Letting Go…

The Oracle path is not the one I follow, but then, most witches consult various forms of divination to be able to get ideas about what one is dealing with, and what might lie ahead.  I started using the Fairy Cards about 8 years ago. I’d walked into a little Tibetan store on Pearl Street in Boulder, and they were sitting out. I pulled a card, and the one I pulled was called “New Opportunity”. A few days later, I was offered a position at Naropa that would pay well, and give me a chance to practice my newly honed Multicultural Counseling skills as the Diversity Coordinator. The very next day, I went back to the store and bought the deck.

Every so often, I find it necessary to look at my various decks, just to make sure that all the cards are there. Last year, I’d looked at all the cards in my Fairy deck and found out, to my horror, that one was missing. I couldn’t imagine where it could have gone off to, as I try really hard to take care of my decks, and to keep them safe and protected. So you can imagine my surprise to find a card missing.

Today, as I was going through my many, many books, and trying to figure out which to keep and which to sell, I happened to open one book and the bookmark that was holding some place or another was the missing card. I had to gasp and laugh all at the same time…The card from that deck—“Letting Go”! 

It’s not as if I didn’t know what this time in my life is about, it’s just that I hadn’t been thinking as deeply about the reality of it all. Due to my education at Naropa, and the Buddhist influence that I can’t help have in my thinking, I’m reminded that there is a certain grace in being able to just let go. I have held on to so many things throughout my life, and it’s always been hard to let go, yet, I’m finding it suddenly much easier than in the past. I think over the last year, and how I never would have imagined myself in the place I’m at just now.

My daughters are happily on their way to being young adult women, doing their lives as they wish, without the influence, though hopefully, some underlying guidance from their mother. The grief I have felt in my empty nest state has been different than any other grief state I’ve encountered in life. It’s not as though they’re dead, and they didn’t leave in malice as though in a break-up of an intimate relationship, they are just doing what all young people need to do at this time—flying away under the power of their own beautiful, gossamer wings. Their loveliness astounds me at times. They are open minded and open hearted, and they care about the world and others around them. I see the touches of my ideals displayed in how they act, and interact with others, and I can’t be more proud.  

I think back often to the many years when it was just the three of us. I can still see in my mind’s eye the four sweet little eyes looking at me at various times over the last 22 plus years. It always  felt like a sort of curious open scrutiny. I was the main player in their world, the big mommy person who took care of all their needs. I held, bathed, changed, fed, rocked and cuddled them endlessly. Those early times now feel so very far away in time. In recent times, I got to see those same four eyes look at me with a slightly different view—their mother still, yet also another adult, whose life intermingled with theirs. They began to form opinions about things I did and who I dated, etc. Occasionally even giving me their opinions on things I was doing. And, I was happily surprised to hear how very accurately they see life now. Most recently, when we were talking about my last boyfriend, my youngest looked at me and said –“Mom, you could do so much better”. That stunned me, yet at the same time, again, I felt great pride in knowing that they had learned to look into others, and had become good judges of character as well. Yet, and underneath that statement was a sense of also wanting what was good for me, as I have always wanted for them. Amazing on so many levels…

I introduced them to the Goddess path from various angles when they were young. While we have agreed that actually, anime’ cosplay is their religion nowadays, they are also able to see through the fallacies of organized religion, and how harmful it can be. I guess like any parent, I wish they would want to follow my path, but I know, truly, they have to find their own way, and I trust that they have enough information, exposure, and clear mindedness to find what they need someday. And I will bless them on their choices.

I have also had to look at all of my possessions, the stuff I so dearly clung to over the years, all the stuff I wanted to have, and thought I needed. Over the last few weeks of sorting and purging, I have come to be more clear about what is really necessary. On the last day of my moving, there was still a lot of stuff left. I was bone tired, from having stayed up all night, eaten little, and was just mentally and emotionally exhausted. I had a moment of weeping, then, when I was done. I simply pulled out my phone, called my dear friend Paula, and asked her to post a note for me on freecycle to let them know that I was moving and couldn’t take it all with me. Upon hanging up, I scoured through, picking up the things I knew I needed, and then within 15 minutes, folks just started arriving. My cathartic moment came when a little boy held up a big silver star I’d had hanging on the side of the house. He looked at me emploringly, and asked how much it would be, and I said—happily I might add, take it, it’s yours…I saw right then that I could let go, that if that silver star brought that little boy some moment of joy, then so be it. Who am I to hang onto it? 

At some other point in my life when I was more addicted to stuff, I would never have been able to do this. Yet, it felt so trivial. There around me were my daughters, friends who’d come to help, and myself, free, and ready to move to the next phase of my life, and I knew I had all I really needed.

Letting go…how tightly that clinging can leave us with nothing in our hands but shifting sand….

freedom, homelessness, journey, walkabout, love, connection, possessions, needs, wants, relationships...

I don’t feel the fear I thought I’d feel, I’ve let go of that, too…