Each day, we wake slightly altered,
and the person we were yesterday is dead.
John Updike quoted in The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

We are at the mid-point in the 12 weeks of winter. In the six weeks leading up to the spring equinox, the opportunity is in finding, even if only for 15 minutes a day, ways in which to feel renewed, refreshed, rejuvenated, replenished. These are qualities that attend a period of rest. Consider the earth and the way in which the snow blankets the soil, holding in the moisture and nutrients in place ready for the coming season of growth. Now there is a quieting. Animals curl up in secret places waiting for the natural light, the lengthening days, to impel them to become active once again.

In a slim book titled The Sacred Tree, by a collective of First Nation members, there are lists of the gifts that each season and compass direction bestows. During the North/winter some of the gifts are insight, intuition, moderation, a sense of how to live a balanced life, freedom from fear, freedom from hate, seeing how all things fit together. We can each do our level best to focus upon any one of these elements and find that one good thing leads to another. Momentum unfurls like the frond of a fern deep in the forest. Unless there is a disruption. Perhaps an animal walks by and eats the frond. Maybe it gets flooded during the January thaw and the roots drown. A hiker’s boot may crush its fragile new growth. Things happen.

Here’s my short story:

Ten days ago I felt muddled. I was agitated. I felt unsettled. It was as if I forgot the last blogpost and the practice of the eight worldly dharmas where the idea is to take a stand and place ourselves in the middle so that the four pairs of opposites can be observed without attachment. I couldn’t find myself, let alone my mid-point. A brain fog descended, seemingly out of nowhere. I hurt. I hurt bad. I felt as though I had been gut-punched. I was confused. What happened? What is going on? Mother always said, “This too shall pass.” Mother always said, ” Mind over matter.” Mother always said, “Cut the T off of can’t. What’s left?” I could hear that part of myself that kept urging me on saying, ‘I can. I can. I can keep going.’ However, another voice was saying, ‘Rest. Rest. Rest.’

Here’s what happened … 

Ten days ago there was a deep disruption. My nervous system was shocked and my body reverberated with disturbed chemistry. My instinct had been to ‘get on with it’ and to get over it’, yet, it was necessary to acknowledge the damage. It was important, to be honest with myself to get to the bottom of what was causing the pain body to activate.

It started with the deep pain-in-the-gut. Like maybe I forgot doing100 sit-ups. Hurt. I hurt. I talked to myself. I wondered why. Why would I need to experience this pain? I was deeply muddled and at the same time, I was curious. When I feel out of sorts I eventually remind myself to stop. I sit quietly and I track backward in my mind to recall the last time I felt good. Truly good. That gives me my figure-ground. It seemed I had felt really good and truly myself days earlier just before having an uncomfortable conversation. Okay, so maybe since things are still up in the air around the topic, I may have activated anxiety and my fear/shadow. I acknowledged the part of me that works hard to keep me small and ‘safe’. The part that feels that I am wrong, bad and a burden. False security.

The pain continued. On the second day, as we drove three hours to the farm, we listened to an On Being interview with Kristin Tippett and Katherine May discussing May’s book How Wintering Replenishes. Readers know that one of my favorite creative tools is that of following the Circadian Rhythm of the seasons and cycles of the natural year. Katherine May’s information mirrored that of my own awareness. For the next three days, it felt natural, without electricity and the darkness arriving just after five, to sleep 10-12 hours each night, napping each afternoon, taking advantage of the super short ‘wintering’ days. Early in the morning, I dressed in warm layers. With the pups, I moved on and off the forest trails looking for animal signs while admiring the many varieties of mosses and ferns. I snake my way through thick undergrowth and wander along the creek looking for deer rubbing trees.

The chemistry of the body is inseparable from the chemistry of the brain.
Movement can stimulate anyone.
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

Being in the crisp cold air helps yet it doesn’t relieve the core-deep discomfort. Six days of feeling mostly immobilized. I was unable to concentrate while in the studio. I sit in the wicker chair gazing out at the first snowfall collecting on the pines and blanketing everything as the full moon rises on the east border. I determined, on day five, that this wasn’t going to pass anytime soon. It was time to ask for support. I called in my most trusted Helping Hands, Unseen Teachers, and Guides, the construct that I call ‘Old Friend’ whom I trust as my valued Inner Support System. Odd how stubborn I can be thinking that I can figure things out on my own. That rarely works. Once I asked for help, help arrived.

