I don't know what possessed me to come looking at this old blog today, but wow, January 2019? That literally feels like a lifetime ago. I don't remember exactly what kept me from writing in the rest of the 2019 months, but I think anyone reading this will understand why a drop-off continued after 2020.
So much has changed since then.
So much for the world, certainly, but also so much for myself. The biggest example I can think of is that I realized something during 2020 that had nothing to do with the global pandemic. All that darkness I wrote about a few posts before this? I was right about it being serious burnout, but what I didn't realize was that it was specifically of the autistic kind. I'd never even considered that I was autistic before that year, but when a close friend was diagnosed it brought some things within me to light. It wasn't a bad thing. Actually it was wonderful. All that time, for so long, I was so convinced that I was just broken as a human. Realizing I was autistic also meant realizing...I wasn't broken at all.
It was a very emotional, but also a very freeing year of learning about myself and about ASD. And all of that learning, all of that new understanding for myself and my mind, lead to a beautiful time of healing. I realized I was autistic pretty early on in 2020, and by that summer I finally felt ready to...well, to exist again. My local library posted a job listing. I applied, and after one interview I was offered a position. A part time position, which was perfect for what I needed. The entire process felt as unreal as the rest of that year had, but the longer I was there the more real it felt, until eventually I looked up one day and realized it was officially the longest I had ever had a single job. I'm still there to this day!
Well, technically. At this very moment I am actually on a bit of a work leave, which was why I've had so much time to jog down some memory lanes and stumble across this blog in the first place. It's not a very fun work leave, though; I broke my ankle in three places, had to have surgery, and was told not to bear weight on the ankle for 8 weeks. I'm currently approaching the end of week six. Three more to go!
I've taken this time off to try and refocus myself on what I wanted to do all those years ago, back in 2019 when I had a dream of earning a living with nothing but my art, my writing, and a bit of gumption. I still have a RedBubble Shop, I focus most of my social media attempts on my BlueSky account, and sometime not too long ago I cleaned up my personal website. I make a couple of dollars a year on RedBubble with some popular Christmas designs, but otherwise I have certainly been less focused on art as I would have liked - and a lot less focused on writing, too. So I figured, why not give it another go? I'll just pick up right where I left off. There aren't exactly a lot of people here reading anyway, so that's about as low stakes as you can get.
So, then. Hi! Hello, here I am. Let's go again.
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
hindsight is 2020
Friday, January 11, 2019
looking for something to be
The holidays are quite the whirlwind of emotions, aren't they. Exciting and fun, filled with laughter and family and love; but also tiring and chaotic, leaving you wanting nothing more than to escape from the world and curl up under a comforting blanket with your favorite cup of tea. I'm afraid I've been spending a lot of time in the latter camp described there, and my art and writing habits have suffered for it over the past few weeks. I'm trying my best to cut myself slack though, because if I've learned anything over the past year it's how easily the positive things in life are lost to the overlay of negative if you do not give yourself time and space to see both.
So I haven't been drawing as much as I would like to, and I haven't posted much of anything in my usual shop fronts since the stickers that I designed for the Advent and Christmas season, but that's okay. I'm getting there. What I have done is started to keep track of things that I do accomplish in my journal at the end of the day, so that if some of the tasks I had laid out were not finished I can look back and remind myself of the things that were. I've continued to attend R.C.I.A. with my husband, and as that progresses we are both more and more excited to finally "officially" join the Church. New Year New Me is a popular saying in this month, but I try not to think of things with such a harsh line on midnight of that final day in December. It is a new year, and there are new chances to do new things and find more of yourself - but every day is a new chance to find more of yourself. You don't need a new date on the calendar for that.
Clearly, I have a tendency to ramble; but I suppose that's what I created this blog for in the first place! I did have somewhat of a point to this conversation with you though, and that's to remind everyone that it's okay to do nothing, if that's what you need. The past few weeks for me have been a lot of doing nothing in the art department, and most of the year has been a lot of doing nothing in the writing department. I did open my notebook today, though. I've found myself lately feeling a pull towards writing poetry again, and I wanted to write some thoughts down on what inspiration feels like. I have a tendency to scribble thoughts onto the page and forget about them afterwards, and as I flipped through the pages to start writing today I came across some writing that I did sometime in autumn. It's not quite a poem, because I have not put all the pieces in just the right place, but it does have the essence of one. I thought it might be nice to share this 'skeleton in my closet,' so to speak. The skeleton of a maybe-someday poem, and the skeleton of the emotions that I was working through at the time.
I'll end my post with sharing those words, but first I also want to take a moment and remind whoever is reading this -- no matter where you are right now, in the world or in your own mind and heart, you are worthy of something to everyone, and you are worth everything to someone.
The leaves are changing.
Somehow an entire summer has passed,
and not a single page was filled.
I remember last winter.
