Dear Earth, I’m still not fixed yet, goddammit.

I’ve lived on your lap for 45 years now, darling Earth, and I have done a lot of therapy. I’ve spent decades in 12 step programmes and trainings, and I’ve done a lot of spiritual practice. I’ve consumed forests of books. I’ve written teetering stacks of journals. And I am STILL NOT FIXED.

There are parts of me that despair when I tip headlong into overwhelm, as I have this week. When I discover new seams of buried shame and aching vulnerability. When I don’t ‘hold it together’, as so many parts of me say I should. They shout from the sidelines. Improve! Streamline! Heal!

I remember your trees, dear Earth. I think of ancient apple trees, grown crooked, covered in cankers. Bent walnuts. Ailing ash. As they age, they produce both fresh green growth and brittle old sticks. They don’t aim at becoming the ‘perfect tree’. They are a mix of processes and, if they’re lucky, for a while they gift blossom and fruit before crumbling back down into the soil.

This is a gentler way of seeing myself, dear Earth. I am a mix too. Parts of me produce blossoms, and parts of me are also bent, wounded, decaying. Sometimes the same parts. I don’t like containing vulnerability, but it is there – just as it is in the nature of trees to contain chlorophyll.

Dear Earth, I am a Satya tree. There will be new growth, there will be healing, and there will be calcification and rotting. Some of this is in my control, and much of it is not. I’m looking at myself through your eyes now, sweet Earth, and maybe I’m not so bad. The sun is out, and the wind is ruffling my leaves.

Love, Satya <3

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Gratitude for Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash