Anti-Anxiety Tool of the Week: A Quote from a Favorite Author
The world indeed is full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
This tool is from the eighth Toolkit. Here's the Index of all toolkits. And The Mini-Toolkit: For Those with Little or No Time.
Forget Your Perfect Offering
In a sense this post is a eulogy. Because, as of July 31, I am formally closing Blue Heron Wellness, my healing arts practice. And I am feeling the loss.
I opened the practice in 2014 while I was still taking classes in the three systems I offered, cranial-sacral therapy, vagal system support, and zapchen. Since I didn't (yet) have an office, I saw my clients in their homes.
I was thrilled to be offering something from my heart and with my hands that I hoped would help ease some of the pain people experience on the journey here. Because I know quite a bit about that pain. And something about hope as well.
I was also terrified. To be allowed "in"to the holy ground of another person, with all the attendant beauty and potential fragility, is a humbling privilege. And a profound mystery.
In January 2015 I started subletting an office from another healing arts practitioner and in September of that year (when that practitioner moved out of state) that office became my own. Oh joy. My own space to shape and beautify, trusting that beauty and a sense of peace and safety could be great aids on the healing journey.
I loved what I was doing. And it was always a challenge. How to be fully and compassionately present for someone and also have good boundaries and take care of myself? How to deeply sense their needs without being invasive? How to love them fully just as they were and also help them find paths of greater ease? As my teacher would quietly chant as she moved from table to table during our practice sessions, "nothing to fix, nothing to change."
I never had a huge practice. Financially I bumped along the bottom for quite a long time. Then along came COVID. I stopped seeing clients but didn't qualify for lost income relief from the federal government. I held on for months but finally admitted that I could no longer handle the financial drain. So while I didn't formally close my practice I did let go of my office. It was a major loss.
Once clients and I were fully vaccinated I became willing to do house calls. And did. But I did not start looking for new office space. Because for months something had been pulling on me, calling me, it seemed, to simplify, or ease down, or clear space in my life to make room for something...new? different? re-focused? Might that mean closing my practice?
What? Whoa! I was so grateful to be able to offer some ease and connection to my clients. And they depended on me. What if I was wrong about this? What if nothing else rose in its place? But the pull continued.
And now I have finally done it.
What's next? I suspect it will be more writing, perhaps some articles, or working on my children's stories--that is what is stirring in my heart. All of which is daunting. More on that, perhaps, in a future post.
I definitely plan to keep blogging--as an art, and a hopefully healing one, it has always felt like an extension of my practice..
This poem by the mystic Rumi speaks to the call:
God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
A passion, a longing-pain.
Remember the lips
Where the wind-breath originated
And let your note be clear
Don’t try to end it
Be your note.
Oh, may I remember where the wind-breath originated. May I be my note, at least some of the time.
I was a highly imperfect practitioner. I am and will be a highly imperfect writer and human being. That's a big challenge for me. But can I go ahead anyway? Here is what Leonard Cohen says:
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
Until next time,
Dawn
Photo/image credits:
Stars and people, Hamid Khaleghi, unSplash
Blue heron painting, Roderick MacIver; design, Mihr Danae, Sylvan Designs
Woman, Mahdi Bafunde, unSplash
Flower, L. Walkin
Flutist, Andre Iv, unSplash
Light and cliffs, Martina Misar Tumultshammer, unSplash