stepping off into the Unknown

It's Saturday. I'm tired and wired. That's how I described myself to my family in a recent email. I'm overwhelmed, excited, a little taken aback, trying to play 'catch up,' remembering to let go rather than try to hold on. Holding on creates so, so, so much suffering and tightness in my body through the process of transition and transformation.

It's 12:45pm. I have a new client arriving in about 45 minutes. I'm not sure exactly how she found me. But people keep finding me. And calling. Or emailing. Inquiring whether I am accepting new clients into my practice. Accepting new clients into my practice? My practice is only 1 day old! But I'm struggling some moments to adjust to this new experience.

I am not resting well at night. It's a challenge to encourage my brain to stop churning and turning - there are so many questions, there are so many things I don't know how to do, so many facets of this process that I've yet to wrap my mind around. Insurance billing. Marketing & Advertising. Bookkeeping and Accounting. Documentation. Client communication. Client management. Scheduling. Website building and editing (www.marthamcclure.net). There are endless bits of Mystery.

Still, a small and sure voice inside encourages me not to try and figure it out all at once, to let the Mystery of this experience unfold and reveal itself with time. Ripening into being. Let go. Look for the resources and supports coming to help me find my way. Breathe. Relax. Enjoy.

Buckle up!

There's a momentum that has taken hold and my fears of not-knowing cause me to feel like I'm being bounced along down a river, hitting rocks, getting tangled up in branches, eddying out into the riverbank, getting trapped in downstream holes. And the Universe giggles and says "Just let go." So outside of my habitual ways. Let go. Trust. Allow Life to move through me with an intelligence far more vast than any left-brain activity could ever muster. Not my will, Thy Will Be Done. Just give way and let something bigger happen.

All is well. And I'm feeling full and exhausted. Inspired as well as humbled by the privilege of this opportunity.

flying solo

It seems that the storm has moved through. I sit on the front porch of this home and look around me, seeing what I see and wondering what I don't see.

I'm writing today to share a movement that is occurring. I'm moving from one known to a larger unknown. I've been working with Counseling Associates in New London for over a year and a half now. It's time to let go, to grow.

I have a tattoo of an eagle on my right shoulder, inked there in 1998. Many have asked me what my tattoos symbolize. I'm generally ill-equippled in those moments to express the meaning - images carry more weight than words at times. What I have noticed is that eagles have been present to me over the years in times of transition. While being very experienced in the art of transition, I'm no master of change because I'm genuinely terrified at times of letting go. 

There's a myth that an eagle goes through a molting process in mid-life - removing some of its feathers so that it is less weighted. Whether myth or truth is not so important to me. What struck me was the way I was affected by another example of releasing in order to grow.

Letting go of my job at Counseling Associates, a very fine perch to sit on, asks that I accept (if not embrace) the unknown. This is not a step I'm taking because my current role is distasteful, only that it now feels limiting. The image on my shoulder shows an eagle with wings wide open. I accept that Life allows and demands that I host the ability both to tuck in and be quiet as well as open and unfurl - listen for both my inner wisdom and be attuned to the weather and the wind currents.

Working in the field of psychotherapy, many people I meet are seeking counseling because they have come to an experience of suffering because Life is either thrusting change upon them or they can "feel" that something is not quite right. Perhaps they have arrived at an opportunity to see that a way they hold themselves in the world has gotten too small. Perhaps they see that a belief that has been guiding their choices has begun to cause pain. Either way, it's an edge to see something in one's world has to give way and to not know what lies on the other side.

Just this past week, it was awesome to watch the people here prepare for a weather system which was being termed "a perfect storm." It seems we are excited beyond words at what might happen and simultaneously do everything in our power to insulate ourselves from the experience. What a wonderful species we are!

And so, that said, here's to letting go - weather will be weather, life will be life, prepare myself to the best of my ability and stay awake for possibility.

The image is a dragonfly taken by my wonder-filled friend, Kirsten, in Colorado. Not an eagle but yet another symbol of the Mystery of Transformation attuned to its environment. Kirsten 'captured' this image as the dragonfly waited for the morning sun to dry the dew that had collected on it overnight. Patience. Possibility. Life.

