Blisteringly fragile, but also regenerative
Last week, overcome with the accumulation of the past year, I caught myself sinking.
So many bodies sick from Covid. The conflagrations of my own body and its graceless autoimmune symptoms. Aging parents, socially distanced communities. Political violence. Financial insecurities. Winter.
The last many months have called it all into question: our ability to breath, to move, to be sick, to receive care, to live in safety.
And so, as I often do in moments of despair, I take the red dog on a walk in the wood.
We cross behind the dump, skirting the edges of the snowless marsh. The landscape looks more like November than January, but in the small ruts of frozen mud are filaments of ice, thin membranes that crackle under her paws and my boots, calling us to attention.
Blisteringly fragile, but also regenerative. These patches only needing these exact conditions to be born again. Only broken forever if we stop time right now.
I remember, then, the myth of Inanna (as told beautifully in my friend Sarah’s must-read memoir):
After the Sumerian goddess learned that her sister, Ereshkigal, was in mourning over the death of her husband, she decided to visit her in the underworld. She passed through the seven gates on her way down, discarding jewelry and armaments at every gate, until – stripped bare – she arrived.
Whereupon Ereshkigal, in grief and rage, hanged her sister on a meat hook and left her for dead.
Perhaps this is the moment we are in now. Institutions discarded and destroyed. All depravities let loose. Our bodies carry the scars – left in limbo, dying slowly.
But I wonder if we’re so distracted by the chaos of the moment that we’re missing the unfolding of a different sort of story. That perhaps these are the death throes of a culture finally, inelegantly, letting go of our exceptionalism. That – despite the violent attacks in resistance – we cannot deny the truth of our bodies: We are neither singular, alone, nor separate.
Because the story doesn’t end there.
One of Inanna’s priestesses notices her absence, and - with the help of the God Enki - sends small flying creatures down into the underworld to find her. They travel deftly through the seven gates until they arrive at a devastated Ereshkigal and a lifeless, hanging, Inanna.
A hero’s journey might have turned to punishment and revenge. But here the story takes a turn: The creatures bear witness.
When Ereshkigal cries out, “Oh my sister!” They echo her, “Oh, your sister!” When she calls, “Oh my pain!” They repeat, “Oh your pain!” And Ereshkigal, so moved by the creatures’ mirroring, is returned to her own humanity. She grants them any wish they desire, which is, of course, the resurrection of Inanna.
The goddess sees and is seen. Inanna returns with truths from which others might have turned away, and her sister teaches something fundamental: We need witness to midwife us back to our truths. Resonance delivers us back to ourselves.
There is so much loss right now, but also so much being shaken loose. What a good moment to radically reimagine what care looks like.
Collectively, we’re hurting. And while self-care can be soothing, let us not believe that we’re alone in our efforts to create a life that sustains and nourishes us. And while I have a long list of systems I’d like to see changed (health care, legal reforms, paid sick leave…) let us begin by not turning away from how we actually feel. Let’s nurture the self, but move towards something wider and more collective.
If 2020 was the year of the body, perhaps in 2021 we can begin to bear witness to the truths held in our bodies, the deep wisdom that rises to the surface when we have the temerity to listen, when we give each other enough respect and time to bear the truth.
The red dog does not wait for me in my reverie. She’s already gone ahead, exploring the bramble, crunching patches of ice on the way.
In the spring I’ll be offering a new immersion series to explore embodied writing in the spirit of occupancy and collective care. The series will combine individual sessions with group work to create a supportive place of listening to the wisdom within. Want to be notified when it opens? Sign up below:
