My One Leap of Faith: Needs of Our Internal Worlds.
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What is months of waiting for a thing that might bring physical relief and welcoming breakthrough into one’s life?
It is nothing and it is everything, considering one couldn’t anticipate its existence in the first place! Perhaps what is meant for us is finely tuned and aligned with sacred timing despite our human tendency to forget that.
Our lives are unraveling and manically spinning as our world is in flux facing unprecedented destruction of our planet. Evidently, our planet is been violently moved through the birth canal of Mother Life by the force of something beyond our comprehension.
At the same time, opportunistic invitation has been extended to all of us to grieve what has been lost through our lifetime, through the cycle of one age of Earth.
Wherever we turn, we encounter demolition that encompasses all of us — our bodies, our minds, our spirits — and yet necessary for traveling we need to undertake in one lifetime to create anew. There is no external map we can really rely on these travels.
Sooner or later we come to the realization that external measurements of time, although pervading the world, seem less and less of consequence as faith and sacred timing take over. One event can end in a second, and yet one single moment may present itself as eternity. Our lifetime appears as just a brief moment in time.
With no certainty and a sense of definite direction, we collectively face the reality of saddening and devastating deprivation of real human contact. Million virtual hugs on our social media platform will never be able to replace the deepening loneliness of being human and feeling the absence of physical connection with others, our human family.
Perhaps this is happening to teach us something we may have forgotten.
Looking back, my solar year began to unfold with a maximum dose of disruption in all aspects of living. Processing feelings about my dis-ability and how to ride the restrictions of my physical mobility is an ongoing challenge. Adding to that, restrictions imposed by external structures can turn to be overwhelmingly emotional for me.
Those absences of human contact tend to take me to the deep ravine of loneliness and grief. And while I am often presented with the welcome opportunities to turn inward and listen, there is a part of me that feels as if this grief will reign for good.
It is the part of me that has to take grief as my daily companion, and needs validation of that grief as a natural response to the losses I am facing personally and collectively.
While on the other hand, the mantra “It is how it is” allows the mind to go quiet, body to slow down to repose, and the soul to intuit. It needs to come naturally as a result of homing my feelings first and making them welcome.
My own internal compass of self-connection has been equally slowing me down intentionally so that I may be able to function optimally.
I am aware how the pace of my days is descending gradually to conserve my energies. When my limited mind resists this, inevitably and somewhat naturally come various disruptions. One of those come with feelings of recurrent disappointments and hence suffering.
The wet and damp days from continuous daily rain and persistent ravaging winds tend to challenge my patience when all I want is to be out of the house, out of my bed. I get hungry for Nature. I can sink so deeply and so suddenly into the spiraling depression.
Living closely with my nearest and dearest can be for me a source of both joy and sadness, pain and pleasure, peace and anxiety.
While the sense of absences takes me into a deep ravine of loneliness, missing the physical connection with others, equally, the rebellious part of me fights fiercely to stay out of a rut, longs to get out of anything it sees as restrictive. The spirit aches for sweet freedom to be one with the wildness of Nature.
But being housebound, and often bedbound, remains to be my abode.
One sunny spring day, following a long weary month’s social isolation, I turn to daydreaming. Reaching my 50th birthday seems both blessing and a curse. It is a position of being in the middle.
As an year marks significant anniversaries of my life, the one cycle of work, relationship, partnership and motherhood seems to be ending. Yet I am unsure what it is going to be replaced with.
Dreaming of celebrating this significant marker, literally the middle point of my life cycle, begins by envisioning myself in the local woods, camping with my tribe around a warming fire — simple yet nurturing company, with sharing of our wild spirits.
I catch myself in the middle of this fantasy, very quickly being reminded of a present reality: besides being physically unfit to to attend to my daily basic needs, I also discover how organizing this is not an easy task.
How am I actually going to do this?
Responding to these changes of plan with a new curiosity, rather than ending in spirals of old disappointments and frustrations, shifts my perspective. That tiny voice reminds again gently: “You may want to consider the circumstances aren’t ripe, yet maybe something else is waiting to take that space.”
