My Dark side of the Moon

          Mid-Life Uncertainties                                     and Ruminations...

  (entries from my journal, December, 1999)

Who am I? 

 Woman, mother, wife, daughter, sister, attendant to the sick and dying, a survivor of past misfortunes.  I am an empty well longing to be filled. This longing has been with me most of my life, the life that longs to know itself, to wake up out of the great silence that comforts me after a good cry or when I am alone and the children have gone to bed and my husband, ever content,  lies snoring beside me.

Growth is a slow, fertile process, the process of a lifetime.  Learning how to step into the feminine, the moon, the sea inside me that tosses and turns and yearns to birth like a fetus in a womb, it does not happen overnight.  And finally, in my mid-forties, I am beginning to find my way, a way that is surprising and tender and sometimes sad but always satisfying because it is more who I am.

I love the winter months, the first sting of cold, the breathless wonder that greets me when I open the door.  It’s a time to move inside to the warmth of wood burning, hot cocoa, sweat pants and long "catnaps".  Glorious solitude. 

Each phase of life holds challenges as well as new possibilities of who we can be which cause me to pause and re-examine, to perhaps dig a little deeper in order to release a pot bound root or constricting perspective.

Joy and sorrow exist side by side like the blossoming gardenias and the rotting tomatoes out on the vine.  I vow to be more present to that eternal place where every past originates and every gift lies.  But it is not easy.

               “Listening to your heart, finding out who you are, is not simple . . .”

In my dreams, dark clouds swell. Life keeps happening and so does death.  Death and darkness are honorable teachers. And rather than meet them with fear I am learning to open just a little. For what is fear but the unknown workings of an inner life trying to be born.

All of life is uncertain and certainty it seems is much overrated. To be quite honest, this urge to write is the riskiest thing I’ve ever encountered.  At times I sense a powerful river running through me and I am teetering on its edge as it readies itself to spill over.  And the thing that will tip the scales is courage.

Growth is a twofold process that requires a time of incubation in order to lay down roots, a strong foundation, and then comes a time to spread our wings and fly.  I know there’s a strange bird inside me, one I hardly recognize at times, and it’s beginning to poke it’s beak into the thin air . . .