uncertainty Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Imperfections

I’m sitting here listening to rain pelt against the dining room windows while a long, lonely gust of wind whistles through the keyhole of our front door. No need to worry about ‘closed building syndrome’ in this old house – and that’s just fine with me. I’m happy with the creaks and cracks of this home, the things some people might consider imperfections.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say I love the imperfections that make our house our home. Not all of them, of course. (Oh, for even a smidgen more kitchen counter space.) But overall? I honestly think it’s the imperfections that keep me sane.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house that was built in 1770. It was nothing like the houses of most of my friends. Our wooden floors were known to occasionally cast splinters as big as spears into my foot, piercing my socks and making me yelp (and causing my father to reach for the black gunky stuff that smelled like tar, that would supposedly ‘pull it out’ if it was embedded too deeply to dig out).

Christmas Eve 2020

I think many of us would agree that this Christmas in particular is filled with imperfections. Certainly, it’s far different than any Christmas most of us can recall. But I have to wonder. What will we remember most about this most abnormal of yuletides?

There are so many people enduring untold grief this Christmas. (And of course, I am using Christmas as a shorthand for all the holidays we may be celebrating at this time of year that celebrate the return of light, and encourages going within, hibernating, and reflection.) Nothing feels the same. And precious little is the same.

People are losing loved ones to the pandemic and other causes by the thousands – every single day. We’re being asked to sacrifice our traditions for the safety of ourselves and others. We’re wondering just how long this no-longer-fresh hell is going to last.

A Reminder

Karl and I were lucky enough to be able to spend a few hours with one of our sons and daughter-in-law. Because the weather is as unpredictable as it is, early this evening, it was balmy enough for us to safely sit outside in their enclosed porch and eat dinner together – occupying opposite ends of the long dinner table.

As we were driving home in the pouring rain that luckily mostly held off until we were leaving, the wind starting to whip around us, a couple of deer jumped out into the roadway in front of us. Luckily, I was driving slowly enough that I saw them well ahead of time. Turned out, though, that the three that popped onto the roadway before us were joining quite the cadre of peers on the other side of the road.

They were so beautiful and such an unexpected sight! I rolled down my window and took their photo, in spite of the raindrops splattering on my face. They were a lovely reminder of the gentleness we’re all wise to exercise with each other and ourselves over these holiday times.

I’m grateful we didn’t have an accident. And I loved the looks they seemed to give us as they stood there in the rain, returning our gaze. I realize this post probably makes little sense. But I wish all of you a peaceful, loving Christmas Day. May we all enjoy a day of respite from the insanity that has marked this year in particular.

And I’ll forgive myself for the vast imperfections of this post – not least being the fact that I just blew right through the witching hour of 1:00 a.m. (when it gets automatically sent out to my email list).

Merry Christmas. Happy Solstice. Let’s let the light shine into our hearts.

(T-337)

Dark Clouds – Photo: L. Weikel

Overwhelm

I’m feeling it.

Is it just me?

I feel as though I’ve been amazingly fortunate, the past 345 days or so, to almost always discover something to write about. At least something that was not akin to what my husband Karl has more than once very unhelpfully suggested to me as he headed to bed, leaving me on the couch with laptop at the ready:

“Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy…”

(That’s a reference to Stephen King’s The Shining, in case you either had no idea what I meant by that or thought ‘Jack Nicholson,’ yet couldn’t quite place it.)

Stuck

Yeah, I’m feeling that, too. But no, I’m drawn to explore the overwhelm a bit further.

While I try not to talk politics a lot in my posts, sometimes the state of our country seeps into my writing. It’s hard to ignore. It’s hard to pretend that what’s happening at the highest levels of our government isn’t having a ripple effect both worldwide and on the most personal of levels.

Worldwide

On the world stage, the stunning selfishness and corruption has resulted in us betraying our allies, which of course – aside from becoming an immediate cause of death for many – will lead to others being wary of teaming up with us in the future. We’re no longer the sure thing. We’re no longer the country that aspires to be the world leader in all things just, admirable, innovative, and courageous.

We’ve lost our moral authority. (And yes, I know; we’ve not been perfect by any means. But overall? We’ve been a beacon of hope, light, and freedom to the world.

I’m feeling a sense of overwhelming despair that this is no longer true.

There’s a naïve part of me that chirps, “But as soon as we prove that we will not tolerate such blatant corruption, that our system of checks and balances will curb the egregious excesses and abuses of power, surely the rest of the world will ‘come back’ to working with us?!”

As each day unfolds, I’m feeling a despair in the pit of my self. I’m starting to despair that we can recover our stature. And I am not the despairing type. Yet…

Our Personal Microcosms

On the most personal of levels, I’m also feeling the overwhelm that’s blanketing all of us. Every day we’re confronted with a fire hose of revelations of how more and more and more ‘norms’ are just flagrantly ignored.

Norms – ways of behaving in a civil society that we, as a culture, take for granted and therefore do not need to legislate (i.e., we don’t need to create laws or rules that explicitly state what is right or wrong) – create a fundamental security. They’re sort of the ‘everybody knows what a red light or a stop sign means’ coupled with ‘we can rely on people stopping at these.’

I’m not saying that we, either personally or culturally, should become slaves to norms. I’m almost always behind a little well-intentioned effort to shake things up now and again.

It’s the Relentlessness

But the constant, day in and day out, flagrant and deliberate flaunting of norms is debilitating to our personal psyches. It’s wearing us all out. Even the people who chant inane tropes at rallies are, if they pay attention to their lives and their mental, emotional, and physical health, being worn the hell out by the constant barrage of uncertainty and unkindness, disrespect and despair.

Norms of polite society are disintegrating. People are starting, more and more, to just do what they want. There’s a growing disregard for simply doing the right thing for the right thing’s sake.

Yikes; this got dark.

I’m hoping this ‘overwhelm’ will pass quickly. It’s beating the hell out of my normally optimistic and idealistic nature. And while I suspect many of you are feeling it too, I do have to wonder: Is it just me?

I’ll do my best to bring a better game tomorrow.

(T-765)