It was cold, lonely, painful,
hard to bear, harder still to live through.
Spring brought hope for a fresh start, but
this went deeper than the winter frost.
A longing for quiet and a desperate need for sound.
Exhaustion and an unending supply of energy.
The need to run with no motivation to move.
A call for company and a leer to anyone who comes near.
A voice that wants to be heard
to spread the Word across the world
and no way to speak.
No spark to feed the sleeping flames.
Scattered words without a poem to fit inside.
Half-baked characters with no story to call home.
A will to be heard, known, seen, needed,
without the motivation...to be.
So I haven't been drawing as much as I would like to, and I haven't posted much of anything in my usual shop fronts since the stickers that I designed for the Advent and Christmas season, but that's okay. I'm getting there. What I have done is started to keep track of things that I do accomplish in my journal at the end of the day, so that if some of the tasks I had laid out were not finished I can look back and remind myself of the things that were. I've continued to attend R.C.I.A. with my husband, and as that progresses we are both more and more excited to finally "officially" join the Church. New Year New Me is a popular saying in this month, but I try not to think of things with such a harsh line on midnight of that final day in December. It is a new year, and there are new chances to do new things and find more of yourself - but every day is a new chance to find more of yourself. You don't need a new date on the calendar for that.
Clearly, I have a tendency to ramble; but I suppose that's what I created this blog for in the first place! I did have somewhat of a point to this conversation with you though, and that's to remind everyone that it's okay to do nothing, if that's what you need. The past few weeks for me have been a lot of doing nothing in the art department, and most of the year has been a lot of doing nothing in the writing department. I did open my notebook today, though. I've found myself lately feeling a pull towards writing poetry again, and I wanted to write some thoughts down on what inspiration feels like. I have a tendency to scribble thoughts onto the page and forget about them afterwards, and as I flipped through the pages to start writing today I came across some writing that I did sometime in autumn. It's not quite a poem, because I have not put all the pieces in just the right place, but it does have the essence of one. I thought it might be nice to share this 'skeleton in my closet,' so to speak. The skeleton of a maybe-someday poem, and the skeleton of the emotions that I was working through at the time.
I'll end my post with sharing those words, but first I also want to take a moment and remind whoever is reading this -- no matter where you are right now, in the world or in your own mind and heart, you are worthy of something to everyone, and you are worth everything to someone.
.:an almost-poem about the leaves:.
The leaves are changing.
Somehow an entire summer has passed,
and not a single page was filled.
I remember last winter.
It was cold, lonely, painful,
hard to bear, harder still to live through.
Spring brought hope for a fresh start, but
this went deeper than the winter frost.
A longing for quiet and a desperate need for sound.
Exhaustion and an unending supply of energy.
The need to run with no motivation to move.
A call for company and a leer to anyone who comes near.
A voice that wants to be heard
to spread the Word across the world
and no way to speak.
No spark to feed the sleeping flames.
Scattered words without a poem to fit inside.
Half-baked characters with no story to call home.
A will to be heard, known, seen, needed,
without the motivation...to be.
Friday, November 2, 2018
your world's not falling apart
It's November now.
Isn't it funny how quickly a year can go by? Last year around this time I had the worst emotional breakdown I have ever experienced in my life, triggered by a multitude of events and ongoing problems that all culminated together to form one terrible, crashing, life-evolving moment. I won't go into detail about the events that lead to it here; that's part of my Lifesong, and it will come through that series in time. All you need to know now is that last year, just around this time, my life felt as though it were falling apart around me. The final straw was that I had reached a financial goal that had literally been the point of working, for me, at the time; but when I finally reached the goal...it was all for nothing.
I'm not certain that every person is built for a day job. I don't mean physically, or that some are incapable of keeping a job for any reason; I mean mentally, and emotionally. I say this as the risk of sounding like a "whiny millennial" because I'm certain there are others out there who might be feeling the same way, and might also be drowning in a sense of guilt because of it. It took a long time for me to find a job where I was happy working, but the last job that I held was just that. It wasn't difficult work, my co-workers were friendly and caring, my bosses were even more so. I loved working there, but after three years I still found myself reaching a...'wall' of sorts. An emotional trench, a hopeless pattern of working to pay for living (or in my case, student loans) and then being too exhausted by the mental and emotional price to do anything except hide from the world upon returning to my apartment. I struggle with anxiety in a general way, but in the months leading up to last November I found myself feeling the depression that can sometimes come hinged to that. The emotions and events of last year lead to my husband and I moving back to my parents' home, and it was all part of the decision that ultimately lead me to begin this journey into self employment.
Right now, sitting at my keyboard in the dim lighting of a windy autumn afternoon, I feel like I can say that I am truly happy. Of course not every moment is filled with laughter, not every blink finds me with a smile; there is still sadness, there is still anxiety, and at times there is still the touch of that depressive state that I found myself in for so many months. But now, finally, I find that I am starting to feel like myself again.
