Listening to the wise woman: a practice for human beings

It can be difficult to hear the core– the wisest– voice speaking from within us these days. There's so much disconnection, fear, distraction, mistrust, cruelty, violence, needless suffering and death, anger, exhaustion, outrage, and despair—in the human world anyway. How did we ever believe that we humans were wiser than the land we're on, the forests, the fields, the oceans, the sky, the animals, and insects?! What a crock that was.

Who am I?

I've learned to trust all emotions as teachers and allies and to go into them and stick with them, going deeper, to find a hidden pain/truth/wisdom that I've been avoiding. I've also learned to occasionally do this with others or at least to run my emerging feelings and thoughts by trusted others, because they often see or feel my blind spots, or I see in them– even in their expression or body language– something I was hiding from, or they hold what I cannot yet fully hold. Or, we become something even more awesome and creative, together. And, now and then these days, I still end up feeling stuck and even drowning in fear, anger, and what-ifs. Bleh. Luckily, I at least know now that the drowning-in-fear-and-anger being is not me. Because I know the real me. She's centered on wonder– she woos and brings forth wonder, play, laughter, tears, real selves, and an innate-to-all tendency or intuition to go with what's happening right now, in the moment, with those you're with, instead of freezing or fleeing or even, sometimes, fighting, alone.

So yeah, I am not fear. Fear is not my center. Well, not fear to the point that we're stuck, alone, and absolutely drowning in it with no way out and nobody caring about what we're going through.

Who is the wise woman?

I've been attending writing groups at Healing Circles Langley for 8 months now– more than two of those months before Mom passed, I began when she went into hospice, and for almost six months since she passed. Multiple writing circle hosts. Many people writing and sharing and grieving alongside me. Just yesterday, we had to pass the sacred Kleenex box around the entire circle. But it was good. It was good to cry somebody else's tears and to– finally– not be alone it that. Because I do that all the time. I love crying other people's tears. The hard part is living within a culture that doesn't see crying each others' tears as useful, as leadership, or as absolutely necessary if we're ever to get beyond where we are right now.

I've learned many things from these circles. And one dear host has a tendency to have our final writing session follow a brief guided meditation, within which we imagine ourselves in a particular place, and we meet a wise woman, and we listen to what she has to say. And then, we write what the wise woman told us or we write from her perspective. This truly wise being who we meet isn't separate from us– although many of us are told by our cultures and/or families and/or still-hurting selves that she is definitely NOT us. Such a powerful practice, this. So I thought I'd share what I wrote yesterday as an example of just how powerful this practice is.

This can be done together or alone– wherever you happen to be. I was very low-energy yesterday, thanks to long-Covid among other things, so I didn't share any of this with the group yesterday. I just wrote and listened and wrote and listened and cried. But sharing it here, as an example of how powerful this practice is, is something that I definitely have energy for today.

Practice #1 - Empty out mentally and emotionally

I do this one often at home, and we do it in some of our writing circles to. If you write or journal or consider yourself an artist or sensitive being in any way, you may be familiar with The Artist's Way, a wildly popular book for thriving and surviving while living in the hard human world as an always-sensitive, soft, and sentient self. This emptying out practice is like the Morning Pages from The Artist's Way. It's a pre-creation practice. We begin by taking a few minutes before we write to just dump all our mental and emotional clutter out on the page.

I'd had a rough morning yesterday by the time I got to the writing circle. Long-Covid fatigue– with other symptoms– is kicking my whole ass right now. I'm struggling to sleep, struggling to wake up, and no matter how long I sleep, I'm exhausted. Its like I went from 56 to 96 overnight. And, I'm also being kicked daily by waking up each morning and paying attention to what's happening to children, elders, and– fuck, everyone– at the hands of fascists and the greedy billionaires who fund them to keep all the rest of us in an abusive line. It's enraging, and when you're already super-low energy, it can be crushing. So then, I got dressed and went outside, knowing that being outside in nature always helps– and I stepped on a sharp rock as soon as I began watering the garden barefoot. I limped back in and noticed that the dog had just run into a patch of cleavers weed, so I had to spend 40 minutes combing and cutting tiny stubborn seeds out of her super fine Australian Shepherd fur. And while I was doing that, the smoke detector went off for no reason. No reason except that they seem to only ever go off when my very tall partner is traveling, so very short me must swing at their tiny off buttons with a broom, cursing like a menopausal pirate, while our cats scatter in fear and the dog hides under the table.

