A strand of words has been piecing itself together while I slept.
There’s something here within me about the weight of the archetypal, which can be borne by leaders, by elders in our lives. Until it is time to release it, let it disperse. One feels a deep sense of loss then, but also a grounding, a return to the ordinary sacred simmering always amidst the Big Sacred we may crave. In one sense, it’s not fair to make another carry that weight for us. In another sense, we are not aware we’ve asked this of them until they release it or it disperses amidst circumstance. I do claim my responsibility in this dance of projection-and-return even as I have come to understand over decades that this is how I grow, learn, mature. It is what it is.
This pattern played out in my bodysense yesterday, as two elders-friends in my life face their growing edges in rupture, together yet differentiating too. I didn’t realize it amidst the overwhelming sense of sadness, but I now see I’ve projected this weight of the archetypal onto one of them in particular, an African-American woman whose own healing journey has substantially altered my own. To be fair to myself, she has willingly borne this archetypal energy in her call of Spirit, suggested in a cosmic name that fits her–Wind Warrior–alongside/within her beautiful-yet-challenging human life, so fragile and fierce at the same time. Part of my own sense of loss is now losing that archetypal place-holding, that lived sense of a Sacred my own wounded-journeying had lost center in. As “the promise of forgiveness and reconciliation in the world,” this woman live(d)(s) a Hope I could not feel or access myself. She was larger-than-life, with a wisdom-saying for nearly every sadness or hopelessness I was mired in.
Yet no one can carry the weight of the archetypal forever, especially if we are curious and committed to spiritual maturity, emotional wisdom. While I am aware of a sense of loss amidst her life’s challenges right now, I’m also still in awe of her, still love her fiercely, still wish whatever is for the Good for her (and for those she loves, feels betrayed by, fears…).
I’m most aware of the fragility of loving connection, particularly amidst this human-cosmic energy within her, us. Much literature suggests that relational surprise and/or rupture can send a person back to their ‘age of trauma,’ which could arguably be adolescence for this dear woman. This does feel like that, though I’d never presume to say for sure.
Longstanding partnerships learn a trustworthiness known in showing up, in staying present, in facing fires together over years. This one in her life has demonstrated that beyond reproach.
Even so, longstanding partnerships maintain different sensibilities around privacy, individuality, honesty, and transparency. For instance, there have been things that Brian should have told me, in my sensibility, that he withheld from me, in his sensibility. I don’t like it, but it’s not a betrayal. I don’t even require him to become accountable in my own sensibility-terms, though life would be easier for me if he would. It is part of him being on his own journey and me being on mine, woven together but also differentiated from one another, so we have selves-to-share. He has demonstrated trustworthiness over years, even though he can still surprise me, I can still feel like he withheld something he shouldn’t have. Part of my living Love for him in the world is doing so without reciprocity, without requiring him to fit my sensibilities. Grown-ass loving, we might say, which changes me without requiring change in him.
In this friend’s hurt, she needs/hopes that everyone will now experience this other she loves as untrustworthy. A natural projecting outward that can help her hold her hurt for a while…but the community as a whole knows how trustworthy he is, even if his choices in his own life were not what she had wanted or expected. She cannot alter that, no matter what her hurt hopes here. We know him...too.
So what does Wind Warrior, who lives into being the promise of forgiveness and reconciliation, hold in hope for this dear woman, tasked with growing up emotionally so to trust beyond her capacity right now? Unknowing, I hold in prayer and in hope…
…because I’ve been gifted with a hopefulness and belonging I had thought was gone forever. My heart aches for the searing work before her, within her, and I trust it is precisely as it is supposed to be, for the Good of each, for the Good of the whole. I have surrendered, I suppose...
No one should carry the weight of the archetypal forever. I consciously release her from that burden in my own journeying, and I hope to hold in hope for her whatever is best for her woman’s heart. Right partners are never found, after all; they are made, over years, over willingness to continue to show up amidst rupture.
The ordinary sacred can now simmer each waking moment, becoming the Big Sacred only when it’s time, in those who live Hope into the world because they cannot help themselves but to do so. My Hope for her knows no bounds.
Comments
Post a Comment