Authenticity, Death, and Dismemberment: Dismemberment -- Part II

Dis
mem
ber
ment
 -- Part II


Yes, Mystery, take my life -- everything I have built it to be to this point, everything -- it is yours. Of course, I discover in this process that it has always been yours and always will be yours, no matter what, even who comes out the other side of this dismemberment surrender space is and will be yours.

So perhaps I can keep this understanding as a keepsake for the journey? Will you let me hold that close to me through this process so I know I will come out the other side with that, at least? 'Cause that's worthy of keeping, a valuable pieces you surely want me to have in this surrender, and afterward, too! Why don't you just let me travel with this piece, "Everything that is me is yours, Mystery. It always has been and always will be." Everything else will fall away. I can keep just that, right?


Hmmmm, I am getting the distinct sense that dismemberment is a full-on deal, releasing every shred and tatter of the old life, the old way of being. Releasing anything that I might cling to no matter how seemingly relevant or necessary or valid it might be. Complete offering and surrender. A sense of heading toward annihilation at the speed of revelation. Why? Why so intense and extensive? How is this the feminine hero's journey?


Well... my understanding is this -- we live in a culture where the what and how now are set in place, come before, the who. We try for the who to be shaped from the what and the how. What we want to do with, and in, our lives and how we go about doing this. How we become who we think we are is through what we were are doing. Yet we each have an inborn, deep sense of who we are, and who we are to become. It is possible that the blueprint for this process is actually to come to know who we are and who we want to become first. Then this is the scaffolding for how and what instead of the other way around.


In fact, this is the order of events in many other cultures and historically in many more cultures than it is now. In my experience, we poke fun at those cultures from our place in modernity. We see them as backwards. What is really backwards here though? Perhaps some cultural shadow pieces for us, too? I'll get to shadow stuff along the way, I'm sure. Whichever order was the original order, however the blueprint is designed were it instead two decades or so ago, this journey for me would be one purely of the hero's tale.

In the hero's tale, I would go out on conquest, conquer, and return home triumphant. Included in this journey would be the revelation of the knowledge of my true, most genuine self. This revelation of self-knowledge gifted by the nature of the hero's journey. This is all aided by timing, where this journey falls in the timeline of life. Hero's are young and just coming into adulthood -- the what and how of life are yet developing. Through questing, often in the form of conquest yet in other ways, too, the who of it is revealed and becomes the foundation for what is to come -- the what and how.


I am an adult now and a certain degree of the what and how are already in full being, if not completely. Yet there is still this nagging sense of "what I want to be when I grow up," which I actually recognize more and more as who do I want to be when I grow up. Who am I? What is my destiny as the person I am? How do I live my destiny in the world as the truth of who I am?

I can hope that enough of my innate who has been present enough to guide the what and how foundation and structure currently in my life. Because as an adult, my journey home to myself, my quest for the truth of who I am, my internal drive and desire for the who, is facilitated by dismemberment. A release and reorganization of the what and how so that this established foundation can be reconfigured, or reinvented altogether, into the outward form that expresses the who of me. A who that is fully molded, spacious, and accurate enough to be my genuine and authentic self.

Who I am in the world, at this stage of life, comes to full revelation through dismemberment, not the hero's journey, feminine or otherwise. Yet, I do not call this process I am in a "feminine hero's journey" as a misnomer. I am not looking to be misleading. I am owning my longing for the hero's tale, the desire to conquer and return home triumphant. For when I keep my eyes and heart fixed on the fascination with this tale, I can stomach the thought of dismemberment. I can fathom that what I most long for -- to know and be my truest self and to live from this place, to live my destiny -- can still be reached.
The original hero's journey may be lost to me because of age and the structure of what and how already settled in. The essence of it can echo through my bones though and call me forward. I can follow this longing through the tale of dismemberment, knowing that I am inviting complete lost-ness, disorientation, and annihilation of how and what so that who can emerge as the organizing, foundational force in my life.


Here it is in the words of Bill Plotkin from his first book Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche:

What you must surrender is nothing less than the summer house of your first personality, the worldview you began forming in the expansive growing season of adolescence and that carried you through your first adulthood. This is the house you have been carefully building, furnishing, and accessorizing at least since puberty. Now, just as you are getting ready to enjoy the completed house, you hear a knock and the front door swings open. There stand three strange angels, as D. H. Lawrence called them, motioning to you, informing you it's time to leave -- forever. You begin to protest but you know it's useless; it's time to go.

. . . The greatest value to be derived from building that first house comes from the building of it -- not from the living in it.

And so I head off into the desert to let the barn burn down so I can see the moon. Thank you, Mizuta Masahide.

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Wilderness-based Feminine Hero's Journey

Beloved conversation response

"Are you sure you will not be dressed as

The whirlwind that you are,

Twirling through the sand,

Kicking up a storm,

Dancing as the Breeze Maker?"