So, I was a mess when I showed up to the writing circle. I was literally slightly shaking. I almost didn't go. But then I did go. Because I knew it would be hard but also that it would help. And clearly I needed that help. The entire world was screaming it at me. Here's what I wrote in our 3-minutes of emotionally emptying out time:

I'm angry at self-centered people. Angry at greedy wealthy folks. Angry at my country— at everyone who doesn't deeply value the earth beneath our feet. Angry at the smoke detector going off on the second day my partner is away traveling for the week. Angry at stubborn weed seeds in the dog's fur. At stepping on a rock when I show up to rest in nature and to water. Long Covid fatigue is horrible. Genocide perpetrators and deniers are awful. Ahhhhh! Bleh. Bleh. Bleh.

Practice #2: Ground yourself via "I am from..."

This is another common practice in writers groups. We chose an "I am from" or "Where I'm from" type poem, story, or essay, we read it together, and then we write one of our own. It's a chance to intentionally return to where you're from, to get more creative, and to say whatever you want— the good, the great, the bad, the horrible— about where you come from and what you're made of. This time, we got 15 minutes. Here's what I wrote:

I am from...

Wide open fields of grass
Wide open hearts
Holding each other. A place where we often
laugh until we pee, during good times. And we
stay beside one another, with each other, silent or weeping
until we're laughing again—even
in the heart of unimaginable
loss and grief.

I am of freedom.
Real freedom, not the horrible one
made for TV.
I am of women who
move as a pack, think
long term, and play in the
short term and in
all the in-betweens.

I am of the weeds.
I am of the cracks.
Not entirely here, nor entirely there.
I am of tender hearts
and I am like Buttercup— tiny, persistent
I spring up absolutely everywhere.
Vulnerable but rooted, almost impossible to shake
being that I'm everywhere
and underground.

I am of breezes and clouds
sunshine, algae, lichen, rain
Protective, like Motherwort
Nourishing, like Nettles
Sheltering, like the Fir and Cedar forest here.

In the end, I am serendipity.
I insist on wonder—
wonder
who can't be forced
but who can be wooed.

I am of wonder. Wonder like the
wonder women before me. And for
the women ahead, I become playful and thunder both.

Practice #3: Showing up to listen to the wise woman

If gendering this wise being bothers you, just ignore the gendering. For me, its powerful– that's why I do it and why, I imagine, our facilitator does it too. Bottom line: do the thing that's powerful for you.

So here's the prompt. Read this paragraph and then shut your eyes, take a breath, and imagine the scene. Here at the solstice, at start of summer, picture yourself beside a body of water. Any body of water: large or small. See it? Walk toward it. As you approach, you see a wise woman standing there. She turns toward you as you approach. She speaks. What does she say to you? Listen well.

Here's what I wrote:

Standing in the garden, in the warm shade beside the turquoise ceramic bird bath I just re-filled, and holding up the hose so the hummingbirds can sip from it, the wise woman approaches and she tells me...

The crushing fatigue of long-Covid is the only thing that can take your lion-hearted self fully into rest and park her ass in rest for a good long while— longer than she's ever rested as an adult. Longer than she wants to. Feel free to bitch about long-Covid all you want. This is also a gift. See that too.

I have seen you before, you know. In other places, other lifetimes. You were a warrior. We spoke with Motherwort to fashion our square spines and cover ourselves with spiky armor. You know the properties of Yarrow from battlefields. And you know that all wild, self-planted plants, beings, are medicine. And every one of you—every version of you going far back—knows them. You know them all. And they know you. Wild beings know each other on sight. Feel at home in each other's presence.

