The Emergent Old Gray

A few months ago, my best friend gifted me an experience for my birthday; she learned awhile ago that these are much more meaningful to me than gifts. She and I are very different people and I knew the whole thing was uncomfortable for her, which made her efforts mean even more. As we were sitting atop the lookout point at Coronado Heights, I found myself in a state of amused wonderment at just how stark our differences are. Seeing the expansive prairie below, the brain train started to run on the track of what I had read in Sapiens about mankind before we became a settled, agrarian species. I shared my musings with Alissa.

A tribe could grow up to 250 individuals before a smaller group inevitably formed and split off, which means everybody knew everybody in their immediate vicinity pretty intimately. In that moment, I sincerely wished I could go back to that era and experience what it meant to live life with no thought other than fulfilling your part of or contribution to the community. Every man, woman, and child was known by the specific characteristics that made them unique and the best at whatever job emerged from their particular, innate talents. Bills? World politics? Body shaming?  Literally, not an issue. We just have to find food and water, create our shelter, and maybe ward off a rival tribe every now and then (no biggie). So much room for activities! If you die, you die! What a wild world. 

So, being the good friend that she is, Alissa humored my fantasy and asked what role I would want to play. Immediately, I had the image of this weathered woman of 54 years sitting with her back against a great tree, weaving a basket and entertaining the children while their parents did their morning hunting and gathering. Her silver hair glistened in the sun; the small braids emerging from her temple were adorned with beads and shells. She is the savvy old woman who used her years of survival within both her current tribe and tribe of origin to aid the further development and thriving of those around her. She would have infinite knowledge of berries, roots, and plants; she would inherently understand the cycles of the moon and stars, and give blessings upon a new birth. Everyone, including the leader of the tribe, would come to her in confidence for counsel and guidance. Obviously, she would wear at least seven bracelets and only one very long earring; she would have cat-like reflexes and be deadly with a bow and arrow - a skill she learned from her father, the chief, of another tribe. She is the shaman - the healer. 

Imaginative play always allows us to be the people we believe we never could be or don't have the courage to become. There must be a part of me that believes I am not cut out to be that wise old sage. I would really like to show that part of me, whoever's voice it is, that I have something to say and I have something valuable to offer my corner of the world - that I'm allowed to carve out space for what I want. Whether that is uplifting the voices of others or speaking from my own experience, I deserve to be here. So how do I do "being here" well?

I've been reading Other People's Myths, and in it's first section, it describes a myth about the hunter and the sage. Essentially, the sage's way of becoming a sage was to live out the experiences of the hunter as a sage, inception style. It gets convoluted, but I latched onto this nugget that one does not become a sage without embodying an array of experiences of suffering, or at least, having the capacity to attune to the impact that someone else's suffering has on their psyche and self-experience. I can't just decide I am a sage because I've suffered as a hunter, but I also don't want to only be a hunter because I like safety and comfort. I seek a balance where I can inhabit both hunter and sage. 

I've made a lot of choices that decidedly added to my suffering, much to the chagrin of my loved ones. It has taken me a long time to begin the work of not passing judgment on myself for creating all this pain; it shaped me in ways I'm still discovering. I'm learning how to let go of how others will/may perceive how I live, odd as it may seem. I'm still working on not characterizing "bad" and "good" choices and changing my language to "healthy" and "unhealthy". Plus, if the main goal is gaining wisdom, regardless of what choice I made, there's always a lesson to be learned. So, in the end, what does it matter if I choose "wrong"? What if I take the scenic route to wisdom?  That just gives me more data points to inform future me - to help in creating safety within myself and for other people.

For now, I'm just trying to listen to my intuition and gut more since they're smarter than I am. Apparently, they learn lessons that my heart and head may still be a little behind on. One day, I'll be further on my journey of integrating these parts and manifesting myself into being the sage of my dreams. Just sitting in a clearing of the woods near my witch's cottage, living life, and telling anyone who will listen my tales. Old Gray is me and I am her. 

Who do you want to be?

Thank you for reading!