Wild Women Belong to the Woods
I remember what it was like nursing my infants, how every moment of every day was about making sure they were full, or planning to. Not only did I want their bellies to be full and warm, but I wanted them to feel fully held, rested, nurtured, and picked up every time they cried out with a yet-to-be-known need.
I also remember that during that time I began to feel depleted, right around weaning-it was like the life was being sucked out of me. I think the truth is that I was sucking at making time to replenish my reserves. In my attempt to be the Sow Goddess, I’d forgotten (and had never been shown) that recharging was something I needed to think of, and create time for. In the era of attachment parenting, I felt an urgency to be with my babies at all times.
Years have passed since I nursed the wee ones, and I still have to remind myself to create time where there seems like there can be none.
A friend and I were talking about the concept of time being an illusion and irrelevant for the most part, if one conspires to believe that there is an eternal element to existence. I did some research for fun afterward. It got heady. I pulled away from the linear braincrunching (that’s not nearly as friendly a process as it once was) and thought about how I’ve experienced time as a quick flight or forgivingly elastic depending on what I’m doing in the moment. I reminded myself that the way I survived having tiny, needy people glued to my ribcage is that I made myself believe that when I had the thought “I don’t have enough time!” that not having enough time was not going to be my issue. My issue was always going to be my willingness to create the experience I wanted to have. I had to believe that I could make the time, create the time, just because I declared that it was important. It stuck. I still believe I can make time, not necessarily magically, but by seeing how easily I give it away. Then taking it back.
There will always be Very Good Reasons we humans can come up with for why we’re not living life in a way which honors it: our body temples, our creative dreams, our wishes for intimacy, satisfying work or study, our desire to be connected to something greater than our limited scope. The thing I always yearn for is being outside in nature, sitting on the Earth, alone or with my people. Every time I have the conversation with myself or my beloved, the answer is quick and easy.
I think I’ve read Alex Franzen’s Why I Do Not Use Social Media Anymore about 3,837 times. I go back to it again and again, because it’s one of the most important things I’ve read all year, maybe longer. I read it because I’m not only aware (from repetitive visiting) that we have 39,420,000 minutes in the average human lifespan, but that when I choose to make time for what I want to experience in my life, I am honoring those minutes.
Having left Facebook completely, (the fan page peeled off, too) and my years-neglected Twitter account, too, I think I’m making progress on honoring my minutes. Now I have no excuse not to read this book from cover to cover.
Are you thinking about leaving some or all social media behind? Here are some of the ridiculous fears I had to quickly unravel before I pulled the trigger on Twitter and Facebook:
Fear: “I won’t be able to connect with my friends and family as easily.”
Comforting counter-thought: Keywords are *as easily*, babe. Write them a letter or call them if you want to really connect. Better yet, make a date to see them. You’d love that.
Fear: “Will everyone forget about me and what I do?”
Comforting counter-thought: Not everyone.
Persistent fear: Can you expand on that?
Comforting counter-thought: No ma’am.
Fear: “This is how I tell people about my work. Will my business suffer?”
Comforting counter-thought: You had a successful business online seven years before social media became the norm. I think you’ll be okay, and maybe you’ll become a better writer from actually writing instead of putting random post-it notes up all over the social-media place and leaking out good ideas without making real commitments.
Fear: “What if I miss out on a really important conversation?!”
Comforting counter-thought: If it’s meant to make it to you, it will. Until then, have important conversations with anyone around you who wants to have them, too.
Marianne Williamson said “Ego is, quite literally, a fearful thought.”
As with so many things, I think fear is what keeps us from claiming our sacred lives as our own. Funny how tricky it can be.
Having been blogging for less than a year, and using that blog as a vehicle for sharing my writing and my art, I can guarantee, without social media, that blog would exist in a vacuum. I know I am tied to facebook (and not all that begrudgingly)if I want to share with people what I do.
