A friend’s hardships weigh on my heart. If it doesn’t feel right to bail someone out (again), it doesn’t make sense to do it; people can’t be saved from themselves. I know all too well of the many times when I was not helped in the way I wanted to be, which ultimately got me to where I needed to be. Still, it’s hard.
I am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am also aware that we save each other some of the time.
—James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
In the extreme, these situations become like my marriage was, where if I didn’t do what my husband wanted, he threatened suicide. I finally disentangled myself from his snarls by the slow but full and visceral realization that if he were to kill himself, that was his choice, not mine. Otherwise we were both going down (and almost did). At least I could save myself. (Ultimately we divorced and he stayed alive.)
It’s not selfish to have good boundaries against manipulation; in fact, the joy I experienced once I got free then spread to others.
True gifts—whether tangible or of time, energy, or space—must come wholeheartedly: they can only be offered, not demanded or finagled. When people ask me what’s a good donation for a rune reading, I tell them whatever feels right is best, because it’s more about the feeling than the amount. A heartfelt couple of dollars is better than a hundred given begrudgingly. Somehow my needs keep getting met.
I move out to the pond with a blackberry-mint yerba mate and no phone. The mate is especially refreshing for some reason. A breeze moves the cattail leaves like octopus arms—mesmerizing, kind of trippy. We will our arms to move, and yet there seems to be a type of will in the dance of leaves and breeze as well. It feels like it has something to do with me—and in fact it does: I gave cattail fluff to my friend on an adventure one time, to put in his pond.
Some people consider me borderline homeless, living off-grid as I do. While understanding why they think that, I feel less homeless than when I’ve lived in houses, at least as an adult. I’m more held and appreciated for how I hold and what I naturally contribute than I’ve felt since childhood.
Still, something’s missing (and someone, perhaps—or some aspect of someone, maybe of the Wild God). My place of true belonging on this earth—where I will ultimately live out my days, securely rooted, free to follow natural inclinations, probably along a rugged coast—remains elusive, but I no longer feel in a rush to get there. For one thing, I feel it solidly within me, to access anytime I need strength. For another, I don’t know how I’ll reach it from here but can see that it will require a massive transition: that place where my needs, joys, and gifts fully complement others’ (human and otherwise). Somewhere deep within me, though, I know where I’m going. When I get there, they will be so glad to see me, having waited all this time, as I have waited for them.
Sometimes, at 4 AM, this knowledge is almost enough to force a reconciliation between oneself and all one’s pain and error. Since, anyway, it will end one day, why not try it—life—one more time?
—James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
Those of us who are the end of the line for our particular arrays of ancestors are the culmination of their work together: we can be jumping-off points for that combination of energy to take other forms and augment other things.
[The Baltic tribes] are an extremely humane people. They help those who are in danger at sea or are attacked by pirates. They value gold and silver very little. . . . One could say much praiseworthy about these people in terms of their morality. . . . All their houses are full of pagan diviners, healers, and soothsayers, even dressed in a monk’s robe.
—Adam of Bremen in 1075
For three nights in a row, I half-wake sometime before dawn, wracked with an intense wave of energy coursing through me, at the edge of what I feel I can stand but also weirdly pleasant: a welcome illness. Each time, I’ve practiced relaxing into it and letting it pulse through to muted, misty mornings.