Feeling like a naked tree exposed to violent storms, I keep hanging on to my fragile sensitive branches. There is no way of knowing if I will make it day to day without breaking the shell that is me. And the shell does crack exposing the fragility and softness on the inside. In this fragile state I am suddenly being summoned by my muses and spirit guides, called to pray for strength and perseverance.
And I soon become showered with their blessings. The writing is flowing, the focusing on the creations in the moment is soothing my nerves and relaxing my limbs. I am still here.
My online women’s community, physically distanced yet close, holds me in my darkness and I know we are somehow in isolation together. I hold myself in that anchor as we share our own unravelling of endless spiraling circles of showing up and hiding, waxing and waning like our moon.
And a stillness becomes my shelter and a loving blanket I wrap around me comfortably while passing daily through a darkening void, seemingly alone. In some bizarre ways, the “Groundhog Day” we had found ourselves in, facing wide social restrictions, delivers peculiar safety and comfort — we know to expect the same.
One day in May, the unexpected wave arrives to my shore as I find my application for disability benefit being rejected. After a year of long waiting for any signs of decision, filling of endless paper forms, attending to draining and soul-destroying encounters, I let myself drop into surrender.
Not fitting the boxes of qualifying, being deserving of social support, is my story. But it is actually a story of many choosing to be free sovereign beings. We are repeatedly failed by the crazy bureaucratic, robot-run and heart-absent so-called Benefit and Health System. They are the symptoms of capitalistic values still held widely and pervading our lives.
I am beyond exhausted of this old narrative, beyond trying to work out which way it actually benefits us or delivers health. It doesn’t serve us on the whole. It needs a large injection dose of some heart, of some soul.
My family has turned to the benefit system for almost two years since my partner, who is the sole income provider, lost his job. A month later, COVID-19 arrived and off we went into the tumbling machine of a disintegrated system already facing deep crisis.
Our lives became stripped to bare necessities entering survival mode. Basic groceries, basic purchases, no travel, no transport, no work, no adequate space to live in. Our overcrowded home space, due to my health needs, is simply inadequate for all our different living needs, and brings additional stresses. My entitlement to financial support became quickly reduced to a minimum.
Like many, we hang on the precarious edge, relying for a while on local community support to deliver basic groceries to our door. We rollercoaster dizzily into the unknown while someone, somewhere switched on the Pause button. Our hope in the system remains fragile, continues to be tested.
One thing is for sure, taking away the human’s ability to provide for themselves has dire consequences.
A truly testing time. A shift that is taking place in the deep shit, and no way back as pushing towards an exit continues on. And the shadow character of life won’t let one see what is on the other side until one has passed through it and really gets what has been asked of you.
Almost every social structure we turn to to fulfill our needs is now exposed to the bone. As dysfunctional entities, they largely operate on the basis of capitalizing on our insecurities, making us believe they are there for us. They want you to crawl on your knees until you bleed and reduce you to begging, if you are naïve to believe in their innocence.
Furthermore, the emphasis on surface reality is not a fit anymore to address the needs of our vulnerability and our internal worlds. If you look good on the surface, that is important. It doesn’t matter that you are wounded deeply on the inside. It plays on your anxiety, it reinforces the small you, it wants to reach you through your insecurities, your problems, your issues. Because they are profitable.
I know many including myself whose humanity has been merely reduced to a number on the list. Experiencing emotional distress due to humiliation and pain caused by the unconscious acts of the system.
People employed by systems of false power feel equally powerless (hence we had all come across the line: “There’ s nothing I can do here!”) and like pawns thrown around the chess board while big players are taking calculated moves in this game.
The balancing of our basic needs against the needs of those who take more than they need is paramount.
While financial loss is a hard thing to bear, the loss of our human dignity and our own power is costly. The world as we know is crumbling and we are the flying debris of this rubble. The portal of global grief is intrinsically part of the global demolition we are faced with. The wheel of ignorance, blindness and greed is turning faster. How much longer, when will we come off? We can’t. Not yet!
