—From EF—

I seem to be starving myself again. Not an idiotic weight-loss program, although I am very happy to have lost about six pounds in the last couple of months, even without going to the gym. No, it’s the process of denying myself the things that would most please me.

I battle this all the time, but it goes in cycles. I suspect that this current bummer is in some way fueled by what’s being dredged up by the memoir, and certainly is exacerbated by the fuckery of dirty politics. But I’m damned tired of fighting this again and again and I think it’s time to go into ritual space and do something about it. I just did the math and yeah, it was about twenty-one years ago that I devised a series of rituals to reclaim and repair my damaged self, one chakra at a time. Sevens are a big part of my life pattern, so I pay attention.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the days when I have to practically put a gun to my head to go upstairs and wash my face and brush my teeth. Such simple things, and I love how it feels to do them. I’m talking about my beloved garlic crop that’s been drying too long in the hot garage, and the weeks when I’ve walked past and haven’t done anything. I’m talking about my overgrown wine-barrels of fresh herbs that should have been harvested and dried weeks ago so I could relish them in my cooking. I’m talking about washing my hair. I’m talking about taking my vitamins. These are all things I could do and they would give me pleasure. I have the time, I have the will, and something in me is standing in the way.

In these quiet focused stay-at-home hours I’ve been mulling this. What’s the common dynamic? I want this, I could have it; I don’t deserve it, so I can’t have it. I have internalized my own inner punitive parent, elected it, and logic isn’t working. Time to remember: when the damage wasn’t logical, don’t try to use logic to heal it. I’ve been part of more than one very effective ritual healing circle; now I need to be my own healer.

When I was a kid I didn’t belong to anything. I was adopted, and my mother was nearly fifty at the time. My parents were executive-class living in a farm community, and I didn’t know anybody my own age except in school, where I was a freak. I was given everything and deserved nothing. Having been told over and over again that I didn’t know how to love, I got the message.

That was then, this is now. The time is ripe. We have a beautiful home, spacious and green, we have each other, we have quiet and privacy and all the time in the world. Now is the time for me to teach myself to love that frightened lonely child at my core, to invoke my own fierce mother-energy to protect that child, to give her what she needs, to make her feel she deserves whatever gives her comfort and pleasure. I have the same strong partner I’ve had for nearly sixty years. Now is the time.

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