Beloved replies.

Beloved conversation

"You'll recognize me.

I'll be the one dressed as Death in a 'Rainbow.'"

I say to my Beloved.

Perspective

We are not broken needing to be fixed.


We are amazing needing to be figured out.


                                                                              ~L

Authenticity, Death, and Dismemberment: Dismemberment -- Part I

Part I of Dismemberment.

Dismemberment, Dismemberment, Dismemberment.

It's like saying a word over and over again until it loses its meaning. Except in this case, I am hoping I will learn its meaning.

I feel like I've gone and used a big word that I've claimed I will elaborate on. And now come time to elaborate on it, I don't know what it means. I am a hair's breadth away from heading right on over to dictionary.com. My junior high/high school English teacher would be please with that. "When you don't know what a word means, look it up." I'm paraphrasing, sort of.

Dismemberment --
is that experience of no longer being membered in the same way, being taken apart, disassembled yet with an inkling of hope of being re-membered -- as in put back together in some configuration not remembered as in memory because that would kind of defeat the purpose of being dismembered, being returned to the original state through remembrance . . . .

Ok, enough word play.
For now.

It is easier for me to make light of this topic in this moment as being dismembered doesn't sound pleasant. It does not sound like it is good for one's health. It is something that many parts of myself are keen to avoid. "I like how I am put together and what I've got going on just fine, thank you. There are hitches and glitches, and at the end of the day, I know how this system setup works. All else can leave well enough alone, so I can just keep plodding along as I am, thank you very much."

That plodding part though. It bothers me. It nags at me. It is not something I sense as being a truth of me. There must be more to this journey than plodding along. Isn't there trotting or galloping to be had? Skipping, dancing, twirling, even walking sounds more enticing and invigorating than plodding. No wonder I feel downtrodden with how my life feels and is moving along, plodding.

Yet, dismemberment? Is this the only choice for changing my gate? Will it change my gate? What will it do to be taken apart like a shoot of horsetail plant, each of the individual pieces popped apart and laid to the winds? Or taken apart like a disarticulating skull model, won't all the pieces need to go back in the same way to reassemble? So will it just be cleaning the edges and the joins and fitting everything back together, well-oiled and better aligned? That sounds easy enough. I will just be a skull model again though if that is the case, all the same bones put back in the same places, won't I?

What if it means I will no longer be a skull model? What if it means only one or three of those pieces of horsetail plant are incorporated into a new form? This strikes closer to home, closer to the meaning of dismemberment in this context. A taking apart of what is, period. It is a stepping into the void with a healthy helping of the Buddhist sense of letting go of expectations. It is choosing to experience the free fall, hopefully into my authentic identity. That's the aim anyway, if one can aim a free fall. There is the offering over of what needs to die, what is being offered up for more life. And then there is the surrender to the utter unknown and unknowable. This is not an everyday sort of choice and not one that many people choose to make.

It looks sort of like this -- a willing, curious, with a slight air of hesitation, walking out into the unknown:

Authenticity, Death, and Dismemberment: Death

I sit here watching the bald eagle eat its fresh catch of fish. All the cormorants have flown a safe distance away and grouped out on the water where they can safely duck under the surface; all the seagulls have flown off after several harassing the eagle. It is interesting to observe. I can tell when a baldy is flying by, because all the seagulls suddenly scatter. Yet, there isn't a paddle boarder nor kayaker in sight.
I have always thought of baldies as hunters of only fish and otherwise scavengers. On this very beach though, my wife, daughter, and I witnessed one hunting a buffle. We knew it must be a duck not a fish when it finally flew from the water after several dives and landed on a nearby post to eat its catch. Feathers started floating toward the water, feathers it was plucking out of its catch so definitely not a fish!

Watching bald eagles here in Maryland reminds me of growing up with them in Colorado. I am (selfishly) thrilled they are recovered enough that there are populations in both places now.

Sitting watching eagle eat, also reminds me about watching lynx and snowshoe hare hunt and be hunted, respectively. On one particular occasion as I watched, I came to a new, visceral understanding of Death. It was an understanding I had heard rumor of -- that it is as much about the prey offering itself to death, to be eaten, as it is about the hunter hunting and catching the prey.

On this occasion, I saw it in action. I watched the hare skillfully dodge and out-maneuver the lynx over and over, and effortlessly so. As I pondered the process from the vantage point of a very capable hare doing what it knows how to do really, really well, I realized how slim the lynx's chances are of ever capturing prey, even with "luck" or a foible on hare's part. Then it happened.

I witnessed the willingness arise in the hare for life to go on. For its life to be a sacrifice to the greater theme of life -- the Life that runs through the interconnectedness of all beings, of the whole planet. I wondered if this is what was meant by the phrase that I so oft here attributed to native cultures, "today is a good day to die." Perhaps there was some gem and some commonality here.

