Sitting with Lady Change
We have been living in our tiny triangular pop-up house on wheels for over 4 months now. This life on the road brings a certain reality into clear focus. Change. Change is the thing that is absolutely not negotiable about this life. We can try to fight against it, but change always wins.
Out here, rolling down highways and backroads, spending a night here and a few nights there and another night 200 miles down the road, Lady Change is sitting in the seat next to me. She nudges me out of my things must always be this way trance and says, "just look out the window. The leaves on the trees an hour ago were broad and turning gold, these are green needles. Change is, I am. Constant."
One would think that, having been living this nomadic life for the last 4 and a half months would have led me to embrace Lady Change sweetly. It hasn't. Okay, it has, and it hasn't. I find that my attachment to waking up in the same place that I drank coffee in yesterday has been easy to release. I don't mind it a bit. I have an easier time releasing the way things must be done, and my attachment to time has loosened. Still, I get caught in my resistance to Lady Change. This resistance doesn't manifest as frustration, irritation, or even sadness (at least not very often). It shows up as anxiety. My insides tremble at the thought of certain changes, and I know that most of the people I've worked with in my profession and many folks I know, whether they'd say it or not, have the same trembly innards when they contemplate or are confronted with the face of this Lady. Not all the time - surely no. Lady Change can do what She wants to do with some things, but other things.....Ack!
Like it or not though, She is constant and real. Accepting Her, even befriending Her is one of the wisest things that I believe we can do.
In the last year or so, I've been thinking quite a lot about what it means to be Wise, what it means to become a Crone, what aging CAN and SHOULD be (imho). One of the things that I truly, deeply, in the cells of this Body believe to be true is that Wisdom and accepting, befriending, honoring, and celebrating Change go hand in hand. I have also determined that accepting, befriending, honoring, and celebrating Change and Her constant, irrefutable place in our lives, is the way toward easing my own (and, yeah, I'll generalize, OUR) existential fears and general life-anxieties. I believe it is our resistance to change, not change itself, that causes our suffering.
Lady Change is no Monster. She just IS.
And we are of the nature to experience Her in our lives.
In order to move to a place of accepting, befriending, honoring, and celebrating Lady Change, I contemplate Her face everyday. I look for Her hand in the moving world around me, and I consciously imagine all the possible changes she could bring into my life. As a shamanic practitioner, I have begun to regularly journey for wisdom about Her, and I meditate on the 5 Contemplations of Buddhism. I sit for 10 or 20 minutes watching my breath and speaking these words into mind and heart*:
I am of the nature to Change
I am of the nature to experience illness
I am of the nature to grow old
All the people, beings, and things that I love are of the nature to change. I cannot help experiencing loss.
I am of the nature to Die.
As I do these things – contemplate Her face, journey, and meditate on the 5 Contemplations, my heart's clenched fist loosens, the hard casing around my belly softens some, and the rigid lines in my mind become more flexible. My suffering eases, and the Lady smiles. I won't say I smile back just yet, but I'm getting there.
Today, I'm having a cup of afternoon coffee while gazing out over a lily pond someplace in Louisiana. Tomorrow, I'll be somewhere else. I wonder what the trees will be like there?
*************************************************************************************************************
*Admittedly, some days slide by me without a good sit. On those days, I remind myself of these words before I sleep at night.
*************************************************************************************************************
If you are interested in getting to know Lady Change, you might be interested in one or both of my 2023 offerings: Midwifing the Crone and Shedding Skins: Embracing the Wisdom of the Dark Goddesses. Both open for registration on October 31st.