I began the book Earth Grief a few weeks ago. I read it slowly at first. I felt it seeping into me, changing me. I began to notice that I was in a very peculiar place. A place where something had shifted but had not yet integrated. I realized i did not know how to BE in this world. People interaction is always awkward for me. It takes a lot out of me. I have learned over the years, that I function best without a lot of people action. My nervous system appreciates it more. And so I now honor that. And yet, now people interaction is incredibly awkward and it’s a very unfamiliar territory that I do not have words for yet. Maybe I never will.
The most striking thing that I began to notice is that every choice point I was at, no matter how small it was, had death at the end of it. It became a bit overwhelming. (I understand now the reasons for this - the actual reality of things that was seeping in, and the way my fear filled mind had learned to process everything. The undercurrent of how I flow through life - fear. But not fear how we commonly think of fear…..this fear is different. It’s more of a fear of feeling what is behind the illusion of optimism and good feelings and all of those other clever distractions we market to ourselves. This fear involves death. Death of the old world and our way of life and really, everything that provided stability and safety. )My body began to hurt - my calves (fear of what’s coming - fitting), my back, and interestingly my feet (it is painful to stand on this earth) - which I could chalk up to old age (Which is partly true but im also not that old) or bartonella (also could be true, but this too has reasons behind it that are rooted in emotions), and every once in a while, my heart area would feel like it was sobbing - just one or two jolts….you know the kind of sobbing that happens when you are very very small and after you have stopped crying you still have that huh huh huh……..gasp without breathe that echoes as it dissipates - that kind.) I grew tired, uninterested in things that I had previously been interested in. I found the only thing I was really drawn to doing was continuing to read Earth Grief, in the hopes that it would bring me round full circle. (And my conditioned mind continually prodded me saying, you cant just sit around and read and process, you have to be doing something busy, be productive, be needed, because when you are needed you are loved - which is the lie we tell ourselves which really is just a compensation for not receiving the love that we needed, in the way that we needed it, when we were very very little….and its not our parents fault or their parent’s fault…..they were just doing what they knew how to do in the best way that they could….they didn’t know that we needed more…and we were 3 and couldn’t really tell them in a way that they could receive…………so it is just as it was…..)
And now that I am nearing it’s end, I realize that it probably isn’t going to do that. It’s not going to wrap things up in a neat little package for me to tuck away and say “Well, glad that shift is complete, now I can move on with my life.” I don’t believe it was intended to do that. It is an opening, an invitation, into completely uncharted territory - for most of the human species. We just do not go there. So when you choose to go there because you knew with all of your being that it was the only place you could go, you find that you are left to wade these waters (and sometimes drown a little bit), on your own.
It’s not a pleasant journey. Life has changed for me. And it’s not bad, but it doesn’t feel very good. It is necessary, this journey. To not embark on it, is to continue, everyday living the illusion. Which is fine and dandy for many people (even though it’s really not and you can see it in their physical health, mental well being, and emotional state)……but for those of us called to this thing called Earth Work, those of us that perhaps FEEL too much (although there really never is a too much, is there, there is only the question of how we process it - when we allow it in, its hard - when we resist it, it’s harder) and know that we feel beyond and into what we think we feel, but don’t have the words for it…….the journey will be forever knocking at the door asking you if you are ready to open it.
What this shift will bring, I do not yet know. What changes lay ahead, are uncertain. AND, I have a feeling that this is, as of yet, the hardest part of this journey of Earth Work. And I also know that this is a good thing. However it spins out. It is what needed to be because it is what is. It is a journey that I must take in order to be a “good” practitioner. We must experience the fires ourselves BEFORE we are able to walk through them with others. (And I know that most practitioners don’t do that…not really……its hard work. its exhausting. its filled with all sorts of emotions)………..and it IS what is necessary.
And so we do it. And we do it alone.
And yes, despite this book being incredibly challenging to process…I highly encourage those who feel that they are ready for it, to read it. It is THE MOST important book for the current times we are in that I have come across. (I had written to Stephen and shared this. He had thanked me and said that this is exactly what his book was intended to do. ) AND probably the second most important book I have ever read, only second to The Secret Teachings of Plants, which taught me how to live and walk through this world. And I must include The Forest Reminds Us of Who We are, who taught me how to reconvene with aspects of myself long tucked away.
I encourage the read of the three books mentioned in this article. They will change you.