Lessons from the Briar Patch: Things I Learned from My Magical Omi.
{source}
I was raised to believe that magic is as real as the day is long.
My maternal grandmother played a large role in my upbringing, and she was one of those eccentric yet magical souls you don’t come across every day. We sometimes lovingly referred to her as the White Witch (and she to herself).
This was in part due to her mane of wild white hair, which, in her forties, turned from red to silvery white; in part because she chose to live in the woods, loved winter and the moon best, and strongly identified with her land (and nature in general); and in part because she was a little wacky, a little scary, deeply spiritual, and entirely wonderful.
This is not to say that she was unflawed, simply that she was wonderful in the sense that she chose to live in such a way that inspired wonder, both in herself, and in those of us who were so fortunate to know her.
Upon becoming a grandmother, she adopted the Hungarian grandmother-name of Omi. She came to it not because she was of Hungarian descent, but because she asked around and chose the name she liked the most. She found it wonderful.
Omi taught me how to bushwhack — to set off on an hour-long hike with a backpack of supplies, and return five hours later, exhausted, and having experienced something that felt like true wilderness. She taught me how to hug trees and, yes, talk to them (as well as cars, cats, uncooperative tools, missing socks, etc. — you get the picture).
She taught me how to run naked through the snow, break the ice on a tub of frozen water and jump in after a hot sauna. She taught me how to walk alone through the forest in the dark.
I can still physically recall the memory of hot fear in my throat as I pushed through ferns and tree branches, hearing night noises all around, and willing myself not to turn and run back to the safety of an electric light and her presence.
That lesson would serve me later when I walked through dark city streets in neighborhoods that were decidedly untamed forests themselves, with the fear of the unknown prickling the back of my neck and rising hot in my throat.
When you can’t see or know what’s going on around you, your sixth sense has an opportunity to become activated. Your whole body becomes your eyes — aware, alert, perceiving, and yet relaxed. That’s the thing about living in relative safety and comfort, we are seldom challenged to comprehend more than what is in front of us.
It is easy to become complacent, and to rely on the regularities of society for answers. When we are called upon by circumstances of crisis or challenge to access deeper resources, we often find that they are lacking, because there has been little need for them, and we haven’t practiced.
Many moons ago, Omi and I set out for nighttime ski from her tiny wooden house in the country, through the back meadow and woods, and onto the section of the Mohawk Trail that ran behind her property. A little ways down, there was a hillside that had been logged a year or two before, and the vegetation that had grown back was mostly low scrub and lots and lots of briars.
The moon was bright and full, and grey shadows from bare tree branches swooped across the expanse of white. There is nothing like the combination of snow and a full moon. Feet of snow lay on the ground. We decided to go up the hill to access a path through the woods, despite the fact that there was no path to get there.
Tromping along on cross-country skis, as one does heading uphill through deep snow, we navigated our way between sparse trees and around vegetation that threatened to catch us up. In the very middle of the hill, we came upon a swath of briars that seemed to stretch from one end of the clearing to the other.
Omi set off to the right, presumably to find a way around it, while I thought I could see a way through, and set off upwards directly into the massive patch of prickers. Of course, one of the long branches that I couldn’t see, because it was under the snow, tangled my ski almost immediately, and I ended up on my back, my ankles in a twist, laughing up at the moon.
“Mahia!” Omi tsk-tsked, her voice was almost always loud and declarative, “Why do you always choose the hard way?” Indeed. I’ve thought of that moment often since then, as I’ve sweated and maneuvered and puzzled and laughed and cried my way through many a metaphorical briar patch.
At the time, my response to her query/observation was one of hilarious realization. Like, wow, I never thought of myself as a person who chooses the hard way. What is the hard way? Is it bad?
Choosing the more difficult path may appear to the outsider to be unnecessary, or even masochistic, but if your soul wants to learn something, it’s important to make the journey.
Granted, we choose our battles, and decide which hills we would rather not die on, but if your soul wants to learn something, it will continue more and more urgently to seek the information. It is the mother who calls six times for your attention before you look up.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes it seems like you are meeting similar types of challenges in your life over and over? And that each challenge carries higher stakes? That is your soul calling a lesson to you — if you ignore it and sidestep, there will soon be another (similar) obstacle in your path. Do the work. There is no way to avoid the hard work of living, as scary as it may seem, and as painful as it may be.
Facing things that make us feel afraid helps us let go of fear, and release it from our bodies and psyches. This is not to be confused with putting up with abuse or any form of violence, because often that is a function of not facing what really scares us.
We are afraid of what happens after. Who are we without this familiar experience? What is it about our sense of self-worth that makes us feel too weak to decide we will not continue to tolerate whatever it is that is hurting us?
Once I figured out how to keep my skis on the surface of the snow, I made it up that hill, and it was fun. Omi joined me, and we left that briar patch feeling that we had undergone a challenge.
Going into the fray is why people climb mountains and jump out of airplanes. When you invite that mentality into everyday living, every moment becomes an opportunity to learn what you are made of, and to learn what others are made of.
The people in my life who are willing to enter the briar patch are the ones I trust the most. It’s not that they will never cause me pain, but that my voice telling them about my pain will never fall on deaf ears.
Love it all, accept it all, and hold it all. If you have too much to carry, break apart… and then get denser and more pliable. Strengthen and soften. We cannot always choose the time or the means for personal growth, but we can choose how we respond to the invitation to grow. The road to freedom, be it paved with gold or wet with tears, is surely strewn with the cast-off skins and shackles of our former selves.
***
Malia Marquez is a writer with a varied arts background, living and working in beautiful and paradoxical New England. She works primarily in fiction and essay. Her work has been published in the Huffington Post.
***
{Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest}
Comments
Latest posts by Rebelle Society (see all)
- Cemetery of Tears. - April 26, 2024
- My Identity Journey: What’s in a Name? - April 26, 2024
- Cyprus: A Magic Place That Feels Like Home. - April 26, 2024