On day six at three in the morning (my favorite and most creative pre-dawn time of day), I opened my journal. I wrote:

I seem to be coming up to the surface. I’ve been nearly a week pushed down. I keep attempting to regain my equilibrium. I continually flounder. I get pulled under. I gulp. I do my best to dog-paddle, to keep my head above the surface. I don’t want to sink.

Since Saturday afternoon my stomach has ached. I’ve felt sucker-punched. My hips feel locked, making it painful to walk. First, I started guessing about what is going on … a layer, like oil on top of the water, is sliding off the surface. It was last Friday. Bodhi and I were walking our four-mile loop. Halfway home I saw, off to my left, out of the corner of my eye, about four large house lots down along the lakeshore a loose white pit bull running full-out in our direction. Bodhi is a rescue dog and she came to me with one built-in flaw: she is aggressive toward other dogs. When she is leashed, she feels rough and ready to take on any dog, any size. Now a large white pit bull is running full speed toward us! I immediately begin to command the loose dog. I tell it to “STOP! GO HOME! GO HOME!” The dog slows to a trot. It is now stalking us up the middle of the two-lane road. No longer running, now trotting very quickly, I raise my left hand, I use my most authoritative voice commanding, GO! The dog continues trotting up the road, keeping a pace, getting closer. Bodhi is pulling toward the pitbull and I am lifting her harness forcing her to walk on her back legs breaking her attention. My booming voice is keeping the dog at bay, yet he keeps pace, he stalks us. This is a quiet neighborhood. I rarely see a car go by or anyone else walking. I’m surprised when a silver sedan approaches. The driver sees the dog trotting in the street. The driver sees my dilemma. The car slows. Like a rancher herding a wayward calf the car maneuvers between us and the loose dog. The pit bull momentarily loses sight of us. Quickly it lurches from behind the car running onto the sidewalk just 20 feet behind us. The car pulls to the curb. I am unable to see the driver due to the angle of the embanked sidewalk to the road. The passenger window lowers and the driver calls, “Get in!” I lunge to open the passenger door, Bodhi jumps into the front seat, I slide in as the sedan pulls away from the scene. The elderly driver introduces himself.  Ben. I have a poodle. I live on Lafayette. He takes us two blocks up the road. I say Thank you. Bodhi and I complete our walk home.

I didn’t register the panic/fear trigger that was detonated. It wasn’t so much that I minimized my feelings, I told BD what had happened, However, I didn’t acknowledge how visceral the experience was. I stuffed it. And then my body rebelled. My nervous system was now processing the experience whether I was aware of what was happening or not. Pain. Numbed. Slammed. My nervous system zapped. Old patterns being activated and quickly submerged. It took a week to realize that I’ve been holding my breath underwater. I have been trying not to drown for six days because of the four-minute episode that triggered terror as a large loose pitbull barreled down on me and my pup while walking in a tranquil neighborhood.

I am so deeply grateful to the eighty-year-old angel named Ben who had the presence of mind to interrupt the dog and then removed us from the dangerous environment. The fact of getting into a car with a stranger is another piece of this equation. Many sensations deep in my somatic body have emerged over the past six days.

I seem to have come back up to the surface again. I seem to be back. I am slowly returning following the shock. PTSD. It has taken a full week away from the event, which lasted all of four minutes, to gain enough distance to recognize the impact and the reverberation. The shock of a depth charge.

Any approach that renews your self-confidence and keeps you
moving forward is worth cultivating.
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

I am being deeply grateful for the tools available to me. I am able to acknowledge decades of discipline and the application of TLC as well as the fierce refusal to be robbed of my true nature by forces outside of myself. From here I can move forward. I reinforced that ability by engaging in a series of exercises to bring my nervous system back into alignment. 

I share this story, while I still feel vulnerable because I believe that many of us are knowingly or unknowingly being hijacked by trauma/drama during these times of change. I invite you to follow any of the links in this post to support you in coming back home to your Center, where you are truly alive and radiantly engaged in your precious art/life.

We grow together.

I send you all the best in this new moon/month of Renewal.