Today is one of those days where I am racing to get this post out like it's my last day on earth. I sometimes seem to need to let topics percolate, as you know...but not this one. Yesterday was an important milestone, one which I hope I will always remember.
I've been leading up to it, and what I am about to say won't come as much of a surprise to regular readers, or to my old friends. But what you write about, even what you talk about, can still be more head-focused, and not be reflected in your heart.
Yesterday, I had occasion to binge-watch a British television show that I like. Partway through the episodes, I realized something important. I was feeling none of the sadness, bittersweetness, anger, frustration, "homesickness", and discomfort that I have usually felt in the same situation. That sense of, "I belong over there but I cannot get there." That sense of, "Life has cheated me in this regard." I've carried this weight around since I was four, and I've gotten so used to it that at first, I didn't realize it was missing. But all of a sudden, I could feel that the chronic dissatisfaction had completely dropped away.
Is this because I've left that part of me behind? Quite the contrary. It seems to be because all this love and passion for the place was surging out of me -- and there was no more resistance. No voice saying no. No inner critic trying to correct my deepest truth. No inner shaming, or ridicule, or fact-checking. It's like, I have been "British" (and probably of that landscape since before Britain was even a construct) for dozens upon dozens of lifetimes, and it is home. I am a woman of that place, period. No matter our current events, no matter what my experience has been so far in this lifetime, no matter what anyone else might say or believe, no matter what our construct believes. I finally, finally "came home" utterly and completely, maybe similar to what some people experience in realizing the truth of their sexuality, or their gender, or their calling, or their core religious beliefs. I "came home" yesterday, at a moment when, housesitting an ocean away from home, I couldn't have been superficially further from that truth.
It was interesting, however. One aspect of this program sent my resistance way up the scale -- the success of a male figure, and the recognition he received. Obviously, I have much more work to do.
This isn't a case of needing to figure out an outward path in a specific direction, or making plans, or doing one thing other than writing about this here. It is more about laying down everything that isn't me, gently releasing the entire burden, and starting to understand what it feels like to love something and experience no resistance. No resistance whatsoever. Even the title I have given to this essay (an allusion, of course, to the "great" Easter hymn) is too resistant for this new paradigm, but I couldn't help but use it. My personal lifelong battle, to be everything I am not in places that are not home, is o'er. And as we head into the winter solstice, may I sit quietly, get used to loving without resistance, and listen carefully to my inner wisdom.
