“Finding deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty YES to your adventure.We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned“~Joseph Campbell – from a friend requester on Facebook (a quote on his profile page).
The message he sent in his request was this one: When you are tired, rest. When you are disillusioned, have a look at your expectations and where they came from. When you are confused, spend some time with a friend who loves you enough to listen but not try to fix. Notice I didn’t say “if.” I said “when.” When you acknowledge things, you are prepared for them. …Acknowledge cycles in your life, because they’re going to happen. Tammy Vitale. ( a Wylde Women’s Wisdom quote from the subscription.) And yes, that’s me writing.
From another subscriber, perhaps my favorite Wylde Women quote: I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also that delicate silver bells would ring to announce the arrival of grace [oh! yes! pleeeeaaaasssseeee!!]; but no. It’s clog and slog and scooch on the floor, in silence, in the dark. I suppose if you were snatched out of the mess you’d miss the lesson. The lesson is the slog. Ann Lamotte. (Subscribers to Wylde Women’s Wisdom are my angels – they keep singing back to me things I’ve underlined to learn in this life, which is the origin of Wylde Women’s Wisdom.)
2. I forget what I know. And I lose the path to get back to it. And if I get back to it, I *can’t hear the song.*
3. I forget that the Hamster comes in many guises. This is a new lesson easily recognized by the woman who made a space for me to send the hamster out to play in the first place. I did hear her – loud and clear – even tho it was a throw off observation in a longer email. I now formally believe that she is actually an angel in the disguise of friend. (Anne – that would be you. I know you’re going to read this at some point.)
4. I forget that help is there when you ask. I forget to ask. I forget to make a space to ask: meditation; ritual. This weekend there was a meditation space and a discussion of ritual. This weekend I asked. The response has been immediate (see above). The skeptic in me thinks perhaps it was just time for the Deep Darks to go. The Kali energy in me reminds me that sometimes things must die so things may live: beliefs, stories, ways of being. And a Shaman shows up to remind me of blockages.
5. I forget that I am not alone. Yes – I know I say this. And I know it is obvious when you read the comments in Deep Dark that something is moving in the Universe and lots of us are feeling that way. And maybe the reason I had to go deeply into the dark was so that I could share the waiting for what’s next with others so they too would not be alone. Or maybe so I would reach out for what I need. How can you find if you aren’t looking?
6. I forget that this is a year for embracing imperfection. And that is a clarion call to the dark goddesses. “The dark goddesses take away the need for perfection. They are not considered beautiful. These goddesses kill and dance on corpses. They own the night sky. We have lost them to a patriarchy that fears them and has relegated them to dark pits and named them evil.” Julia Ostriker.
7. I forget that I need to open to the dark goddesses in my life. I forget that they, especially Lilith, Kali and the Morrigan, are my energy bringers. I suggest Kwan Yen to my psyche and feel myself grow smaller. This time around, though I greatly admire her, she is not my guiding star.
8. I forget that I have everything I need to do the work I came to do, even though I forget what that is, even though I am scared, even though it does not fit easily into the concrete world and Maslow’s hierarchy: once you’ve been to the mountain top, you do not come back to live by the rules in a culture that strives to help you forget why you came.
9. I forget I am on a Spiral Path. I wish only for those mountain tops (rock and stone and snow) and none of the valleys (even though that is where all the land rich for growing things is).
10. I forget that I claimed a year of living in the question for my resolution for the year. I forget that these things are never as easy as they sound, or even whatever it is they originally meant when claimed. I forget that when we set energy moving, we are challenging ourselves to growth. Rebirth ourselves over and over again. Gestation is not easy. Birth is not easy. And those first 6 weeks? Killer. I forget that. Many thanks to Stacy Curnow of Midwife Your Life whose awesome newsletter arrived this morning (see – the Universe does sing):
When you’re not pregnant it’s not normal to feel nauseated, dizzy, and, most of all, in pain. But when you’re pregnant it often is. That’s the bottom line, and it’s unlikely to change.
Notice that I said pain and not something else, like discomfort. I remember when I was pregnant thinking that if I hadn’t known that such multifaceted pain was normal, I would have gone to the ER and presented my complaints with a hope for a cure. But there is no cure. There is simply the will to bear it. You either have the will to dig in and prepare for more or not.