The most poignant example I can think to demonstrate this feeling is my reading habits. Last November, I was a handful of chapters into a book that I was thoroughly enjoying. Normally I'm the sort of reader than can pick up a book the size of Harry Potter late in the series and read it in the passing of one day; but with this book, during that time of my life, I started reading it before last November...and I finished it just over a month ago. Reading has always been a huge part of my life, and I have never felt so broken as I did when I found that I couldn't even find the motivation to pick up a book and read.
This is turning around though. I finished that book, started the next, and finished that book in a little over a week. I've started another, and I'm already three-quarters through the pages. With my motivation for reading returning, I've decided to push myself further still and work towards better daily habits - specifically, better art habits, and better writing habits. Last month I participated in 'Inktober' for the first time, a community art event that encourages artists to draw something every day and share it, even if it isn't 'finished' or 'perfect.' I am overjoyed to find myself past the month with a notebook full of daily drawings. I did not miss a single day, and I can only pray that I will have the strength to continue with more frequent art (though I will have to be honest with myself, and perhaps not expect a fresh drawing every day).
I am reading, I am drawing and painting, and now...I also hope to be writing. This post is more than a bit of a ramble, but I hope that if you've found this blog of mine you won't be turned away. I want to write more, even if that isn't a finished piece, and that is what this blog is for. This post in particular was written in hopes of collecting my thoughts, of writing down how I am feeling in this moment so that...if I find myself once again stuck in an emotional rut with little to no belief in myself, I can read this post and remember
I have made it out of that trench, that darkness once before.
I can do it again.
And so can you.
Isn't it funny how quickly a year can go by? Last year around this time I had the worst emotional breakdown I have ever experienced in my life, triggered by a multitude of events and ongoing problems that all culminated together to form one terrible, crashing, life-evolving moment. I won't go into detail about the events that lead to it here; that's part of my Lifesong, and it will come through that series in time. All you need to know now is that last year, just around this time, my life felt as though it were falling apart around me. The final straw was that I had reached a financial goal that had literally been the point of working, for me, at the time; but when I finally reached the goal...it was all for nothing.
I'm not certain that every person is built for a day job. I don't mean physically, or that some are incapable of keeping a job for any reason; I mean mentally, and emotionally. I say this as the risk of sounding like a "whiny millennial" because I'm certain there are others out there who might be feeling the same way, and might also be drowning in a sense of guilt because of it. It took a long time for me to find a job where I was happy working, but the last job that I held was just that. It wasn't difficult work, my co-workers were friendly and caring, my bosses were even more so. I loved working there, but after three years I still found myself reaching a...'wall' of sorts. An emotional trench, a hopeless pattern of working to pay for living (or in my case, student loans) and then being too exhausted by the mental and emotional price to do anything except hide from the world upon returning to my apartment. I struggle with anxiety in a general way, but in the months leading up to last November I found myself feeling the depression that can sometimes come hinged to that. The emotions and events of last year lead to my husband and I moving back to my parents' home, and it was all part of the decision that ultimately lead me to begin this journey into self employment.
(I haven't been diagnosed with Depression, and I don't want anything I say here to be a commentary on those struggling with that in their daily lives. My brush against these emotions was not permanent, and I could never even pretend to imagine the strength it must take for those who live with Depression daily.)
Right now, sitting at my keyboard in the dim lighting of a windy autumn afternoon, I feel like I can say that I am truly happy. Of course not every moment is filled with laughter, not every blink finds me with a smile; there is still sadness, there is still anxiety, and at times there is still the touch of that depressive state that I found myself in for so many months. But now, finally, I find that I am starting to feel like myself again.
The most poignant example I can think to demonstrate this feeling is my reading habits. Last November, I was a handful of chapters into a book that I was thoroughly enjoying. Normally I'm the sort of reader than can pick up a book the size of Harry Potter late in the series and read it in the passing of one day; but with this book, during that time of my life, I started reading it before last November...and I finished it just over a month ago. Reading has always been a huge part of my life, and I have never felt so broken as I did when I found that I couldn't even find the motivation to pick up a book and read.
This is turning around though. I finished that book, started the next, and finished that book in a little over a week. I've started another, and I'm already three-quarters through the pages. With my motivation for reading returning, I've decided to push myself further still and work towards better daily habits - specifically, better art habits, and better writing habits. Last month I participated in 'Inktober' for the first time, a community art event that encourages artists to draw something every day and share it, even if it isn't 'finished' or 'perfect.' I am overjoyed to find myself past the month with a notebook full of daily drawings. I did not miss a single day, and I can only pray that I will have the strength to continue with more frequent art (though I will have to be honest with myself, and perhaps not expect a fresh drawing every day).
