BELONGING
The one who came here to shine
Is waiting
Do you remember her?
A colt that won’t be broken
She runs free-
A roaring wind at her back
Nudges her on
And the stars spin wildly
For her release
~TiNille Petersen
Where do I belong? My bones are tired of seeking, looking and searching for the answer. The roots of my being are longing for a place to settle. A place that feels like me, a culture I can belong to and be proud of. Travel books and libraries are my refuge while I search. They provide a place where I can relate to another person’s story, and it somehow brings solace to my untethered soul.
It is the ghosts of the past that have not allowed me to feel rooted. The land I stand upon was never mine to occupy. I may own a house, and some acreage, but they don’t belong to me. Nobody can truly own the earth. She is her own entity, and she is hell bent on reclaiming herself. Nature and history compel us to look deeper, but where shall we search if the places we inhabit are tainted with plunder and war? Where shall we run to if the land we walk upon does not want us anymore?
There is a beach on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean where I often go walking with my dog, Rosie. Here, she is allowed to run off leash and tear off towards the water. Rolling in dried clumps of seaweed or the occasional dead seabird; her wildness comes out to play. My chronically tight shoulders relax to see how free she is, her golden coat, matted with sand and sea. Rosie waits for me to toss the driftwood into the waves. As she thunders towards the rocky shore and breaks through the icy water, my wild self wants to sprint after her but doesn’t know how. It’s been a long time since I felt wild and free.
Deserted and rocky, the shoreline is littered with agates and round, flat stones. The frothy surf is turbulent as it rumbles upon the jagged reef underneath, which calms the break and shapes the land. When the tide is low, you can stroll out onto the reef and gaze into pools filled with anemones and star fishes. Their bright orange and pink arms; a stark contrast to the blackness of the pock marked stone and murky water. Mussels and barnacles litter the reef in clumps of small cities. They cling to the surface and endure tide after tide, just like the indigenous people who lived off this land and fished from these waters. They are just memories now. The cells of their skin mix with the sea, churning out a story of conquest and subjugation. There are museums in town filled with obsidian arrowheads and smooth granite charm stones shaped by hand. There are black and white photographs depicting their struggles as white Europeans took over their fishing grounds forcing them inland to places they did not recognize, and clothes that did not fit. I walk barefoot on the grainy sand that their feet walked upon and feel the lack of belonging rising through the soles of my soul.
The precarious cliffs that rise sharply along the beach dump sharp sandstone rocks and dirt that tumbles down unexpectedly, making piles along the beach. A subtle, steady erosion yet undoubtedly the ocean is reclaiming the land, one stone at a time. Sometimes, large swaths of the cliff fall and take a house and concrete pillars with it forming a labyrinth of refuse, twisting and curling around dead tree limbs and seaweed. I clammer over it taking care not to catch my toe or sleeve on the rusty nails and piles of iron that could not withstand the force of ocean and time. This land erodes and its history is erased from memory.
This place is not my home. I have adopted it as a half-way house, an in-between. I’m like a foster child looking for someone or someplace to take me in. I want to feel nurtured by a place; rocked, held, missed. This is not that. It is a temporary shell that I inhabit until I finally find the land that welcomes me in with as much longing that I have in my heart for it.
My constant search for belonging led me to the distant land of Avalon; where the mists have parted for good and the mythstery of King Arthur’s court is still part of the fabric of the land. After I found my way to the town of Glastonbury, England, in the county of Somerset, I would never be the same, and belonging would take on a new meaning. There are ancient wells once used for worship that still run cold with water from deep within the hills they pour out of. Locals gather to fill their bottles with the natural spring water; they believe it holy and douse their altars and foreheads. This is a culture of remembering and honoring what is feminine; the word mother is a sacred whisper upon their lips. The ancient long-forgotten Goddess culture is very much alive in this part of the world. Taking an interest in Celtic deities is an evolved form of feminism. They seek to fulfil an unconscious yearning we all have for a strong female archetype, one in which gender is transcended, and the guide leads us on an inner journey where the sacred resides.
The land was familiar. I felt it recognized me in the bends and curves of the verdant hills as they rose up towards low hanging clouds, full of rain and promise. The white steepled churches and single lane roads were etched into a story that unfolded within me. There were crystal dealers and incense shops, goddess statues, noisy pubs and tea rooms displaying fine bone China hand painted with delicacy. Every quaint town I visited and cobble stone road I walked upon held memory of my ancestors. For the very first time in my life, I felt seen. This ancient land that my ancestors left behind more than a hundred years ago still pulsed with blood that ran into my veins.
