I am no longer what I was. I will remain what I have become. ~ Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel.
These are the few words I welcomed into my SoulCollage collection, a personal-image-archetypal ‘deck’ of well over a hundred cards. So much of the practice, when I first learned of and dove into it, insisted on wordlessness. Images, not language. But this card came together, words well-suited to the images dancing with one another.
The face speaks youth to me, though there’s nothing that would prevent it from being an older woman’s forehead and eyes. The eyes seem young, though. And the swan has been a longtime totem for me, a spiritual symbol with medicine of becoming, belonging, peaceableness and loyalty. I am no longer what I was. I will remain what I have become.
This card, these words, arise with some force in me today, a final hurrah in holding a Women Writing for (a) Change circle, in the precise practices that community protects, requires. I felt energy in crafting the agenda, both familiarity but also distance, dissonance. I love this circle of women gathering tonight. I seem to fit less and less however, with sadness and satisfaction both. Tomorrow I go to the bank to close the credit-cards and bank accounts. Tomorrow I toast with my anam cara spirit-friend to a journey’s ending and as ever, new beginning(s).
Things I had thought would offer continuity even seem to need to be let go of too. I surprised myself and feasibly “postponed” the deep-dive circle work several of us had begun listening into, to hold during August 2023. I don’t know who I am enough in this transition to know how to hold that space, co-create that space, with these dear sisters. I came across a question from the last Flow Game I experienced with my F&W small group, instigated by a Heaven card, a line-drawing of a dancer: “What’s the leap, surrender, that still needs to happen at the end of this journey?” I had already decided to put the postponement into action, but the question felt loud and resonant to me, with this in mind. It feels easier to let it go, trusting it to re-form if it is supposed to...
I’m even dipping into the idea of a CrossFit ‘box’ closer to home here, which may have class-times more suited to my morning writing schedule. THAT feels huge, as the CrossFit practice and its familiar community have been such an anchor for me these last four years. What does it mean to grow up, keep exploring what feels like it’s opening…? I wonder…
John O’Donahue’s voice is companioning me now too, from The Invisible World teachings, quite familiar to his written words in Eternal Echoes. Chapter Five of the book explores prayer as a bridge between longing and belonging. I haven’t felt a soul-wonder about prayer for a very long time.
Perhaps hermitage days are beginning to plant the seeds and nourishment I’m needing after all…? I am no longer what I was. I will remain what I have become.