I am reading, I am drawing and painting, and now...I also hope to be writing. This post is more than a bit of a ramble, but I hope that if you've found this blog of mine you won't be turned away. I want to write more, even if that isn't a finished piece, and that is what this blog is for. This post in particular was written in hopes of collecting my thoughts, of writing down how I am feeling in this moment so that...if I find myself once again stuck in an emotional rut with little to no belief in myself, I can read this post and remember
I have made it out of that trench, that darkness once before.
I can do it again.
And so can you.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
unedited
What is a voice?
ink dripping from the tip of a pen
falling together
scattered across a page
What is hope?
sentences written in secret
words laced together into dreams
And a dream?
a new reality
woven together by the spirit
wrapped tightly around the light
truth that floods out from the heart
What is truth?
water, light, and fire
bleeding through the weave of dreams
straining to show the world
ink dripping from the tip of a pen
falling together
scattered across a page
What is hope?
sentences written in secret
words laced together into dreams
And a dream?
a new reality
woven together by the spirit
wrapped tightly around the light
truth that floods out from the heart
What is truth?
water, light, and fire
bleeding through the weave of dreams
straining to show the world
Saturday, September 15, 2018
pieces of a Lifesong - 6
There are pieces of my story which occurred over my college years that are important to mention, but I will only touch on them briefly here. Freshman year I lost a friendship with someone that I had been very close to for years, and it was painful enough that I felt absolutely broken by it. I didn't truly start to heal from that separation until I met the man who would become my husband (I'll call him 'John' from here on). The timing in which I met John (in relation to my broken friendship) already felt a lot like God had planned it out, but the way in which I met him was also so unlikely that there is no doubt in my mind we were meant to meet; at the time that we met, we lived 3000 miles apart. I knew John for a year, and it wasn't until I felt truly secure in his permanence in my life that my cat, who I had found as a child and had raised from a kitten, came to the end of her life.
I managed to leave for home a week earlier than the semester's end, and to be there to say goodbye, but it still left a larger hole in my heart than I had ever imagined the loss of a pet could. The entire time that I was saying goodbye, I truly felt as if she had held on to this world long enough to make sure I had someone else to care for me emotionally. Now that John had settled into my life, she could move on; it was this determination that lead to me wondering about Guardian Angels, and their place in our lives. I wondered, if we were meant to have an army to protect us, couldn't it be possible for just one to take a physical form, and to care for us the way that a loving pet does? My cat's passing made me certain that was the case, and she has held the western quarter of my medicine wheel - for emotions - ever since.
After college, I wanted to find a church home again. My mother's attendance to church had fallen after I'd started college as well, and I convinced her to come along with me to find one. John had moved across the country by now, but was currently attending a live-in education program (Job Corps) nearby, and wasn't able to come home every weekend to join the search. The two of us essentially became 'church hoppers' for some time, but my criteria was simple enough - find a church that made me feel the Spirit the same way I had at Camp Fireside. Find a church with life.
It was more difficult than I had anticipated. I was non-denominational at the time so we had plenty of options, but some felt quiet and unresponsive the way that the one I had grown up in had, and when we finally found some that did feel filled with life enough to take a closer look...the structure of the church felt off. It's difficult to explain what I mean if you haven't experienced it; there was life in the churches, but also a strange undertone of something other than God's presence. For example, one of the churches that we visited was planning on setting up other locations in the state, but only the founder of the church was allowed to preach. It was strictly forbidden for anyone, even other pastors of the church, to give sermons; and as a member, giving a percentage of your income was mandatory. We moved on though, and eventually did find a church that felt like home. There was even a band for worship songs that played guitars and drums! I remember arriving for our first service as the music was already playing, and feeling the drum-beat filling the air around me, moving up through the soles of my feet and into my heart. It was life, it was community, and it was Spirit all around.
Even then, I did not stay at that church permanently. We attended for quite some time, all throughout the time that I held my first post-college job, and well into my second. The first was a cashier position at Macy's in a local city, which was enough to pay my looming student loans - but just barely, and with hours of travel to get to the job each day that left little time for even sleeping. My second job seemed like a dream! I was hired as assistant manager at a bookstore in another nearby city; the drive was long, but it was everything I had wanted in a job! Until it wasn't. The people that owned the store, the customers, workers, and the atmosphere were all wonderful; but I wasn't there for even a full year when money began getting tighter for me than it should have been. I realized that I was missing paychecks, and had been (while being in denial about it) for some time. There is always more to the story, but here you only must know that I cared for the owners, and the store, and I still don't believe that there was any ill-intent on their part. I processed the situation (on my own, and with the store owner) for weeks, and the stress built up exponentially over that time. It reached the point where I was physically ill, over-exhausted and sick to my stomach, over the stress and anxiety.