For twelve days I walked the path of a pilgrim searching for answers. My blistered feet led me to Wells, Stonehenge, Avebury and Tintagel. I wept at the peak of Glastonbury Tor under a stormy grey sky amongst the stones inside the roofless tower of St. Michael’s church. It holds stories of pilgrims like me. Its stark walls etched of hardship, grit, and faith. Cold air stung my wet cheeks and eyes, and a strong westerly wind lifted my hair off my neck. Every dark, low-ceilinged pub and frothy molasses pint, grass covered long barrow and megalithic stone circle led me back to a place I already knew. I almost forgot how good it felt to come home, until I walked upon the land of my soul.
What compels a person to seek out a new place to call home? I wondered why my great-great grandmothers and grandfathers took the risk of sailing across a dangerous ocean and settled in America. Why would they leave what is known and safe, searching for refuge in a foreign land where the language and food did not bear any resemblance to what they left behind? To be forced to leave your home for fear of life or freedom is not a choice. It is imperative for survival. To leave one’s home to seek another identity, to try on a new costume and be someone other than who you are expected to be; this is a glimpse of the wild inner self.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes had a lot to say about women’s wild inner selves. “The doors to the world of the wild self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door. If you have an old, old, story, that is a door. If you love the sky and water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a Door.”
Where is the wild woman that resides within me? I feel her. I know her. She is waiting patiently for me to remember her. The only problem is, I can’t find the mysterious door. I want to find it, and I need to find it. I have searched the outer world, and followed distraction after distraction, but my heart remains empty and the wild woman waits.
After many years searching for the woman I want to show up as, it has become clearer every day I look in the mirror. Wrinkles around my mouth, grey hair sprouting up in my well-trained part, sagging skin on my cheeks. This is the face I have known all my life. I look at it every day, and it has changed. If my outsides are aging, then surely my insides are too. This is something that keeps me up at night. I worry about the low back pain that appears overnight. I worry about my racing heartbeat and plunging hormones. The headaches from stress, constipation, and poor circulation. Aging is certain in a world of uncertainty.
As I look around at my peers, I see the same signs of our age and wonder, why do women hide their true selves to fit into a culture that has tamped down and controlled us for centuries? How can we change that, and where do we start? Here’s what keeps me staring at the ceiling, studying the spider webs draped across the light fixture; what if I never find the door?
The door to the wild self remains closed to me. I remember knowing her once. The woman I once knew belonged to nobody. She danced and howled at the moon. Made potions and sang chants. She knew herbs and flowers and how to concoct tinctures. My wild self was a priestess and queen. She was a healer and knew all about crystals and sound healing. She made her own jewelry and stomped in mud puddles. She hugged trees. She knew how to use her voice. The wild woman within me is in pain. I feel it in the bones of my bones. She wants to sing and shout and be herself. She needs to. It is the only way to save her, and I wish I knew where to find her.
The wild woman is the one that I long to be but keep hidden because I am afraid. This fear has been coded into my DNA from the countless women who came before me. Feeling unworthy is every woman’s secret sabotage. It was handed down for generations from women who were made to feel inferior and weak. From women who were afraid to speak up, stand up, fight back. From women that form the branches of my family tree for hundreds if not thousands of years. The fear of being found out is so daunting it makes me whip out the vacuum and unload the dishwasher instead. I race around town doing errands that don’t need doing. I bury my nose in books because escaping is easier when you have a good story to read. I make myself feel guilty. I put myself to bed. All these actions are about doing. Becoming free and finding my place of belonging requires me to be still long enough to catch a glimpse of the real me, the one who is not afraid. If I stop long enough to see her, the desperation of belonging clings to me like soap scum on the shower door.
The key to the wild woman, the free spirit, the one who “knows”, is within and after decades of searching, I believe I finally found the door. Despite what history teaches us, despite what my ancestors did or did not do, and despite the fears I have of being myself; I still belong.
It is easy to confuse belonging with the land that I occupy or the people I call family. I do not belong to America. Or California. I do not belong in England, or Denmark or France. I don’t belong to a man. I belong to Mother Earth. Mostly, I belong to myself. My wild and untamed self.