Another unexpected wave arrives to my doorway a month later. A handwritten letter addressed to me, while inside, reads in large font: The Janavi Held Endowed Poetry and Art Grant. I had applied for this grant a year ago hoping it might lead to new opportunities. I was dreaming of nurturing and reinventing my creative ventures and possibly investing in extra space to do that.
“This privately endowed grant has been awarded to you… for answering the call of the goddess through your devoted honoring of Mother Earth and the spiritual interdependence we have with her, via your beautiful medicine poetry, visionary art, nourishing of natural environs and keeping alive the ancient indigenous wisdom…”
As I read through, I feel a sudden tender and joyous embrace vibrating through these words. I sense as if many broken shards of my spirit had been lovingly restored and brought together into a new mosaic.
This letter arrives not only as sunshine struggling through heavy clouds but also as a loving gift from soul sisters. It announces itself as a healing visitor, a soothing balm for my damaged wings. It says to me, “You are still on your path!”
The feeling of gratitude and love overflows my heart, thinking about Janavi, my poet sister who departed this realm few years ago after suffering devastating incurable illness. Yet she left behind the legacy of grace and purity of a generous heart, enabling other sisters to continue weaving their life’s creative journeys.
I see the letter as a sign, as I dare to keep faith. A healing voice, somewhere within me, calls to me to consider this serendipitous reward as a new way forward. It becomes an enabler to begin the journey of raising funds to purchase a much needed mobility aid for myself. And so I call upon support of my community and the Universe answers.
The fundraising projects supported by community for community begin to take off. The love begins to pour in from everywhere, from the community of people I know, the places I had put my love into, the creations I had been nurturing for a decade.
As the funds begin to flow, I feel showered on with love and support from a seemingly small yet infinite Universe.
We are all gifted with the ability to give. When we choose to give others the blessings of our own giving, the economy, the energy of gift circulates naturally, easily and uninterrupted.
To me, this could actually mean a goodbye to greed once and for all and creating the new world we are being invited to manifest. I feel astounded when I see the abundance and prosperity that we are capable of creating when we simply choose to unite together and share our love and resources generously and without fears.
And I am deeply convinced that my deep trust in the community as an agent of positive change and potency has actually manifested my very own oasis of abundance I had experienced.
Our ability to co-create with Spirit and Nature is also calling us to consciously reevaluate all our acts of creation.
As a self-taught artist and a writer, I feel called yet again and initiated into greater appreciation of Mother Earth and all her earthlings.
It means taking seriously and yet joyously my guardianship and my duty of care.
When we choose this way and align ourselves with our heart, I really believe there can be no limit to how we create prosperity, harmony and beauty, be it personal or collective.
And so this year has come to an end in the blink of an eye. It’s a sunny wintery snowy day as I marvel at the journey that I had been on.
As I cocoon inside my warm bed and rest my aching body in gratitude, I am mindful of multitudes of blessings, mostly unexpected, arriving to my door.
Without spirit guardians, my community circles and family support my life has been enriched with this year, I wouldn’t be the same.
My latest release ritual I initiated myself in early November to clear the cobwebs of some restricted patterns is a major marker for me, hopefully to take conscious steps and continue releasing some or all of the heaviest baggage I had carried for so long.
Feeling lighter and brighter, I place my hands in prayer while sitting at the sacred altar of my life. I commit to continue guardianship of what truly matters and is dear to my heart — nature, its blessings, and all the spirit world and family, both visible and invisible in this realm.
As I allow unfolding of new into this present space, I take myself further into this leap of faith without knowing where the mystery will carry me next.
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Being housebound and mostly confined to bed for a decade with a mysterious chronic condition has been deeply transforming for Durdica Maderic. Yet in this sinister and dark space she keeps birthing her authentic feminine voice and her power. She is learning to express the gifts of her inner world through words, color and image, and finds her inspirations and deep healing amongst women’s circles and nature’s bounty. She is a contributor to Women’s Spiritual Poetry anthology book and their online sharing portal. She dreams of a simple, just and loving world where nurture, kindness, respect, and equality are sacred vessels of the new paradigm and all of life is thriving.
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