If interested, I am slowly building a website for my solo practice at www.marthamcclure.net with the help of my amazing nephew, Chris. My appreciation to all who have allowed me to get to this place.

give me an "O"

Okay, I've been remiss, failing to mention that there's a new member of the clan. He arrived around the same time we moved into the new homestead - and he made his presence known to the place, at least to the porcupine populace.
Onslow (the name came with him, a character from the British TV show "Keeping Up With Appearances") was adopted from friend Marty who was going through a transition in his life. Onslow originated in Georgia after being rescued from a fairly bleak and abusive life by a caring soul who then adopted him out to Marty and his then wife, Jessica. He's had a very different background from Benny who has not known a moment of suffering in his 2 year existence (except the suffering he creates psychologically for himself when his pack members leave him alone for too long). Onslow has been around the block a few times in his 6 or so years. He takes a while to warm up to men but with a soft touch and playful spirit he emerges from his hesitancy into a bashful willingness to be loved on. Over the four months he's been with us, he's blossomed. He has a passion for swimming as long as Bradford keeps him baited with a fishing rod. He has an appreciation for running as long as I keep the mileage and speed manageable. And he has a hard-on for porcupines. He seems not to be bothered by pain.
Onslow and Ben are very different. Where Benny is soft, Onslow is sturdy. Where Benny is outgoing, Onslow is reserved. Where Benny is neurotically needy for attention, Onslow is reserved but interested. They balance each other out beautifully.
The only challenge about Onslow is that he's a hound at heart - he has a nose for live creatures ready to be killed. Two weeks after our arrival in Warner we were enjoying the endless miles of trails that are accessible from our home when he caught a scent and disappeared for 20 minutes. On his return home, he was covered in porcupine quills - 5 veterinary personnel removed 1471 over 2 hours of surgery. Three weeks later, Benny burst out the screen door to greet a visitor with Onslow in tow. Onslow was distracted by a scent in the driveway and before we could get our hands on him he disappeared into the woods - 15 minutes later he emerged ready for his second trip to the emergency vet. Three plus hours of surgery and over 2000 quills. Benny met his first porcupine on this second adventure and returned moments later with fewer than 20 quills, whimpering from pain on 3 legs - having pulled a muscle trying to get away from the awful creature. Ben will never approach another porcupine. Onslow is now an on-leash dog all the time with a taste for quills that will never go away.
Different dogs.

So, here's Onslow. He's impossible not to love.

wakefulness

The last few weeks have found me haunting the rooms of the house in the middle of the night. I can construct all sorts of reasons for why I might be experiencing insomnia but, unless I choose to medicate myself, this is just my new reality,... for now. 


The moon was full last night. I watched it move in and out of the the branches and leaves on the south side of the home as I perched on the farmer's porch at 2am. It's hard to remember at times that it's a sphere up there, perched in the universe, reflecting back the light of our sun. The glow hurts my eyes. It lights up the lawn and gardens around the home, reflects the contours of Mt. Kearsarge miles north of us. My white t-shirt glows. The sun alighting the moon alighting me.


26 hours later, 4am, it still glows profoundly but the screen of my computer captures my corneas and the moon has given way to a sliver of shadow on its right shoulder. I can hear the hum of Interstate-89 rumbling in the distance, the occasional night traveler heading north to Burlington or south to Boston. The crickets and peepers and other night crawlers sing around the screened porch, the dogs doze off beside me on their beds wondering why breakfast hasn't yet been served. But it's still so dark. And so still. Even with all these noises, it's so still. I feel grateful, perhaps for the first time in these 2 weeks, for my insomnia because there's something so magical about this stillness, found only in these hours.


Coffee tastes better at this time of day too.


I've been learning much from this home. We've been here maybe 13 weeks or so. The gardens, in particular, have been my teacher - both cruel as well as patient in nature. In purchasing this place, Bradford and I stepped consciously into the challenge of becoming good stewards of the land. The previous owners put much energy and skills and time into creating the landscape and I assumed for myself the responsibility of maintaining and building on their creations. Unfortunately, I've discovered my thumbs are black rather than green.