One weekend, I went to church and wept during service, praying to God for the strength to have the conversation that was looming over my coming Monday. I couldn't afford to stay at the bookstore with my current paycheck trend, and I knew I was going to have to tell the owner that I was leaving. I had hardly slept or eaten for days, and I had finally reached that penultimate moment that many Christians are familiar with - I gave up. I prayed at church, I cried, and I gave up all control of the situation to place it in God's hands. If I was meant to stay at the bookstore, He would see to it; if I wasn't...well, I was meant to be somewhere else. After church I felt more peace than I had in weeks, and despite the fact that I was still terrified when it came time to speak with the bookstore owner, I never lost faith that the entire situation was part of God's plan. I didn't lose faith when I was unable to find another job, or when my unemployment was nearly reaching the limit of payments. I kept my faith, and my trust, as I settled for a paid-volunteer position with Americorps at a local elementary school, and as I eventually found my way to a job that had me moving away from home for the first time since college.
This chapter of my story might seem like a bit of a side-track, I admit; but my experience here taught me a lesson. I had always had faith in God and His plan, but this was the first time in my life that I had to truly give everything up, and place it all in His hands. Over the years, through and after college, I've unfortunately developed quite the relationship with anxiety. It's an issue that I still struggle with daily, but one of the greatest helps I have in dealing with this is in reminding myself that everything - everything - is part of His plan. The struggles that you deal with now are the lessons for your future; His plan isn't always easy to handle, but He is always there with you through it. All you have to do is call out for Him, and hold on.
Hold on.
I managed to leave for home a week earlier than the semester's end, and to be there to say goodbye, but it still left a larger hole in my heart than I had ever imagined the loss of a pet could. The entire time that I was saying goodbye, I truly felt as if she had held on to this world long enough to make sure I had someone else to care for me emotionally. Now that John had settled into my life, she could move on; it was this determination that lead to me wondering about Guardian Angels, and their place in our lives. I wondered, if we were meant to have an army to protect us, couldn't it be possible for just one to take a physical form, and to care for us the way that a loving pet does? My cat's passing made me certain that was the case, and she has held the western quarter of my medicine wheel - for emotions - ever since.
After college, I wanted to find a church home again. My mother's attendance to church had fallen after I'd started college as well, and I convinced her to come along with me to find one. John had moved across the country by now, but was currently attending a live-in education program (Job Corps) nearby, and wasn't able to come home every weekend to join the search. The two of us essentially became 'church hoppers' for some time, but my criteria was simple enough - find a church that made me feel the Spirit the same way I had at Camp Fireside. Find a church with life.
It was more difficult than I had anticipated. I was non-denominational at the time so we had plenty of options, but some felt quiet and unresponsive the way that the one I had grown up in had, and when we finally found some that did feel filled with life enough to take a closer look...the structure of the church felt off. It's difficult to explain what I mean if you haven't experienced it; there was life in the churches, but also a strange undertone of something other than God's presence. For example, one of the churches that we visited was planning on setting up other locations in the state, but only the founder of the church was allowed to preach. It was strictly forbidden for anyone, even other pastors of the church, to give sermons; and as a member, giving a percentage of your income was mandatory. We moved on though, and eventually did find a church that felt like home. There was even a band for worship songs that played guitars and drums! I remember arriving for our first service as the music was already playing, and feeling the drum-beat filling the air around me, moving up through the soles of my feet and into my heart. It was life, it was community, and it was Spirit all around.
Even then, I did not stay at that church permanently. We attended for quite some time, all throughout the time that I held my first post-college job, and well into my second. The first was a cashier position at Macy's in a local city, which was enough to pay my looming student loans - but just barely, and with hours of travel to get to the job each day that left little time for even sleeping. My second job seemed like a dream! I was hired as assistant manager at a bookstore in another nearby city; the drive was long, but it was everything I had wanted in a job! Until it wasn't. The people that owned the store, the customers, workers, and the atmosphere were all wonderful; but I wasn't there for even a full year when money began getting tighter for me than it should have been. I realized that I was missing paychecks, and had been (while being in denial about it) for some time. There is always more to the story, but here you only must know that I cared for the owners, and the store, and I still don't believe that there was any ill-intent on their part. I processed the situation (on my own, and with the store owner) for weeks, and the stress built up exponentially over that time. It reached the point where I was physically ill, over-exhausted and sick to my stomach, over the stress and anxiety.
One weekend, I went to church and wept during service, praying to God for the strength to have the conversation that was looming over my coming Monday. I couldn't afford to stay at the bookstore with my current paycheck trend, and I knew I was going to have to tell the owner that I was leaving. I had hardly slept or eaten for days, and I had finally reached that penultimate moment that many Christians are familiar with - I gave up. I prayed at church, I cried, and I gave up all control of the situation to place it in God's hands. If I was meant to stay at the bookstore, He would see to it; if I wasn't...well, I was meant to be somewhere else. After church I felt more peace than I had in weeks, and despite the fact that I was still terrified when it came time to speak with the bookstore owner, I never lost faith that the entire situation was part of God's plan. I didn't lose faith when I was unable to find another job, or when my unemployment was nearly reaching the limit of payments. I kept my faith, and my trust, as I settled for a paid-volunteer position with Americorps at a local elementary school, and as I eventually found my way to a job that had me moving away from home for the first time since college.
