Roots

I’ve been staying with my parents in Eastern Idaho for over two months now. I haven’t shared much about this because I felt so much shame in needing to live with my parents for a time. That was one of the stories I could tell about this, how a thirty-six year old woman reached a point of wearing herself down, exhausting all of her resources, having given all of her possessions away, feeling she had no friends to learn on, unable to figure out a way to create abundance, she had to live with her parents.

And I felt this at times, deeply ashamed and unable to acknowledge that my path has been absolutely perfect.

I am so proud of myself.

I came back to my roots somewhat resigned and tail between my legs, but I also came back to my roots with a few intentions…

You see, I believe that we choose our life. We chose to be born at the time, place, and with certain people that would play out a narrative that we wanted to experience, a thematic arc to our stories and we have the opportunity to turn fate into destiny.

I came back to see what secrets the roots of my life have for me, clues to the destiny I’m desiring to live. What codes does the land hold for me? What themes show up in my family? What does it mean to have been born at the time I’ve lived in America, in Idaho, in South East Idaho, in Blackfoot?

I’ve been feeling the call to come back to my roots almost since I landed in Bali to live there. Bali kept giving me reminders of the place I grew from. I wrote a song called Grey’s Lake about our mountain home where I spent summers hiking and picking huckleberries, fishing, witnessing intense thunderstorms, glorious cranes, and the most magnificent moons I’ve ever seen. I spent winters scaling mountains on a sled and laughter filled afternoons pulling my sister behind the sled, working tirelessly to throw her from her seat and then receiving the same in return.

As I was preparing to leave Bali, the song, “Home for the Holiday’s” kept coming up. My inner child was very present and needed so much comfort at that time. She was afraid of going back. She felt unseen and unsafe being there. So, honoring her, I called my parents to see if we could care for her. It wasn’t the right time. I decided I wouldn’t go back unless I felt calm about it.

While in New York for the holidays, I was becoming exhausted moving from house to house. As I sorted a few things out, manifested a temporary job, and waited for the next step to make itself known to me I had a dream.

I dreamed that I flew to Idaho for $70 and felt perfectly calm and in control, ready to be there.

When I work up the next morning, I immediately looked up flights. There was one on 1/23 (Jan 23rd) and I knew that was the day. I took the morning to receive guidance about the trip. I wrote myself a novel and did an i ching reading to see what was in store for me there. Nourishment and tapping into a deep well as well as an opportunity to hold my inner child, open the closet and show her that there’s nothing scary in there; the poltergeist was a scared puppy and the mummy was a mop. After that, I booked a flight for $88, nearly the same and in many ways I felt more perfect; 123 being a sign that I’m on the right path and 88 reminding me that all is a reflection of the divine.

“As above, so below; as within, so without.”

I have to express how truly grateful I am that I heeded this vision. It’s not been easy to be back in my childhood home. I have cried and fought with my parents. I have felt useless. I have slept so, so much. I’ve sunk even lower, losing all of my income for a time. 

And I have come out stronger.

Parents are funny things. They are perfect mirrors to all inside ourselves that we often want to believe isn’t part of us. How glorious that they can be that for us, help us to know ourselves more fully. When the whole self (the good, the bad, and the ugly as my mom likes to say) isn’t integrated, we are fragmented. From our fragmented state, we are unable to find our way, easily pulled to ways of being that have nothing to do with our fate and even less to do with our destiny.

The more I saw my parents in myself and loved myself, the more my world expanded. In one of these tense moments with my father, he said…

“The way you see the world is how the world sees you.” 

Something I’ve also learned is that my parents truly love me unconditionally. Regardless of the way they see the world, which is often how I have believed they see me, they want the best for me and they are so proud of me.

So, why not be that for myself?

During this time I’ve done so much integration of my shadows, my inner child, and shedding of patterns. I didn’t know I could transform so much being back in my childhood home. I thought only skeletons and shadows waited to consume me, to hold me back, down me, shackle me into a life that was too small, too plain, and absolutely wrong for me.

Guess what?

I saw so many skeletons and shadows! Instead of being consumed, I danced with them. I had tea with them. I broke bread and made friends with them. What I discovered, is that they were the key that I could never have found or would have struggled to find in such perfect clarity anywhere else.

I’ve traveled the world in search of myself, only to find that myself was the secret my roots held for me all along. I’ve taken on so many identities as I’ve traveled and explored that I actually forgot who I am at my core. And, not to say that any mask or costume I’ve tried on was wrong. I can be a diva. I can be a healer. I can be so many things… AND

A humble, earth grown Idaho girl is always at my core. She has always been there and I rejected her for so long so she felt unsafe. The most joyful, playful, humorous, mischievous, deep feeling parts of me were all locked away with her. She came out to play in Bali and a few other times along the way, but because I was still running away from my roots she could never stay fully front and center.

I found myself in a way I never imagined possible. I cried, I laughed, I have been so, so uncomfortable with the skeletons, I danced. I slept. Oh my god did I sleep for weeks. My parents thought there was something severely wrong, but my body only needed to catch up with all the work my spirit had done. And in this grace filled place of my roots I was able to challenge myself to face fears far more scary than riding the subway in New York at 3am or facing the mafia in Bali, or cliff jumping, or making a life in places so strange to my essence that I became disoriented. Seriously, facing the fears I came up against of my own self loathing, of my disbelief in myself, of all the limiting beliefs that have held me hostage that are actually me was so much harder.

If I’d known how much self-knowing I would unlock in this process, I would have done it forever ago. 

But where would the story be in that?

The story continues. I’ve let go of the narrative filled with shame and embraced one of empowerment. I am so grateful I listened to my heart and higher self to come back to my roots, to spend time soaked in a place where I could be slow and could truly know myself; the good, the bad, and the ugly - which is all so beautiful.

I am infinitely grateful to my parents for being themselves and allowing me this grace. I have to thank them so much for this beautiful room, their generosity, their allowing me to have the neighbors bring me a cabinet grand piano to compose with, and their way of loving me.

I leave in two weeks, exactly three months from the day I arrived. I go to the next place my higher self has called me to and my heart couldn’t be going with more excitement and firm knowledge that this is going to be an insightful chapter, an opening to new possibilities.

On April 23rd, I leave for Glastonbury, England and I couldn't have done it so well without having collected my roots.

I choose this life and now it’s choosing me.