Let's just say that I have real skill when it comes to ripping plants out. This I've learned. My favorite garden implement is clearly a shovel. As far as growing plants, I have been frustrated, stymied. Until 2 weeks ago, I was stressing myself out because I was failing to manage the gardens as I judged they needed to be kept. I assumed without question that I should garden like those before me, like those around me. I never thought to ask myself what type of garden I liked or what sorts of plants appealed to me. I just took on what appeared around me to be the status quo.


Perhaps from my frustration and stress, two weeks ago I began digging deep into the earth and ripping plants out that were failing for one reason or another. Plants whose names I never learned were been torn from their home and added to a burn pile down in the lower half of the property. Earlier in the summer I had been walking through the gardens with various visitors who ooh'ed and ah'ed their way on the garden paths identifying plants, commenting how fortunate I was to have so many mature and varied species. Not so much anymore.


Somewhere in my exuberance that hot Saturday afternoon I stopped and looked around me. I had dramatically altered the landscape from one of bounty, complexity, and shrubbery to spartanism, simplicity, and space. And I realized I liked it. I was breathing deeply for the first time in months. 


It might seem obvious to many that one need not follow the status quo. One is welcome to put their unique fingerprints to the creation of their own life. I feel like it should be obvious to me, like this is something I should have learned decades ago as I tripped and toppled around the choices of my life. There's a theme that repeats itself time and again; I attempt to walk the ways of those around me and those who have travelled before me and I get lost. I forget to ask myself "what do I love?" "what do I feel is true for me right now?" But time and again, I migrate back to the interstate and hope that its momentum will take me somewhere meaningful and righteous, will dump me out into happiness and success.


I appreciate the gardens here as my teacher; the scars on my shins and forearms write a story about an old lesson newly learned. 


The sounds of peepers and crickets are giving way to morning birds and the hum of the interstate is gathering more energy. The sky has shifted from blue-black to periwinkle. The moon tilts closer to the west. My coffee cup is empty and the dogs are likely ready for their breakfast. Some images from the homestead to bring depth to the two-dimensionality of words.

Good Friday and Friday the 13th

Still with trepidation and some disbelief, I sit to type out some words, an update. It's Good Friday today. And it looks as though Spring is pushing up through the ground and out through the branches with new life. Amazing to consider the gumption and pluck a seed must call on in itself and the world around it to push out through bark, through earth compacted by ice, snow, and salted sand. 


Checking in with myself, I notice that my breath has been suspended chronically for over a month. The real estate search which Bradford and I began in earnest at the beginning of Winter culminated in the discovery of a home just outside of Warner, NH - a home sitting on 10.6 acres with some field, some forest, and plenty of mature fruit trees and perennial gardens. And it has a home too - which is helpful. While there remain some T's to dot and I's to cross as part of the rigamarole surrounding the final closing (apparently the mortgage crisis has seriously altered the process of real estate), we hope to take possession of 186 Iron Kettle Road (at the corner of Iron Kettle and Red Chimney) next week and move to our new home on Friday the 13th!


I consider the phrase "take possession" and ask myself who has possessed whom.
This home has captured my imagination and my heart. It feels like the first place that I can truly call home - a space and place that I can grow with and into, learn from, offer something back to, and open to others as a place of peace, laughter, nurturance, and light. As much as I've fantasized about a home being a place that can offer me shelter and security, this property strikes me as an opportunity to expand and open rather than simply a private retreat from the world - a paradigm shift for me to call on my own pluck!


While I can construe so many notions of what I wish to do with the space, at my core I know that the space will guide both Bradford and me, ask us to pay attention, to listen, to imagine, and to make ourselves available to be of service in myriad ways. Here is the poem that came to my email today. Seems fitting.


Easter Exultet

Shake out your qualms. 

Shake up your dreams. 

Deepen your roots. 

Extend your branches.

Trust deep water 

and head for the open, 

even if your vision 

shipwrecks you. 

Quit your addiction 

to sneer and complain. 

Open a lookout. 

Dance on a brink. 

Run with your wildfire. 

You are closer to glory 

leaping an abyss 

than upholstering a rut. 

Not dawdling. 

Not doubting. 

Intrepid all the way 

Walk toward clarity. 

