I valued and trusted, had voiced my fears. And, suddenly, I found that I could also speak them: “my life is full of sharp corners; I get overwhelmed; I search for answers; I find lots, but none save me; I turn the corner; I regain balance.” In my Spiritual Companion’s courage, I located my own, and the result was pain, yes, but also relief.

Then we spent some time talking about what would get better. Will acceptance lead me to expend less energy wrestling with my mind and emotions when I find myself in another low? In the weeks following this conversation, I can tell you it has. I can also tell you that I have wasted less energy harming myself through shame and critique because I can’t flatten my ups and downs, decrease my strong emotions, or maintain equanimity. My sense of a solid self, and one with firm footing, has also increased as it does each time I welcome another part of me. The possibility for “better” does exist, just not in the linear way I planned. I can’t remove unwanted elements of myself like pieces of clothing. And I can’t alter intimate life patterns like I can, figuratively, remodel my kitchen.

I hurt. I’m ashamed. I have deep wounds, some are open, some have healed, leaving thick scars that inhibit movement. I notice, and I accept all of it so that possibility, which respects scar tissue, can move through me. In this way, I see that I have never been anything other than whole.

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Gardening and Making/Mending

Late season abandon

When we lived in Atlanta, GA, late summer never appealed to me. By the time September arrived, we had already survived several months of high temperatures and humidity, and we knew that summer still had at least eight more weeks of heat to dole out before we began the slow slide toward autumn. This year, however, I find myself attracted to this shoulder season. The summer plants are leggy and browning, and the fall plants are just beginning to bloom. The fields are full of golden corn and soybeans, not quite ready for harvest, and cool nights mitigate warm afternoons. Every couple days, I go out to pick tomatoes and peppers in the garden. Both are plentiful, but the shortening days mean that, eventually, I’ll have to bring what hasn’t ripened on the plant inside to be wrapped in newspaper. I used to line up all of my green tomatoes on windowsills and let the sun do its work, and I still do this with some of the harvest because I love the way tomatoes look in my kitchen windows. But, recently, I learned that covering tomatoes with newspaper also does an excellent job, especially, for those hard, end of season fruits that have no hope of window ripening in late October when snow could be falling on the other side of the glass. For now, I am enjoying this liminal season, which seems so akin to how I am also experiencing myself of late, not quite one thing or another, but also somehow both.

Now, that I look at this yarn on the right, I think I'm going to replace the ball in the middle with something else.

Here I am, at a nearby prairie preserve, knitting a hat for myself as I have a heartbreaking tendency to lose the ones I make for myself. My daughter, who took this picture sits next to me drawing in her sketch book. We watch a hawk fly overhead as we bat at the abundance of late season insects. Golden rod, big bluestem, and spent milkweed wave in the field a few feet from our bench. My impetus to knit has returned, and right on schedule, with cooler weather and the waning garden. I have started a very large shawl made from the several skeins of pinkish/coral yarn. I have no idea if I’ll wear it or gift it as I don’t generally wear these colors. Luckily, I won’t have to decide for quite awhile. I work slowly and expect the shawl to take me at least six months. My sewing machine calls to me, and I linger over emails from Merchant and Mills fabric company. Perhaps, sewing is also a possibility in this next season.

1. For more on Spiritual Companioning and my definition of it.