vulnerability

Solstice Intensity – Day Forty

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Solstice Intensity

I had quite an unexpected and emotionally fraught ‘moment’ in a grocery store parking lot today. Nothing like celebrating the Winter Solstice with intensity, I say.

I was checking my text messages and emails before running in for a few items, when all of a sudden a grocery cart rammed into my car door. The loud whomp, which physically jarred me and felt like it surely had dented the entire side of my car, scared the heck out of me. Then, in an eye-blink, that fear turned to rage.

I jumped out of my car (there were two empty handicapped spaces to my left, and beyond those, the driving lanes and then the market itself) furiously looking for the culprit who’d carelessly sent the cart careening into my vehicle. Let me note here: I’m expressing how I felt, which might generously be called…hyperbolic?

Anyway, as I say, I jumped out of my car looking for my transgressor. The only person I saw anywhere near me was an older man who had parked his car facing mine, but one space to my left. His car was pulled up to a handicapped-only parking sign which was affixed to a substantial metal pole about 4” in diameter and 4’ high. I glimpsed him as he was folding himself into his driver’s seat.

Assessment of the Situation Made

I immediately surmised that he’d shoved his cart into the space in front of his car (and beside mine), perhaps thinking it might get hung up or wedged in place by the parking sign pole, obviously not thinking twice about the consequences. I assumed the worst.

I knew he’d heard the cart smack into my door. It created a very loud bang. And the way he was getting into his car, he just looked guilty to me. Like he was avoiding making eye contact.

With barely a thought, other than a consuming wave of indignation and the sense that I was not going to just pretend it hadn’t happened, I grabbed the cart and looking directly at that man, who by this time was sitting in the driver’s seat and looking at me through his windshield, shouted how ignorant that was. “What the hell? What is wrong with you that you think it’s OK to do that?” I yelled, not really looking for an answer. I slammed the cart into the parking sign post in front of him. While I was tempted in my fury to smack it into his car, I didn’t. Obviously.

I could see him yelling – or at least mouthing – something back at me, but his angry face made me not want to get into this any further. So I sat back in my car and tried to decide whether I just wanted to leave or whether I would fulfill my marketing mission. I decided to go in.

Moving On

Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I deliberately took the cart from where it still stood ‘parked’ against the post and walked across the lanes of the parking lot and into the store. I noticed he was still sitting in his car, looking down, perhaps texting someone himself? I didn’t trust him…

Entering the store, I snagged my hot peppers (which in retrospect I probably didn’t need!) and onions and returned to my car. A quick trip.

Nevertheless, I thought it odd that he was still in the parking lot. Was he going to confront me? Ugh.

I left the offending cart up with the other carts beside the entrance to the market and returned to my car. Feeling a little stalked, I glanced toward the man with a dirty look, warding off any bullshit. No luck. He opened his door and started yelling at me.

Confrontation

I’d already started getting into my car when he started yelling, so I tossed my veggies into the passenger seat and stood up, turning toward him. All I heard was, “…your fucking car…”

“Excuse me?” I said, dripping snark and attitude, but trying to be the calm one (now).

“Did you think I pushed that cart into your car?” he demanded.

I turned to look at him square in the eyes and said quietly, “Well, yes, I did.”

He looked a little surprised, perhaps that I answered quietly? I don’t know. But he responded, still defensively and a bit aggressively himself, “Well, I didn’t. I heard it hit your door and – ”

“I am really sorry,” I said, interrupting him. There was something about the way he said what he said or the look on his face or something, but I immediately believed him. And I immediately and unequivocally felt ashamed. I felt awful.

A Total Shift in Energy and Attitude

Absolutely everything about this man’s energy shifted right before my eyes. I could tell he believed me, too, and trusted my sincerity.

“Yes,” I continued, “I assumed you’d done it because you were the only person anywhere around when I jumped out to grab the cart.”

By this time, I’d walked over to his car, where he had the door slightly open and his window down, his left hand resting on the bottom of the window frame.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I returned my little cart over there,” gesturing to the cart return coral in the row across from and behind his car, “and was just getting into my car when I heard that one slam into your door.”

“I am so terribly sorry,” I repeated, touching his hand. “I was a jerk. I really was. I think the bang of it startled me so much that I over-reacted, and then I just assumed you hadn’t cared because my car is old…”

“No, I didn’t do it,” he repeated, probably just confirming out loud one more time what he’d been saying to himself the whole time I was in the market. “But thank you for speaking to me.”

“Thank you, too,” I said. “Again, I’m really sorry.” I looked him in the eyes and smiled. “I hope you have a really nice holiday and I’m glad we cleared this up.”

“Me too,” he said, smiling back.

Reflection – and Gratitude

As I drove away from that incident I contemplated how the entire situation had completely transformed in a way I never would have expected.

I’m so grateful it did. I have no idea what that man was thinking or experiencing. Perhaps he is lonely, or grieving. Perhaps he is facing a dire diagnosis – or someone he loves was just taken from him.

I thought about the compassion of yesterday and how quick I was to anger today. (Which, I have to say, was really weird in and of itself. I am not one to usually react like that.) It made me realize just how little we know about how anyone, at any given moment, is perceiving something that we, too, are experiencing. And how easily it is to misunderstand – or be misunderstood.

I’m so grateful this gentleman and I were able to transmute that moment of darkness and turn it into light.

An intense solstice experience indeed – probably exacerbated by the full moon!

(T-1071)

Magic – Day Thirty One

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 Magic

Once again, if you’d asked me this morning what tonight’s post would be about, ‘magic’ would not have occurred to me, just as ‘trust’ wasn’t on my radar yesterday.

