Happy Thanksgiving. My own much-needed giving to myself. A "week" off.

11/24/15 Top of the field, the day before Thanksgiving
 
Starting a couple of days ago, I am taking Thanksgiving week off. I am taking this time to work in the studio, what I have not done for nearly a year. I painted today — my right hand and arm to the elbow — on the life-size, full-body portrait I am doing of myself as High Priestess.

I first conceived of this painting almost ten years ago. But I also knew my life had not yet grown to fit this piece. Finally, last year, the creating of it began.

I realized I wanted to do a piece in which I “painted” with fabric, what I did for my Spirit Tree "painting," commemorating the life of my best friend Barbara Storm who died in 2000. In order to “paint” with fabric, I needed a base more supple than canvas so I chose raw silk. The entire six-foot by seven-foot piece of silk will be covered with hand-stitched swaths of fabric that form the scene. These will be ornamented with shells and beads, buttons and brooches, except for my face, hands, arms to the elbow, and perhaps feet which will all be painted.

As I sit at the top of the field on the land I am caretaker of, looking out across to the hills of Vermont, my crossed legs nearly touch the stone fire circle before me. When I sit here like this, often I call to my guides to join me. Always, I feel a sense of grounding and quiet. As I sit here today, what I hear inside is a deep understanding of how, for the next few months at least, perhaps for the entire winter, I need to pull myself in, retreat from too much doing, honor myself with a true period of gestation, following the practice of the Earth Mother in winter.

A man is entering my life. He arrives in a couple of weeks. I love this man whom I have known since I was 18. I trust him. But the little girls inside me don’t yet, and I know this will be a very hard transition for them and for me, too, although incredible! This is what I must focus on most now, besides the work I do to support myself.

I feel so grateful to the universe and to my own spirit that I am giving myself this time off. Sometimes, we need to put all else aside in order to discover how to birth our greatest selves. I need this time to go deep, to express from my deepest place, to allow my being the breath that it so needs here and there throughout my days and, especially, before this man arrives.

I have known all my life I am meant for healthy partnership. I have known that in this, I will be challenged to grow as I meet on equal, safe, and healthy terms the man I choose to be with. I have known it is necessary for the full birthing of who I am, especially after the atrocity of my childhood.

I have felt this love coming for 15 years. As I took part in intensive therapy for all of those years — healing and healing — his presence became stronger and more fully formed. Recently, I knew I was ready to begin to seek him on the physical plane, and he came into being!

This week it is time to honor myself, discover myself again at the innermost core of my being, and then to remember and hold onto — as much as I can — the person I have found. When this man drives to my door, I want to honor this union by giving it my full attention. I want to honor both myself and this man. I sense that, with him, there will come a gradual learning of how to hold to, deepen, and grow who I am amidst the union with another.

This is the path of my life lived in its most authentic, expansive way. In order to recreate the life I was born into, I need to learn how to — at the same time — give love to and receive love from my own sacred being and this man together, in safe, beloved relationship. At long last!