Dormancy, then Lightning
Emerging from an ancient Cottonwood den
How to emerge from dormancy?
Since October, the last time I wrote to you, the very ground beneath my feet has shifted. I ended a long-term relationship, moved to a new home, learned a dear friend was diagnosed with late-stage cancer, and amidst the instability of grief and uncertainty, I began to withdraw. Though the ground into which I burrowed solely was the soil of myself.
In dormancy, there is rest. In dormancy, there is depression (deep-rest-in).
I’ve found it difficult to write and share from these inward depths. All that arises is poetry— my language of catharsis since my youth. In this state of deep rest, I noticed my commitment to share Plant Medicine was weighing heavy on my shoulders. A self-imposed duty urged me: “I need to create this formula”; “I need to share knowledge of this plant.” The weight of responsibility sunk me into numbness, where I struggled to get anything done.
Following a red thread of synchronicity, I decided to take a road trip down the East Coast in Mid-March. The anticipation of the Earth awakening was beginning to fill me with anxiety. Did you know the highest rate of suicide occurs during Spring? It can feel as if the world begins to move on without us. Someone draws the curtain and allows the bright sunlight stream into the room, but we pull the covers over our head— “I don’t want to get up yet!” This hesitance to awaken rose strongly within me, so I decided to dive head-first into the light rather than resist its arrival.
A crocus not quite ready to bloom
Eleven hours South I had driven when I took a pit stop at a North Carolina gas station. Adjacent to the building, a patch of unkempt, grassy land stood open, all while the interstate roared endlessly on its horizon. Desanctified by neglect yet sacred as the sole abode of wildness I could witness, I noticed this patch of Earth shone, speckled with yellow. I walked over, and I noticed a long-lost friend cast all upon the land— Dandelion.
I lay down amidst them, and as I gazed upward, the waxing crescent moon shone above me. Breathing in this presence, I sensed a palpable shift in my body. I had cloaked myself in the responsibility of duty— of all I needed “to do” in regards to the Plants. But in this moment, I remembered the agency is not solely in my hands. My duty is not only to do, but also to listen and attune. Rather than believe that all the work is up to me, I settled into the deep knowing that I work on behalf of living beings who also have a say in the matter. Dandelion— what would you like to share? How would you like your medicine to be offered?
To whom is our work committed?
Who or what else guides us beyond our individual will?
How can we ask, listen, and attune to the greater purpose encouraging us?
As I rested in this questioning, amidst resiliently-rooted Dandelions, I could feel my body waking up. Electrical energy rushed forth from the Earth again, through my skin. I had come to meet Spring.
In the darkening dusk clouds, at this moment, lightning began to flash above me. Recently, I learned that most lightning does not simply descend from the Sky, but rather, an electrical pulse from above shoots down to meet a simultaneously rising electrical charge from the Earth. The jagged bolt we witness expresses an uncertain story— two tangential paths taken— which simultaneously illuminate as the two forces join in union.
A powerful creation emerges as separate forces meet, whose beauty is marked by the unique and wayward path of each. Like lightning, creative work is birthed. The creations I offer-- plant medicine, teachings, songs & poems— come forth as the union of question and answer. They come forth from the decomposed and re-imagined paths that both myself and the Plants take before we join together. May I remember— may we all remember— to attune to whom or what we’re committed to and ask that they might guide us to our meeting place of lightning-like creation.
