Briefly, On Belonging
I recently returned from a few weeks of deep wintering in the snowy silence of northern New Mexico. Much was released there, even more retrieved, re-membered, reclaimed.
The year that we’ve just bid goodbye to demanded it: finally putting my arms fully around the grief that showed up so heavily, and letting it guide me back down into to much older caverns within. I had begun the process last year after my pregnancy loss. And these past weeks, there was a deepening into it, an unfettered allowing of winter to work its medicine, with me as its apprentice.
The flavor of what was administered tasted of Belonging. True belonging - especially for those of us who have moved through life feeling like we don’t - begins with us.
Because: the grief of abandoning ourselves - usually early on for our own survival - feels like un-belonging.
True belonging is to belong fully to ourselves first, to our soul-bodies, which belong to Earth + Sky. Being rooted in that, and allowing the truth of what that feels like to start moving through us, and trusting it wholeheartedly. From here, calling back in all the parts that believed in some sort of irrevocable brokenness born from a sense of un-belonging, calling them back home.
A community, a family, that we truly belong to begins within: in that vibrant village to help love, parent and guide our inner young ones, and call forth wisdom from the wounds that we’ve mistaken as the essence of who we are.
If like me you’ve looked here and there for belonging, come home to your Self, and allow the unique felt-sense of your inner-belonging to guide you towards resonant belonging out there.
p.s. One of the major things I returned to during my time away was the practice of Vedic meditation, which has supported me through some big life transitions in the past. It’s rooted in simplicity, an effortless effort, while being elegantly powerful. In essence it’s a profound inner homecoming. Coming back to it has been transformative, and this will be the meditation technique I’ll be focusing on sharing going forward in The Light Gets In, which begins again from this Sunday 19 February.