This chapter of my story might seem like a bit of a side-track, I admit; but my experience here taught me a lesson. I had always had faith in God and His plan, but this was the first time in my life that I had to truly give everything up, and place it all in His hands. Over the years, through and after college, I've unfortunately developed quite the relationship with anxiety. It's an issue that I still struggle with daily, but one of the greatest helps I have in dealing with this is in reminding myself that everything - everything - is part of His plan. The struggles that you deal with now are the lessons for your future; His plan isn't always easy to handle, but He is always there with you through it. All you have to do is call out for Him, and hold on.
Hold on.
Saturday, May 12, 2018
pieces of a Lifesong - 5
...heartbeat of the drum.
To truly continue this story of my own journey, I need to take you back in time once more, back before college and once again into my high school years - but not to a story about high school. If you've read the about section of my blog, you've read my mention of my Native ancestry. I wasn't raised in a tribal community, and as I go forward in this story I want to make it clear to my readers that I am not an expert on anything related to the tribes that I mention. I only have for you what I have learned myself, through life and experience, and through the way those experiences have mixed into my own journey. Nothing I say on this subject is intended to offend anyone - so please, if it comes across that way, do let me know! As I'm sure you'll come to find in reading this part of my story, I am always looking for ways to learn more about my Native ancestry, and I welcome any lessons that someone more experienced in that area might want to offer.
With that made clear, let's dive back into this story of mine.
With that made clear, let's dive back into this story of mine.
When I was in high school, my Mother started to do research into our family tree. Specifically, she began to research my (maternal) Grandpa's side; it was something Grandpa had always mentioned to her, and as a present to him she wanted to find out where his Native roots would lead. We were all terribly excited about the start of this journey (my Mother, Grandpa, myself, and even my Grandma as well - though her family came almost entirely from Ireland!). A cousin of ours on my Grandpa's side was invested in the research as well; he and my Mother worked together, and it wasn't long before they managed to find the start of the trail that would lead back to our ancestors.
Somehow growing up I had never heard mention of this Native ancestry until this research came up, and I was instantly fascinated by this new piece of my history. I had always felt a strong love for the outdoors, for wildlife (all, and some more strongly than others), and even found an interest in Native Americans through local pow-wows before the news of my family came about. Now that I knew that Native Americans and their lives were a part of me, I wanted to know more. With my love for Christ and his teachings growing stronger in high school, however, I also found myself wanting to make sure that I kept Him fully entwined in this search into my ancestral past. As my Mother began her search to find our genetic lineage, I felt my own goals solidifying. I wanted to learn more about this Native part to my blood and spirit - and I wanted to make certain that I kept Christ woven firmly through this search. I had heard Native beliefs referenced with paganism at various times in the past, and as excited as I was to learn more about this world I knew that I could only continue the journey so long as Christ was present.
It wasn't until my Mother found a relatively local tribe that was willing to let us join that I would find an opportunity to learn how God was woven into the spiritual beliefs of the Natives. We weren't related to the tribe that allowed us to join, but they were small and looking for members; our genealogy showed that we were related to a tribe, and they accepted that as enough. This tribe would be the first Native home that my family found in this search for our history. The people were very welcoming, and happy to answer the questions that we had. My mother's were about the more physical aspect of Native life (gardening, shelters, and crafts), and while I was interested in those subjects as well I found myself filled to spilling with questions about spirituality.
Do the Natives worship God the Father? Is the belief in the environment's spirits a belief in idols, or are they like angelic beings? What about the belief that ancestors are watching over us? How are names chosen, or gifted? And so, so many more that I am afraid I cannot remember.
Unfortunately, with this first tribe, many of the questions I had went unanswered. After some years the tribe would prove to have a falling out, with political drama pulling it apart and eventually leaving us once more without a real Native 'home.' Some of the members kept in touch with us, and when they formed a Drum of their own my mother was invited to join - and so my family found a Drum instead of a Tribe. While it was (and still is) somewhat of a disappointment to not be a true tribe member, joining the Drum was in many ways just as heartening.
Still, my journey to find a way to connect my Native ancestry with my Christian beliefs fell into much the same pace that my journey to find a Church home had. Slow, steady - and essentially on my own.
Do the Natives worship God the Father? Is the belief in the environment's spirits a belief in idols, or are they like angelic beings? What about the belief that ancestors are watching over us? How are names chosen, or gifted? And so, so many more that I am afraid I cannot remember.
