Seeking

My navigation through grief has brought me many blessings in the form of human and metaphysical connection, much softness in my empathy and compassion toward others, and much hardness in my steadfastness in boundary setting and keeping and willingness to speak my truth. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns of course; darkness precedes light, and I am likely somewhere in the pre-dawn/dawn stage. Where I am is unimportant though. What’s important is that I am here.

My search to live in my own truth and authenticity

Has been a timid one

First, I rebelled loudly

Not authentic

I turned my back on loved ones

Not authentic

Raged against previously set expectations

Not authentic

Choosing an identity like I chose outfits

Changing both often

Not authentic

Sacrificing myself repeatedly

Not authentic

No regrets

A beautiful sunset signaled an end

And the next sunrise

The gift of a new day

My firstborn son

Requiring me to stand

To find authenticity

No regrets

Through time

Focus blurs and sharpens

Go this way or that

Guided by outside influences

Wrong turns

Corrections

Over-corrections

Calm waters

Typhoons

Presence

Avoidance

No regrets

The darkest of nights

My firstborn crosses into the next realm

I’m lost

I wail from somewhere foreign to me

A deep crack in my soul’s core

Authentic

The mothers ahead of me hold me

Giving me space

Holding it and me

I take their hands

Their energy courses through me

My eyes look into theirs

Truth

Authenticity

My grief map

Offers a key and tools for understanding

My map belongs only to me

It is part of a larger map

The map to self

The fire of grief

Burns fear of authenticity

No longer time to hide

I am willingly and willfully standing

In my truth

My authentic self rising

No regrets

Belonging to a family

Does not require alignment of belief

Belonging to a family

Should guarantee unconditional love

No need to rebel or rage

I can love

Be authentically me

And be loved

Today

No regrets.

I had no plan of what to write when I sat down this afternoon. I’ve been acquiring tools for sometime now. I have crystals, candles, tarot, sage, oils, journals, books. I know about the power of meditation. I hold these tools for healing in sacredness in my mind. I read and learn more. I have been frustrated with my lack of action. It feels like a block, and deep down I know. These things, this belief, does not align with the teachings that were heaped on me through childhood and adolescence.

Yesterday I bought a book titled Prayers for Honoring Grief by Pixie Lighthorse at a local apothecary shop. The herbalist working at the shop led me to it. I opened it and used my tools this afternoon. The first prayer is for honoring awareness, using these words and phrases: overcome my fear, calm my uneasiness, soothe my desire to numb out, activate my miraculous systems for coping, untether me from my illusions of safe harbor, the earth anchors me, I didn’t come this far to abandon myself now. The whole prayer is included below. I think the abandonment of myself happened first, and my adulthood has been a steady return. The loss of Blake and the wave of grief forcefully dislodged any illusion for a need to pretend .

I’m not exactly confident in my practices, but I’m willing to listen to my heart and tap into resources and Source. I used my crystals and set up a grid for awareness.

Beginnings are equal in importance to endings, just as light is equal in importance to darkness. The cycles are separate and intertwined, one grasping onto the next and the one that came before.

And so it is.