The Paradox of the Split

May 9, 2010

Have you ever become aware of a dynamic in yourself, your life and/or your body that is so core to your life experience that is related to everything about you and that at the same time, it is not you, not the real, essential, core YOU?

This is my relationship and experience to the split that I have experienced on every level of my being, from the body to the soul level.

Physically, I have a split in the "recti abdominus" muscle of my abdomen, as the result of being pregnant with 4 babies, who became increasingly larger with each pregnancy, from 6 pounds 2 ounces up to 10 pounds 9 ounces.

Emotionally, I have split from my Inner Child, that part of me that expresses my instincts as well as my fears, and is intimately connected to my body. I continually try to move forward without her, and of course, ultimately, get nowhere.

Mentally, I have split between my heart and my mind, my feelings and my intellect. I can feel what I love and desire only to talk myself out of it because it doesn't fit the parameters of what is right, or how it should be.

On a soul level, I have felt split from my Source, the deep spiritual place within each of us. I can intellectually know it is there, but I haven't been intrinsically connected to this inner place.

Some of this almost sounds cliche-ish, and superficial. Yet my experience of the split affects me on every level of my being in every moment of my life.

Where do I even begin?

With where I am right now, writing this blog. My intention is to write my story and share my experience of Healing the Split - Walking Home to Wholeness. Truthfully, it is more for me than anyone else, but at the same time, if this benefits anyone else, or serves as a catalyst for your own healing into wholeness, then it will have more than served its purpose.

Somehow, I feel as though "healing the split" is my soul's mission in this life, and I am just getting that right now at 51 years old. I guess you could say, I am "owning" my specific purpose for being here on Earth in this body. I have been circling around it, hovering you might say, in one way or another, for 20 years.

Back in early 1990, I experienced "the split" in my body on the physical level when I was about 6 months pregnant with my tiny first baby. It didn't take much for the split to occur. I can still remember the night that I turned over in bed and felt this searing pain down the middle of my belly, like I was being ripped open from the inside out. I knew immediately that the baby was okay, and that it was my body experiencing something unexpected and very painful. I learned to wrap my arms around my belly, like a sling, whenever I turned over to hold the muscles together. I learned very quickly to compensate by using other muscles to do what I had used these recti muscles for. If I didn't, I would experience the searing pain of the tear again.

So for all of these years, of being a mother, raising my 4 children - the youngest is 8 years old and the oldest is of course, 20 years old, I have "dealt with" the split by compensating and using more external muscles of my hips and legs, not doing certain kinds of exercise like yoga and Pilates, because when I did, I would feel weak and incompetent. Instead of practicing them to become stronger and cohere the muscles, it was as though there was such an essential weakness in my core muscles that I have chosen to just avoid. Much simpler and less messy (which of course translates to less emotional.)

As I write this, I am remembering a little ritual I did midway through the summer of 1989 with 2 of my dearest friends, Thia and Jasmine. I did not know that I was physically pregnant at the time, but I felt "pregnant" with the possibilities for myself. I even wore a dress for the ritual that was flow-y and loose like a maternity dress. Mostly what I remember is that in this ritual, with my friends as my witness, I committed on a very deep level to my Self and to healing the shame that separated me from her - to "heal the split." This ritual felt at the time like a convergence of lifetimes and healings and separations, and very important and necessary for me to engage in. I was making a soul commitment. I knew that something important had transpired with the promises and commitments that I had made and ritualized. I had stepped into something profound for myself.

And then I found out that I was pregnant. And all of my focus and energies went into this divine yet unexpected process and curve in my life's journey.

And I forgot about the ritual and the commitments I made. Becoming a mother became my sole focus.

Here I am 20 years later, and what I now realize that I have been living out of the commitments I made that day to "heal the split" even when I have forgotten. No matter. It is my mission and my purpose, both when I remember and when I forget. I committed to something bigger and greater than myself during that ritual - it almost feels like when we make marriage vows - and those commitments and promises create the container from which we live and create our life and ourselves.