This time is hard, but it won't kill you. That serendipity-drawing, wonder-loving, rock-painting girl keeps rising. Some days to rest. Some days to weep. Some days to make art. Some days to take those painted rocks and smash the windows of those who would sleep through this life, alone, and die in the smoke or flames before they're even aware of being engulfed by them.

So welcome this crushing fatigue with open arms. She will drop the violent world away some days and remind you of the velvet-steel-soft, serendipity-wooing, powerful collective being you've always been.

The earth belongs to no one. The sky belongs to all. Together we are both of these. We, my love, are all.

Summary

So, the practice is this:

1. Emptying. Find 3 to 15 minutes, and empty all of your mental clutter and emotions out onto the page or screen. Putting it out in front of you, instead of holding it all in, can feel really good. If you're not a writer, you can also do this by rapidly drawing, rapidly painting, screaming into the woods, or talking to a trusted friend or therapist, for example. If you talk to a friend and have the wherewithal to check, ask if they're up for holding a 15-minute mental and emotional clutter dump. The older I get, the more I realize we don't always have the wherewithal to ask. Sometimes the very best we can do is just fall apart where we are. Falling apart now and then is good. It makes us truly grateful for the generosity, flexibility, and forgiveness of others.
2. Grounding. Find another 10-15 minutes, read an "I am from" type poem or essay. You can re-read mine above. Or, if you don't have one you already love, you can also read Where I'm From by George Ella Lyon at this link. Then write "I am from" or "Where I'm from" at the top of a piece of paper, and write to more fully hold and be held by where you're from— every bit of it you want to acknowledge, celebrate, scream, or simply speak.
3. Sharing (optional and recommended). In our writing groups, we can choose to share what we wrote. And we can chose to pass and not share at all. It's powerful to listen to what others have written, to share what you've written, or to share what came up for you from the act of writing itself. Passing when you don't feel like sharing is powerful too. All these things teach agency. All teach us that we're brave. My voice never fails to shake at some point when I read what I've just written out loud. We often laugh. I often cry, too. Because in my own writing practice at home I rely on both laughter and weeping to know when I've touched and spoken a deeper personal or universal truth. It's incredibly uncomfortable for me to share that practice with others. So I cry a lot—more than most. Some days I mind. Some days I'm thrilled to be me.
4. Showing up to listen to the wise woman/being. As hopefully was clear from what I spontaneously wrote in Practice #3 above, finding an additional 10 minutes to actively listen to the wise woman/being and document what she said can be powerful. The wise woman is less encumbered by the culture you happen to be from/in, the family you're in/from, and even less encumbered by your hurt/hurting self. Especially for people who've been taught to hide who they are or how they feel, shrink themselves, not speak their minds, to always be accommodating, always be humble, always be calm or silent or present to make others comfortable— this practice can be a game changer. The entire purpose of Practice 1 and Practice 2 is to come into Practice 3 prepared to listen well. To get to a point where you can show up open enough to hear the voice of the wise woman, or wise being if you prefer.
5. Sharing, again. Optional and highly recommended. When you can, share what you learn when you visit the wise woman. Every time you share what you heard when you showed up for the wise woman– and really listened to her– you aren't just changing yourself. You're changing the world. And, even better—you know it. Because the practice of sharing what the wise woman said to you changes you. The practice makes you braver by the day. More curious by the day, too. And luckily for all of us, courage + curiosity are contagious. More contagious than fear. Courage + curiosity are how we stay present long enough to deepen relationships and expand ourselves. And courage + curiosity are how we turn very large, very scary boats around together. Courage + curiosity are how life herself moves and how we return to ourselves and who we really want to be within community, within relationships, within a world that lives and breathes and moves with us.

Maybe we aren't powerless at all. Maybe we're powerful beyond measure. And maybe I better watch how much of the whole world's pain I take in each morning, because Empathetic Me is causing sharp rocks to find bare feet, weed seeds to find our dog, and smoke detectors to misbehave. It's time to find what's mine to hold again. And what's mine to let go of.