That may sound frightening, but what I mean is that women are strong, incredibly strong. And yet even in a world full of amazing women athletes, entrepreneurs, and even astronauts (not to mention billions of mothers), most of us don’t know how strong we are until we gestate another human being. Maybe if more of us knew our strength ahead of time, we would prepare more and become even stronger…
11. I forget that preparation isn’t a one-time thing.
12. I forget that I have permission.
Wylde Women’s Wisdom
You will receive a body. You will learn lessons. There are no Mistakes – only lessons. A lesson is repeated until learned. Learning lessons does not end. “There” is not better than “here.” Others are merely mirrors of you. What you make of your life is up to you. The answers are inside you. You will forget all this. Rules for Being Human. Anon. (lots of folks claim these rules these days and have rewritten and added. I’ve had my copy, marked anon, from the mid 90s).
10 Comments
Yes. Relearning the same lessons on new levels… like a spiral. I try to remember that growth works like that.
Still of great value today, after this 2016 election day fiasco. Thank you for reminding me this is here. Excellent.
Meg: I don’t know. I got is “anon” from a small gift shop in Vermont in the 90s. I’ve seen people
add to it and claim it as theirs (who wouldn’t it’s magnificent), but I have no idea where it REALLY came from. Wherever it came from, I love it!
“You will receive a body. You will learn lessons. There are no Mistakes – only lessons. A lesson is repeated until learned. Learning lessons does not end. “There” is not better than “here.” Others are merely mirrors of you. What you make of your life is up to you. The answers are inside you. You will forget all this. Rules for Being Human”
I am wondering if this is from “Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” by Richard Bach. I don’t have a copy here so I can check (published in 1977) ???
Oh, my goodness! I am so honored to be quoted among my favorite thinkers, writers and change agents like Anne Lamott, Joseph Campell, and Tammy Vitale!!
Ah, but Joseph Campbell. How I LOVE him. One of my favorite quotes: “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
This quote dovetails so nicely with one of my other favorite quotes, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman.
Your Wylde Women’s Wisdom is a total testament to what it means to be truly alive. Thank you so much for inspiring and encouraging us with your great work!
“You start over, each minute… again and again”
Yes. Some days the possibilities of this are amazing. some days it’s like: give me a break! Again???!!!!!
I love Joseph Campbell! He was a no b.s. kinda guy without being arrogant and peaceful in his understandings.
Maybe I need to read him a bit more right now!
I love that you included this quote from Joseph Campbell, “…We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned.“
What I’ve JUST NOW (literally as I type this) realized is that in this moment, the life we plan for doesn’t really exist; only what’s happening to us RIGHT NOW is real.
So chucking out the life we’ve planned really doesn’t have to feel so monumentous, because it doesn’t exist yet anyway! You can’t chuck out something that hasn’t arrived yet.
This feels so freeing, doesn’t it?! We are actually free to live the life we want & deserve starting right this second. We can choose how to color our current circumstances… choose how to perceive the present… select happiness and peace over stress and overwhelm.
You just stop. You chuck it out. You start over, each minute… again and again.
Thank you for triggering a message that I didn’t even know I needed to hear =)
Sue – yes – because we’re all human! ;]
Jill: yes – some days “school” seems as if it won’t ever end. Because it won’t.Which, most days, is exciting.
But the delicate silver bells between classes would be nice!
If you’ve never read Ann Lamotte give yourself a treat: Bird by Bird or
Traveling Mercies to start.
thank you Tammy. My favourite bit (which is hard to specify, as so much of your posting spoke to me) was “I suppose if you were snatched out of the mess you’d miss the lesson.”
I love everything about that sentence. I love the “I suppose” – the sense of openness and possibility that those words present.
I love the “snatched out of” – because isn’t that what we really want? It’s what I want.
I love “the mess” because that’s what the internal experience can feel like – an upturned plate of cooked spaghetti mess – all tangled up and un-sortable-outable.
And I love “you’d miss the lesson” — ah, there it is.
An outstanding post – thank you so much for it. I loved it.
Wow. We forget the same things 🙂