Staying the Path

For a while I kept hoping things would magically improve... If you have followed my blog for a while, you might know that this past year my family experienced some upheaval.  We were displaced from our home of four years right before I had planned to roll out some new offerings for my business:  courses, consulting, ceremonies...all paused mid-birth.  The summer was a flurry of moving and intensive child rearing, and I was eager for the school year to start, so I could get back to work again.

Expectations, I have learned in these past seven months, are tenuous at best.

In September we experienced some severe family conflict, totally heartbreaking and unanticipated.  It is still in process, continuing even today, the ramifications far reaching and stretching us beyond capacity in terms of both resources and time.

Then both of our cars broke down. 

Then my kids, one after another, came down with chicken pox.  They were out of school for a month, total.

And by now it was November.  Another explosion of family conflict, this time with a different co-parent (we are a blended family with two former spouses co-parenting our three kids--it is complicated at best, but this year has been infinitely complex).  

As a result, at the end of November with no warning or preparation, I took on the project of homeschooling my children.

Then it was Christmas.  Three kids, three households.  Enough said.

In January we experienced a dramatic custodial shift.  In February, yet another major family transition.

My husband likens this time to being tossed in a raging river.  I see it swimming in rough seas, undertow, waves rolling, the scrape of sand, gasping for breath.

Whatever the metaphor it has been a tough year, and my work, my business, has been the sacrifice. The question with any transition:  How are we to live our lives amid such shift? In this nearly constant mash of trial I have contemplated and integrated every approach in my arsenal:

Surrender

Aggression

Self-Care

Spiritual Practice

Therapy

Logic

Education

Stamina

Supplements

Medication

Meditation

Resignation

I thought I was a pro at transition, having endured a lot in the past ten years.  But I am humbled by the relentless intensity.  In fact, stripped down to the essence, there is only one thing that has supported us through this time:

Help.  Help from our family, help from our friends, help from our community.  We need help, and we have become stretched enough,  exhausted enough, pliable enough to ask for it.  It took a long time to get here, and we have only recently begun this approach, but already the offers and outpouring has been so loving and healing .  Already we feel that maybe, in time, some semblance of the life we remember will return. Rest, Renewal, Hope I am not an expert in transition.  No one is.  But I do know one thing:  we should not attend life's changes in isolation.

We need our community.  

My desire to return to work is very strong.  The work of ritual, ceremony, self-care and community.  The work of creative life enhancement and joyful seasonal gathering.  The work of my heart awaits.

Incrementally and in good time, I am emerging.  For now, I pray for patience--not my strong suit--and the strength of persistence.  I pray for rest, renewal and blooming when the moment is ripe.  Those offerings of last year await release, but I know now I cannot push it.  Everything has its season, all is revealed in time.

In the meantime, I want to invite you to the Moon Divas Community on Facebook, where we will be posting some information on community events this spring, including a burning and planting ritual this March.

Be well, beloved community.  May you find peace and trust your heart.
xox