In case you didn’t notice, I was feeling a bit…passionate when I wrote last night’s post. Hard as it may be to believe, I’d actually brought it down a couple notches by the time I wrote the post. (You can imagine what it was like earlier that evening; it wasn’t pretty.) Indeed, I actually think I’ve been suffering from an adrenaline hangover all day today. My body aches and I’ve felt exhausted. Like a wet dishrag, actually. Just wrung the heck out.

Anyway, although Raven (which is associated with ‘Magic’ in the Medicine Cards), was not what I picked on my day this morning, it did end up being chosen by me in another context. And as the day unfolded, I honestly could feel Raven exercising its influence, even after the primary purpose for choosing it had passed. Indeed, I felt it working with the situation about which I was so upset yesterday.

While there are a couple of particularly salient paragraphs I could quote, I’m going to settle for just a few portions:

“If you have chosen Raven, magic is in the air. Do not try to figure it out; you cannot. It is the power of the unknown at work, and something special is about to happen. (…)

It may be time to call Raven as a courier to carry an intention, some healing energy, a thought, or a message. Raven is the patron of smoke signals or spirit messages represented by smoke. (…)

Remember, this magic moment came from the void of darkness, and the challenge is to bring it to light. In doing so you will have honored the magician within.”

Hurt Feelings Abounded

As it turns out, hurt feelings abounded last night, and not just on my end. Out of the darkness of that sense that I had unwittingly uncovered a betrayal from a completely unexpected source, the two of us were able to bring light to the situation.

Reflecting on the heartfelt emails that went back and forth between us today, I can only say that I know for certain both of us encountered magic. The volcanic eruption that occurred yesterday took us both completely by surprise. And yet, because we do have the level of trust that I described as only one tier below that of my inner circle of closest family, we each cared enough to express ourselves with utter vulnerability and honesty.

Need I say how startlingly rare that is in the world?

In the end, I am called upon to trust. I do not need the documentary proof that may or may not exist. I choose to rely on my instincts, and trust. I choose to listen to Raven, and embrace the magic.

Oh – one last thing? Moose was underneath that Raven. Wow.

(T-1080)

Losing Trust – Day Thirty

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Losing Trust

If you’d asked me this morning what I would be writing about this evening, trust – or more accurately, losing trust , would not have been top of my list. Not to say trust doesn’t figure prominently in my life; it does. I just wouldn’t have thought I’d be bringing the topic up again quite so quickly since my last post about it.

But here it is, the clock is ticking relentlessly toward the witching hour, and I have only just now managed to get to my MacBook Air (not my Dell, notably!) to write this post.

Trust me (no pun intended), this will not be a long one.

Losing Trust Makes Us Feel Vulnerable and Foolish

Part of my agitation in writing this particular entry is that I happened upon information this evening, out there on the “internets,” that caused me to feel as though the floor had dropped out from under me.

No, I didn’t catch my husband cheating or doing anything nefarious, nor did I discover anything horrible about any of my sons or loved ones that would wreck my world. Or at least my world view.

But I did discover something that made me question a very close business relationship. It made me feel vulnerable and foolish, for if the appearance of what I discovered turned out to be true in its most obvious sense, then I’d been betrayed.

Levels of Trust

Which makes me contemplate the different levels of trust we accord various factions of people who cross our path in life. There are, of course, those who occupy the ‘inner circle.’ Parents, siblings, spouses/partners, children. We usually demand the greatest loyalty from them because they are either blood – or so close to blood they might as well be. When trust is broken in those relationships, we react in a certain manner, depending upon the level of egregiousness.

The next level is comprised of close, deep friends, and perhaps business associates with whom we have a partnership, similar to a sibling or marital relationship, but not necessarily quite as profound. In some cases, I think we may be more profoundly devastated by a breach of trust in this situation than in the first level, because for the most part we’ve chosen these people to be part of our world.

Then there are people with whom we interact on a transactional, day-to-day level. This can be people with whom we work or friends who actually are more acquaintances than anything else, but are perhaps vying for entry into the next level of relationship. Trust in these situations can pervade the relationship, yet not necessarily be needed or warranted. It may be granted, but not be required in order for the relationship to succeed.

And then there are the people with whom we interact on a superficial basis. We basically do not even need to assess the level of trust they deserve, for trust is not an inherent aspect of why we are interfacing with them.

Tonight I experienced what I perceived as a breach of trust of a relationship in the second highest level. It’s interesting, because the person whom I perceived may have ‘sold me out,’ so to speak, I have never met in person, yet actually have cultivated an extremely deep level of trust with and in over the past ten years or so.

Ten years is a long time. And I trust (man, that word – and concept – keeps popping up) my instincts, not only in the short term, as in the sense I get when I first meet a person and make eye contact with them, but also in the long term. I truly believe that one of the gifts of my ‘Owl Medicine’ is to be able to discern the true nature of people accurately. Usually with pinpoint accuracy.

If There’s Trust in a Relationship, Then It Deserves a Chance

So when confronted with the possibility of betrayal, of discovering that someone in whom I had placed great trust on many levels, had possibly sold me out for what was undoubtedly a paltry sum (in consideration of the value of my trust, which is considerable, if I do say so myself), I spoke up. I asked. I confronted – in disbelief, and in the hope that I was somehow misperceiving what I’d discovered – but with conviction that I required clarity.

And I received a response. Quickly. With apparent sincerity, and with what I trust (*) will justify my deep caring for the person and relationship in question.

And with that, I must post this. I truly and sincerely hope my trust is warranted, for otherwise, I will be deeply saddened. And pissed.

(T-1081)