Yes, it’s hard to move a new blog without gathering where the people who will want to read it gather!
hearing the truth here…
after my break from FB this summer I found it a challenge to get back into the fast moving stream of that space
I find it noisy
I have not cut if off completely
but I feel the desire to use it less and less
those fears you write are the fears I have felt and hear from many who have faced this cross roads
I like the counter thoughts you posted…good medicine
love and light dear sister
thank you for sharing your wisdom
Pretty noisy for me to, Cat. I need quiet. 🙂 Thank you for always being here, for being a good friend and most excellent listener and wise woman.
I am in the process of a good purge. I have closed some accounts leaving others alone until it is the right time. Many of the accounts have been so neglected anyway. I am slowly returning to an old way of doing things and it feels good. ~M
Love hearing this, Maria! The old ways are good ways. We can navigate the best of both!
I am grateful I found you on social media, but I have a feeling we would have crossed paths eventually without it, anyway. Your message has a way of transcending the heights of any borrowed platform, and for that I say thank you for being the fierce & courageous thought-leader that you are! <3 <3 <3
Dawn, I think you’re right! We will always find the folks we’re meant to!
what a beautiful, timely and poignant post, Pixie…
Thank you, KR!
I think it is a matter of balance. I am trying to do less Facebook but I don’t abandon it 100% because it is an opportunity to visually represent my art to people who could be or become potential clients. “You had a business online for 7 years..” etc.. well yes.. we had candles before the electric bulb, too.. 🙂 It’s all about not letting FB or Twitter become “addicting”.. balance is the key (imho) for using modern tools.. Just my opinion! Peace, Peter
Peter, I would think that you would be totally against their data mining and feeding-frenzy ads! But I also understand-I did it for years because it was really good for communicating on behalf of my business and sharing my work with the world at large. By the way, I love candles when the sun goes down. Artificial lights have kept us up in daylight productive mode beyond our energy levels (at least us mamas). Darkness is good.
I LOVED this post Pixie. I’ve known for quite some time that “not having enough time” was an illusion, one we create by filling “busy” into our lives, burying the effort, truth, change, commitment, whatever, that would make our lives more our own. I make time for the things that fill me, the people I love, the dance, the reading, the writing, and learning from women like you and Soul Lodge Alumni. More and more I realize these are the tribes I belong, too, not the ones that are content to float on the surface of ego. Less and less I spend time on FB, though I haven’t let go completely. I wonder if it’s possible to use it without letting it use me? I don’t know, but it’s true that it just doesn’t feel good to spend any length of time there. Ego is too present in the “face” of voyeurism. What I struggle with more though is the smartphone with Instagram and texting, maybe because they seem deceptively subtle and because the smartphone has become my project manager of operations. I will say this, when I am outdoors, when I am drinking in the nourishment provided by nature, there seems to be no place for social media, let alone a digital device. I take my camera now instead of the phone for pictures. It just makes more sense that way. Thank you for your post Pixie. XO
Glad you liked it, Misa! I think it’s totally possible to use social media for good, I hope I didn’t communicate that it should all be done away with.I don’t recommend getting too hooked into it for one’s livelihood, because I think there are other ways and the deeper in we get, the less freedom we have to go when we are ready to move on. That’s just my experience and learning curve talking, plus I don’t really love doing “what everyone else is doing!” So there’s a bit of a rebel driving this movement to. I’m determined to do it without being hooked in against my will. The smartphone is a huge issue!! And I do love me some Instagram, but just like FB (they’re owned by FB), I do not at all agree with their terrible policies, and I just try to stay in my own little bubble. At some point they will need to have better securities or I will go my own way. Try also going out with no camera or any electronics and see how that feels, too!
What an important post, Pixie! I want to read Franzen’s book now!
All my love to you, dearest Pixie. You are such a beautiful light.
That’s it, all I needed was that gentle nudge. I’m done, I deactivated my account.
Go Julie!!!!!!! Yip! I would love to hear how it feels to you!
Lovely thought provoking post. I am finding myself craving quiet. My soul is deeply desiring the space to be heard. I am in the midst of creating a website to offer healing work so it will be interesting to see how drawn I feel to using face book. At the moment it feels loud and busy. I crave truthfulness, heart and soul.
Blessing to you!