Unfortunately, with this first tribe, many of the questions I had went unanswered. After some years the tribe would prove to have a falling out, with political drama pulling it apart and eventually leaving us once more without a real Native 'home.' Some of the members kept in touch with us, and when they formed a Drum of their own my mother was invited to join - and so my family found a Drum instead of a Tribe. While it was (and still is) somewhat of a disappointment to not be a true tribe member, joining the Drum was in many ways just as heartening.
Still, my journey to find a way to connect my Native ancestry with my Christian beliefs fell into much the same pace that my journey to find a Church home had. Slow, steady - and essentially on my own.
By the time I was in College I had at least found a spiritual balance. My journey to find a connection to my ancestry had woven itself irremovably into my journey of Faith. When I went to pow-wows with my mother's drum I did not join the creation of the music, but I did dance in the circle. When I danced to the drum, even without knowing the meaning of the words, the feel of the drumbeat coursing up through my feet and into my heart was strong, powerful, and just as fiery as the way I felt when Spirit coursed through me.
"Creator" was God, one in the same, of that I could be certain. I heard stories of the spirits of the land - Coyote, Eagle, Wolf, Thunderbird, and so many more - and I wondered if these 'spirits' of the land couldn't be God's angels, sent to reach a world that Jesus' word had yet to touch? I learned of the aspects of my own spirit, how different creatures could represent different pieces of myself, and I thought - couldn't a Guardian Angel (which the bible tells us we have many) take the form of a creature that would make you comforted to see them? Couldn't they take a visible form that would allow our human minds to process their presence easier? Couldn't our own spirit have a similar form?
My own journey brought me to the symbol of the medicine wheel, because it was a symbol of a Healer, and because of it's similarity to the symbol of a cross (a Celtic cross, specifically). Each quarter of the wheel is connected to a part of your spirit - the black quarter, west, for the spirit; the yellow quarter, east, for the emotions and heart; the red quarter, south, for the mind; and the white quarter, north, for the body or the physical aspect of your spirit. When I learned about the medicine wheel, a part of me knew then that I would find a piece of my spirit to fill each quarter - a spiritual guide for each aspect, or a Guardian Angel of some kind.
My own journey brought me to the symbol of the medicine wheel, because it was a symbol of a Healer, and because of it's similarity to the symbol of a cross (a Celtic cross, specifically). Each quarter of the wheel is connected to a part of your spirit - the black quarter, west, for the spirit; the yellow quarter, east, for the emotions and heart; the red quarter, south, for the mind; and the white quarter, north, for the body or the physical aspect of your spirit. When I learned about the medicine wheel, a part of me knew then that I would find a piece of my spirit to fill each quarter - a spiritual guide for each aspect, or a Guardian Angel of some kind.
The north was easy - I had felt a connection to the wolf since I was small, and often had dreams where I was a wolf, or could be one at will. Since I can remember, my dreams have been one of two kinds: fantastical and unrealistic, a story in my own mind - or incredibly real, and distinctly sharp in my memory. The east quarter of my medicine wheel came soon enough in the form of the latter kind of dream, the real and sharp kind, early in my college career. I was riding a fire-bathed chestnut mare at breakneck speed across an emerald hillside. There was nothing around us but green mountains, nothing between us as I held tightly to her mane, and nothing that would take us apart. I felt His presence clearly in the dream as well, quiet but strong, and it was the combination of the two that left me sure when I woke that the mare was somehow connected to my spirit.
I'm sure some of you might think this is silly; I'm afraid many of you have already stopped reading. I haven't really spoken about a lot of this with anyone before, but I feel a strong need to share it as a part of the story that I'm telling. I hope if you have made it this far, that you'll continue on this journey with me. It may feel scattered, even fractured, but...well, doesn't life often feel that way as you live it? It all comes together, I promise - and it is all part of the journey that leads me closer to God even today.
Friday, April 6, 2018
resurgence
I haven't been writing for months now.
It's not due to a lack of desire to write, or (I would hope) a lack of ability. It's felt...like an injury was healing, like something inside was broken, something integral to the writing process, and all I could do was let it be while I pulled myself back together.
I'm certain that I'm not the first, especially in today's world, to go on and on about how a life of student loan debt and working mindlessly through a job (many jobs, over time) that I wasn't happy in chipped away at my happiness, edged into my mind and my spirit and bogged it down with doubt and...dejection. I'm not the first, and I unfortunately won't be the last - but so, I won't go on about how I got to this place. I will only say that I was there.
I haven't been writing for months now...
In some ways that isn't true, because I have friends that I have written with - short, sometimes silly, always fun pieces of writing where our characters interact together on their adventures and through their fictional lives. I have done writing, in that I have strung together words into sentences, stacked those together into paragraphs, and utilized those paragraphs to create a comprehensive piece of writing for others to read within a writing game. I did this...in some ways to lift my spirits, but also to keep myself writing something. I could feel that something within me was broken, that the proverbial "writing muscle" inside was torn. I knew that I needed to let it heal, and these writing games were my way of making sure that when it did heal, it wouldn't be out of commission.
