Friday, November 15, 2013

dragonflies and death rituals on the front porch of destiny

photo by the ever-magical Corinna Robbins

"I can't give you an accurate description," I confess sharply. "I'm all fucked up about Dragonfly. It's too close to the source. No matter how many times I read the damn descriptions, I just can't get it. I'm blocked."

This is what I sounded like two nights ago on the porch after the kids were put to sleep. Maya and I sat on the wooden swing drinking red wine from old jam jars, pulling animal medicine cards, and two readings in, we landed on Dragonfly. The medicine? Illusion.

"Okay, well don't think about what the book says. What do you know about Dragonflies in general?" she asked.

"They're fast. Magical. Gorgeous. Time-traveling. Fragile. With really long gestation periods to get their wings. They never stay anywhere for long...I mean, have you seen them? They're always just here and gone! And that's what I hate about them!"

At this point, I've traveled so much in the past 3 years that the thought of extended vagabonding and uprooting instantly sends my system into shock trauma. I've been waffling on this cross-country drive, to be honest. Afraid. That the car will die in the middle of nowhere and I'll have to stilt walk to Portland. That something will pull me in some other direction and the never-ending Celestine Prophecy will continue until I have 34 cents in my bank account. That somehow all this wandering will amount to me being alone forever. FOREVER.

Luckily, Maya's a weathered witch, and reminded me that this is not any old flightiness I'm taking on. It's the Bat ritual of rebirth that I've been needing--the integration of my true purpose right now. 

"You have to do it, Rachael," she said matter-of-factly without skipping a beat. "You need to go home, pack up your stuff, and say goodbye to your old life, for real, so you can build your new one all the way." Maya's the one who coincidentally showed up at my airport terminal in black flowing drab and nudged me to go to circus camp a year ago. Her track-record for straight-talk is good, so when she gets sharp and pointed, I let it cut.

What I'm not telling you is I've had a long-standing inextinguishable desire to build my own circular straw bail house: earth slabbed together by bare hands and love near a river 15 minutes from a town, that I can drive my blue scooter in to when I tire from the chickens and plants. A place I can always go home to when the exhaust of magical travel wears on me. A place that stays. It's the dream I've dead-ended on for two years straight, and it's been haunting me especially lately. Naturally, it came up.

"It makes perfect sense, Rachael. You need that house to ground you, so that you can embrace the magic of Dragonfly without burning out. You need it and it's yours," she said, chestnut brown eyes deep with permission and a tad bit of provocation, "but you can't get it until you go through the process of leaving your youth behind. Until you actually put it out there that you're ready. That you're willing to go through the pain of letting go to get it."

Simple true shit I can count on an old lady friend to tell me.

"You're right, Maya. Damn it, you're right."

I took a few drags of her clove cigarette, watched the smoke curl and disappear. The air was cool and foggy and full of moonlight, and I finally felt a tad-bit hopeful--like I could do it, like I wanted it, like maybe everything isn't just disappearing for no good reason, but there's something rooted and real that awaits me. And it's actually up to me to not just dream it, but create it.

Today, it would help me so much to know: What have you left behind to create something truer for your honestly magical life? I'm starting to tell stories again, like a trust that's regrowing inside me. Yours would help my heart feel brave. This much I'm sure is true.

To destruction & creation & glistening rivers of love,
rachael

5 comments:

marija said...

i've let go of trying not to miss home. i embrace missing home and embrace having an old life and a new life, having one foot in one country and the other all over the world. but it took many needed closures before i could do this. i know you will do a marvellous job - if it feels like a crisis it means you're almost there

marija said...

i've let go of trying not to miss home. i embrace missing home and embrace having an old life and a new life, having one foot in one country and the other all over the world. but it took many needed closures before i could do this. i know you will do a marvellous job - if it feels like a crisis it means you're almost there

Anonymous said...

Dragonflies and death rituals are opposite things. Dragonflies are adventurers, free spirits. Death rituals are about recognizing limits... time.

Adventurers need the hospitality of stable environments to rest in between travels. Dragonflies need all the work of flowers on which they feed.

it takes a lot flowers. For adventurers, it takes a whole host of community-members to give them the energy they need for their travels.

Ergo, if you want to be a flower settled down and let dragonflies feed from you, it helps greatly to do it in a community. Dragonfly settles down to become flower after it has found its mate(s).

Go to Tryon Life Community in Portland and see if that's a good place to settle for awhile.

Hali said...

love this, Rachael. What are you willing to give up in order to have that which you really desire? so good. the art of making space...

Corinna said...

OH sweet woman. I landed here on this very post, magically, in just the moment when I'm contemplating transformation, standing at the threshold wondering if the door will really open before me this time or if it's still going to be jammed shut when I reach for the knob.

MC Richards popped into my head: Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit of love into the desert? It is a frightening and sacred moment. There is no return. One's life is changed forever. It is the fire that gives us our shape.

Thanks for this in the exact moment of my need. xo