I was talking with someone I love but don’t know super well. She’s one of the people I respect most in the world. We went for a walk.
Why do I respect her so much? She is powerful like a goddess. She holds vast expanses– she helps hold the spiritual lives of hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Also she’s a mom and holds children and a little baby. I feel grateful to know her and converse with her at times.
She shines with a remarkable light. She’s a holy person. Probably every person is a holy person. But her holiness is easy to see. Let’s call her Swami.
relaxed
Swami’s mood yesterday was so relaxed, almost like she was stoned. I wonder how often she goes around like that. She seemed comfortably deep in herself. Often friends who are stoned on weed have less access to their intelligence. But her intelligence seemed so deep yesterday: limitless.
Something I remember most from our conversation is how I mentioned I’m sad about perimenopause. I don’t want to carry a passenger or be a parent, but I still feel the loss, that I never had a baby.
Actually, I made some memes about it. Did I ever show you?
real feelings
“Are the feelings real, like you’re really sad, or is it just the hormones?” Swami asked.
“I think it’s all real,” I said. “Even if I don’t feel that way all the time. Like when I have PMS and my life seems wrong, that’s real too. I want to take what I learned and find the lesson in it, that I can carry into other times.”
“Yeah,” she said, understanding me. “So what’s the lesson of your grief about perimenopause?”
I thought about it as we walked.
“Well, I wish I’d had more of a choice. I wish we made a culture where parents get abundant support, and justice is everywhere. During my most fertile time, I was sedated on a bipolar cocktail for 11 years. So that would not have worked, with pregnancy,” I said.
I thought of my fiestiness, the extreme potential I was full of, squashed by pharmaceutical drugs. The world didn’t respect my goddess energy– it was not palatably focused, but crazy and spurting out in unwanted ways. The world didn’t see my gifts, cherish them, and support me in using them for the power of good. Of course the world made me turn down my volume.
“I wish I’d had more of a choice,” I repeated.
“So it was coercive,” Swami suggested.
“Yeah, somewhat,” I agreed. “But even if I’d had a real choice, probably I would have chosen not to be a parent anyway! But to answer your question, the lesson might be this: I can do something different with the energy. There’s grief, but it takes all different ways, to make a world. All different ways to help make the world.”
“Yes,” Swami agreed.
true
Is it true, what I said to Swami? Does my goddess mother energy go into other world-needs than babies?
My good friend in Utah who is also a holy person gave me the red shawl she wore when she breastfed her babies. Her sister made it. My good friend gave me the shawl because she sees the goddess mother energy in me. She said I could wear the shawl when I’m feeding the activism and art and community love that I do. It was a deep blessing and validation I could never have asked for.
Ming agrees this is real. I’m grateful for his validation. He has two children who are young adults now in the Bay Area. But he respects that I’m not parenting, this time around.
extreme states
I wouldn’t want to live on a vacation, probably. Seems expensive, destabilizing, and too much movement, sort of like when Ming and I were homeless. I need a home base as a place to rest.
Likewise, I’m grateful for the extreme states I’ve endured. I wouldn’t want to live in mania, the deepest depression, or paranoid delusion. But I’m grateful I’ve visited those places. I go there so you don’t have to. My voices chatter at me, and I’m ok with that.
I learn a lot and return to the world of the living, trying to explain what I saw.
Last night I started praying to Harriet Tubman, who is an important figure for Ming. She led people to freedom, worked to be helpful, and might have had narcolepsy. She is a Moses figure for Ming, and Ming also identifies with Moses. Moses was slow of speech, and Ming has a language-related learning disability.
I enjoyed praying to her with great respect. She is easy to talk to.