I haven't...really been writing...for some months now...
I remember, at some of the peaks in my writing path, how it would feel to sit and close my eyes, listening to the voices and songs that called softly but surely...to me. Called for me to listen carefully to the stories that were told on the wind, to listen for the poems that might form on the paper before me if I just sat quietly enough to hear them.
For so many months now, I...could not hear them.
I tried, oh how I tried. I sat with my eyes closed, clenching my eyes shut and gritting my teeth against the tears that fell. If I could just listen, if I could just hear those sounds on the wind once more I knew that I could write. Here I was, finally free of the weight that a "day job" hung around my neck, free once more to pursue the beauty within my spirit and around me, winding together with my soul and begging to be freed as well. Here I was, finally free...and terrified that I was deaf to them now. Anxiety clenched tightly around my heart, choking me at the faintest sign of even the smallest triggers.
And what was I supposed to do? Weeks passed, and as I learned to handle the anxiety, to recognize when a reaction was caused by it rather than my true self, I still found myself buried in it. Sounds are muffled all around you when you're buried. Voices on the distant wind are drowned out by the sound of rain against a window pane.
I haven't written anything for some months now. I've found myself seated by the window, leaning against the frame and staring out through the glass at the water falling around. I stopped trying to listen after the first month. I hadn't given up, not entirely, but I stopped trying to hear once I realized that all I could hear was rain. I was frightened that I wouldn't hear it again. I was terrified that the stories trembling within me would wither, turn to dust within my heart without ever calling out to the world, but I hadn't given up. I was hurt, but I could feel in my heart that it wasn't permanent. Even the spirit heals itself with time...
So I waited...
...one month...
...then two...
...three... .. .
It's not due to a lack of desire to write, or (I would hope) a lack of ability. It's felt...like an injury was healing, like something inside was broken, something integral to the writing process, and all I could do was let it be while I pulled myself back together.
I'm certain that I'm not the first, especially in today's world, to go on and on about how a life of student loan debt and working mindlessly through a job (many jobs, over time) that I wasn't happy in chipped away at my happiness, edged into my mind and my spirit and bogged it down with doubt and...dejection. I'm not the first, and I unfortunately won't be the last - but so, I won't go on about how I got to this place. I will only say that I was there.
I haven't been writing for months now...
In some ways that isn't true, because I have friends that I have written with - short, sometimes silly, always fun pieces of writing where our characters interact together on their adventures and through their fictional lives. I have done writing, in that I have strung together words into sentences, stacked those together into paragraphs, and utilized those paragraphs to create a comprehensive piece of writing for others to read within a writing game. I did this...in some ways to lift my spirits, but also to keep myself writing something. I could feel that something within me was broken, that the proverbial "writing muscle" inside was torn. I knew that I needed to let it heal, and these writing games were my way of making sure that when it did heal, it wouldn't be out of commission.
I haven't...really been writing...for some months now...
I remember, at some of the peaks in my writing path, how it would feel to sit and close my eyes, listening to the voices and songs that called softly but surely...to me. Called for me to listen carefully to the stories that were told on the wind, to listen for the poems that might form on the paper before me if I just sat quietly enough to hear them.
For so many months now, I...could not hear them.
I tried, oh how I tried. I sat with my eyes closed, clenching my eyes shut and gritting my teeth against the tears that fell. If I could just listen, if I could just hear those sounds on the wind once more I knew that I could write. Here I was, finally free of the weight that a "day job" hung around my neck, free once more to pursue the beauty within my spirit and around me, winding together with my soul and begging to be freed as well. Here I was, finally free...and terrified that I was deaf to them now. Anxiety clenched tightly around my heart, choking me at the faintest sign of even the smallest triggers.
And what was I supposed to do? Weeks passed, and as I learned to handle the anxiety, to recognize when a reaction was caused by it rather than my true self, I still found myself buried in it. Sounds are muffled all around you when you're buried. Voices on the distant wind are drowned out by the sound of rain against a window pane.
I haven't written anything for some months now. I've found myself seated by the window, leaning against the frame and staring out through the glass at the water falling around. I stopped trying to listen after the first month. I hadn't given up, not entirely, but I stopped trying to hear once I realized that all I could hear was rain. I was frightened that I wouldn't hear it again. I was terrified that the stories trembling within me would wither, turn to dust within my heart without ever calling out to the world, but I hadn't given up. I was hurt, but I could feel in my heart that it wasn't permanent. Even the spirit heals itself with time...
So I waited...
...one month...
...then two...
...three... .. .
. .. ...four.
A tap against the window pane,
a shadow through the curtain.
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