Untwisting The Twist

(artwork by Deborah Koff-Chapin)

In the darkness before dawn, letting go feels quite easy. Yet, after the sun rises, even my thought-forms seem real, like a dish to be washed or the sweet sap in a maple. I am not my thoughts. But, the one that yanked me from my sleep to this clicking keyboard went like this:

The one in me that has experienced trauma clings to power but craves love. I have spent almost two decades talking about how much I love, love, rarely noticing my unconscious preoccupation with power.

A decade ago, I stripped myself of everything to serve a spiritual calling. I offered up my marriage, my possessions, my social status, even my metaphorical baby at the time, a nonprofit organization cultivating seeds of consciousness and feminine structures to midwife a new civilization. I moved on the edge of truth like a dancer, surrendering to higher service with fearless innocence and selfless freedom. The feeling was one of life or death; nourish your spirit through this stripping or start to die slowly, knowing you saw the entrance to the path but walked by thinking you'd return 'one day'.

During these years, I cultivated a strong, lasting relationship to faith, love and devotion. I also fed my unconscious relationship to power. Just how deep this lust for power penetrated my being has just recently been revealed to me with my father's passing. The experience I had at his death and through the many dreams that followed demanded me to claim myself as a sovereign being and inhabit any and all vacancies that unconsciously make space for destructive forces. The simple truth that arrived: it's time to meet the most vulnerable, powerless, broken parts of myself in order to untwist the twists of abuse, alcoholism, rape, ignorance and murder, even if I must release all that I believe to be true in the process.

I often marvel at my ability to be a contortionist, trying to fit into some version of myself that has yet to come true, or never will be true rather than resting in the perfection of who I am. Now, as I enter my 40's the untwisting of my contortions appears to be less dramatic. This time, it seems I just need to let the love in deep, and, be grateful for every choice I've made to cultivate it. And, to forgive myself for the harm I've done trying to deny, escape or numb my pain in order to survive, or protect my pride.

As I evolve, the question to ask myself is not only: How does this choice grow my love?
But, how does this choice offer love to the parts of me that need it most?

This feels like the ultimate in responsibility and fulfillment.