This leads me to the memory of my first season hunting elk as a teenager. I was on the cusp of becoming a vegetarian because I didn't know how I could willingly kill something. Then time paused. I realized I wasn't going to willingly kill anything -- that would be killing in cold blood. I needed to ask for an offering. The life wasn't mine to take; it was the elk's to offer. I was asking for an offering of life to sustain my life while honoring and recognizing that I, too, would be asked to offer up life for the sustenance of others.

Within half an hour, I fired the first shots from my rifle at an elk. The offering appeared in short order once I recognized the balance and interconnectedness and my role in the dance. The only thing I went home with that season was this lesson. In seasons to come though, I would return home with food as well. Food from a life that had offered itself for the continuation of all life. My family was sure to utilize as much of the animal as we could, and of the two elk who offered their lives to me, I have both hides. One of these two elk hides I will be taking with me on this upcoming journey.

This brings me to the death concept I am referring to as part of my journey. It is this death to which I refer, the death that is an offering of life, an aspect of life, for the sustenance of all life, the overarching theme called Life. There are old ways of being in me, old ways of living, thinking, believing that I am offering up to Death in order to make room for Life.

It's quite like clearing out closets or storage spaces, or dresser drawers, just in a deeper, metaphoric, psychospiritual sort of way. It isn't always as tangible as dropping off bags at Goodwill. The donations usually come in different forms. It is just as clearing and transformative though, if not more so. It is an offering of what no longer fits to make space for whatever does fit, whatever newness is arriving. It is a dance in a liminal space of in-between what was and what is becoming, while offering all of the old life up.
It is a clearing out of everything I would want to have settled, said, offered, shared, cleared up, completed, in place, honored, forgiven before the final death. I am offering all of the old in surrender knowing there is more to come, life in ways I have never known nor likely imagined, and I must busy myself in preparing a space for authenticity to fill. Will the space be big enough? How much room does authenticity take up? My instincts say all of it and more, and make more space, and now more. I also bear in mind, of course, that this busy-ness some days looks like sitting and allowing the old layers to slough off. It isn't all mucking out closets and having important conversations. And it isn't easy. It is necessary just not always easy.

Thus, it is this metaphoric death, the psychospiritual death, to which I am referring in the phrase "authenticity, death, and dismemberment." It is a way of death I see mirrored in the physical, mortal death dance of hunter and prey. I see the pattern play out between bald eagle and fish, between lynx and hare, and I recognize the energetic flow of the offerings from one life to feed another, the ongoing interconnected web of life sustaining life.

Now to tackle dismemberment. . .

Tackle dismemberment . . . hahahaha, that's an image. Wonder how the words will come to describe that one!


Thank you, Bald Eagle, Fish, Buffle, Lynx, Hare, and Elk.

Pilgrimage to the Desert

Early this October, I embark on a month long, wilderness-based exploration of the feminine hero's

journey, which includes diving into the concepts of authenticity, death, and dismemberment. Part of

this journey is owning my place as a healer and a writer. I have worked with Animas Valley Institute

(AVI) for six years now, and AVI’s wilderness-based courses are a key part of this process.


Throughout history in many societies, communities have supported their healers in a multitude of

ways. While I am fiercely independent, self-sufficient, and have supported my journey

largely on my own for the last six years, the time has come to follow the lead of the

healer archetype further and ask my community for financial sponsorship. By asking for

and receiving financial support from my community — you, my friends, and from my

larger human community — I am in turn asked to own my role as a healer in this

community in a way I never have before.


I have launched an Indiegogo Life campaign to request financial sponsorship. This financial support

will help to cover the costs of tuition and travel expenses. The tuition and estimated expenses total

$4,500. My fund raising goal for this campaign is $1,500.


From the time I was a kid, I was gifted with my hands — as a writer and as a massage

therapist. I’ve always been interested in healing professions from veterinary technician

to massage therapist, and now CranioSacral therapist. This has been coupled with my

fascination with discovering who I am and what I am here to do in this lifetime. The

descent into the world of Soul — the land of deepest Truths of the Genuine Self — is a

journey rich in dreams, visions, metaphors, and an intense longing for Wholeness.

Soulcraft and AVI provide the framework and guidance to follow this longing as a return

to Wholeness.


Through this, I am more whole and authentic in my walk as a human being, and as a

CranioSacral therapist. A basic tenet of CranioSacral Therapy is that the body heals

itself. So while I am really more of a facilitator in the healing process, I suspect this is

what the role of healer has always been, facilitating people’s return to optimal wellness,

return to wholeness.


As a member of my community, your blessings and prayers for this journey are deeply

appreciated. Your financial support is a gift to both me and the larger healing world.

Whether you are able to donate or not, please remember to show appreciation for all

the healers in your life. This is the best support any of us can receive. Thank you. I am

honored by your presence in my community.


Indiegogo Life campaign