At every crossroad 

Be prepared 

to bump into wonder. 

Only love prevails. 

En route to disaster 

insist on canticles. 

Lift your ineffable 

out of the mundane. 

Nothing perishes; 

nothing survives; 

everything transforms! 

Honeymoon with Big Joy!

 

~ James Broughton ~

the shortest distance

Noticing my preference to find the shortest, most direct route between here and there. 

I was massaging recently, finishing up the 60 internship sessions that I am required to do as part of my certification process - I thought I would be feeling relief. Instead, I felt confused. I've been moving through my training thinking I was on a straight line, thinking I knew where I was headed, thinking I just needed to keep my eyes focused on the goal. Even while I couldn't articulate exactly how massage and psychotherapy would come together for me professionally, I was under a spell of believing that, eventually, the logic would reveal itself. But the further I go, the less clear I am.

Wilmot, NH

In fact, the more I open and the more I learn, rather than seeing the road that lies ahead, I find myself staring in wonder at the terrain around me. And rather than relaxing into the vastness, I get tangled up in possibilities. Because there's this voice inside my head that directs me to stay focused. "On what?" I reply. "On the course you set a year ago when you set out on this path!" "But back there, I didn't know all this existed."

It took me many, many years to find something to do in this life that felt like it had traction for me. Business school, Native Studies, raft guiding, Law School, health food store, demolition derbies and monster trucks . Through nearly 2 decades of exploration and experimentation, when I came to Transpersonal Psychology there was a sense of arriving back to a place I knew but to which I had never been. I kind of wanted to rest there, go vertically into the depths and heights of understanding - I didn't feel inclined to venture away again. I didn't want to risk again feeling lost.

Ben on straight path

And so, as I look back at the stance I held while undergoing massage training, I noticed one foot was fixed in place, firmly attached to the ground of familiar. I was unwilling to leave behind a belief that I had found something firm, professionally, to stand on. I see, however, that the more attached I am to being focused, the less able I am to seeing possibility. My need to know where I am going and find the shortest distance between 'A' and 'B' is squashing my amazement and awe in the process and bringing me more into contact with my neurotic attachment to outcome. Security and stability trump rapture and wonder every time.

I've spent years priding myself at how efficiently I could get between here and there on the road systems of Canada and the US (17 hours straight between Boulder, CO and Fernie, BC - one driver, one dog). Roads that meandered through mountains and valleys, towns and communities, along breathtaking rivers, massive stands of forests, infinite fields. Likely I'll never take that drive again. Shame I wasn't there the first time.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Does a straight line make a life?

contagious

Perhaps there is no one here now. Perhaps all have gone. That's okay. I've been quiet from this place. I've been busy-ing myself, pre-occupying myself with activities far from this medium. Yesterday, working away at a final project required for graduation from my massage program, I stumbled back to "The Journey" - this writing process I began over 2 years ago and I caught its contagiousness. I had told myself that my final project took precedence over writing my blog entries - on top of accumulating hours of internship bodywork and working as a counselor and visiting friends near and far and teaching and walking and running and preparing food and eating and sleeping and dreaming and buying a new car after trying and trying to repair old June, after all of this busy business, somewhere along the way I found myself back on my cushion. And the cushion has helped me to remember how insane I can be, part of a bigger and larger insanity to be sure, but insane all the same.

This morning I was reading Kabat-Zinn, 600+ pages exploring the importance of returning to one's senses, returning to a ground of mindfulness and awakeness. I found the poem here by Mary Oliver and it captured for me the essence of this relentless call to wake up, to notice the noise that beckons, beckons, beckons - to see the ways that the Collective Unconscious seduces me to return to a sleepy walk through my living and to stubbornly persist at waking up. Not so different from the call I answered over 2 years ago when I began this blogging, in part to mark my own journey from one way of living to another.

Wakefulness is just as contagious as sleep. Knowing this buoys me. Others are clearing sleep from their eyes each and every time they follow their commitment to the process of mindful living, whether it be to the cushion, to the synagogue, to the temple, or to the forest and fields.

Good morning.

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice -

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations -

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

throughout the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life you could save.

- Mary Oliver