The container is bigger than the split. The container holds the split. The split is actually an illusion. It doesn't really exist. And yet it does. But it doesn't. Such is the nature of duality...and unity. I am actually the container, but I have lived my day-to-day life from the belief that "I am the split." That is the split right there in action. This is getting very esoteric, and I feel like I am so close to the pulse of a deep spiritual truth that is Truth for all of humanity, all of the Universe. I can almost touch it. I can feel the paradox of that there truly is no split, and yet the split is all there is. It is here manifested in my belly and in my life. Carolyn Myss says that you know that Spirit is present when paradox is present. Thank you for this paradox.

I take a deep breath back into my humanness and invite you to join me on this journey of coming home to our wholeness. It will be intensely and vulnerably personal. It will be unpolished. It will be real and authentic. It will be healing, although there is nothing to heal. It will be a journey, a sacred pilgrimage, although we are all already home and there is no journey. Such is the mystery of the paradox. I welcome the opportunity to walk beside you and for each of us, all of us, to come home to our wholeness.

Suseya!
Sahara

Both/ And

My journey to heal the split is both intensely personal and universal at the same time. I see that essential to the human journey is the recognition of our split from Spirit/Source and to find our way to our wholeness, only to recognize that we were never separate anyway. The separation is only an illusion.

So, if it's just an illusion, why do I have to put all this energy and intention into healing something that's not there anyway? Why can't I just step back, or step up, and recall my wholeness right here and now? Why is the split still there like a gaping wound in my belly?

Marilyn Schlitz said in an article in "EnlightenNext" that "we're living in the legacy of the Renaissance and the political deal that was struck at the time, to separate science from the soul...It ultimately created a worldview that separates us from the world."

When I read these words, I knew that my journey home to wholeness in perfectly timed, or perhaps is actually happening, because on a collective level we are beginning to challenge this paradigm and open to the possibility that all is connected and that there is no separation. That science is actually a deeply spiritual practice and exploration, because as Schlitz says, science is "a deep engagement with the mystery of the unknown."

I truly believe that we are all moving from an "either/or" to a "both/and" paradigm. We are BOTH human AND divine; BOTH matter AND consciousness; BOTH masculine AND feminine; BOTH light AND dark; BOTH body AND spirit;BOTH material AND spiritual. This is the meaning of the symbol of the 6 pointed star - as above, so below; as within, so without.

These 2 polarities can actually integrate to create a whole that is more stable and comprehensive than either aspect on its own. 

I actually saw this symbol many times on my pilgrimages last summer.  I woke up this morning remembering that it was a year ago today that I left for Spain and embarked on my pilgrimages.   I am so grateful for these experiences and getting to go.   I know that it is because of those journey that I am here right now engaged in the journey of  "healing the split" and getting to write about it.

At Chartres Cathedral, there were red triangles embedded in the magnificent designs of these huge stained glass windows.  To me, these red triangles were symbols of the divine feminine woven into the more commonly accepted stories of the Church.  When I placed the red triangles with white triangles to form the 6 pointed star, I felt a completion or a sense of wholeness in my body, in my belly.

They say that symbols cut through the layers of our logical mind and speak to us on an archtypal and intuitive level.  They speak to the truth of who we are and allow these deep truths to resonate within our bodies, our cells and our minds.  Those symbols that are created out of sacred geometry can actually re-organize and re-align our neural pathways and re-connect our thoughts and ourselves with our divine nature, and with Source itself.

So take a good look at the 6 pointed star.

I include the following description from www.medwaycropcircle.co.uk to add to your own personal experience of the star.

When two opposing triangles pass through each other we find a beautiful star emerges at the halfway point. Whilst both triangles still retain their individuality, interlaced triangles are seen as a sacred marriage that geometrically produces half-a-dozen offspring. So in one sense we have to look upon the six-pointed star as a creation symbol. Offering a profound meaning for the consciousness of the planet this is a marriage that symbolises a perfect balance of truth. One triangle looks skyward whilst the other looks earthward…”as above, so below” – “as within, so without”.  

Although generally recognised as a symbol of Judaism and the Jewish identity, what’s generally known as “The Star of David” or “Solomon’s Seal”, goes back a lot further. Found within Indian temples that are thousands of years old it was employed as a mandala, but if we look back through ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs it was a sacred symbol that read as “Land of the Spirit”.

So interesting that it read as "Land of the Spirit" - there's Earth and Spirit together, in a co-active relationship.  This is the new paradigm, or perhaps, it's actually the original paradigm that we separated from.  We have had to experience our separateness so that we may come back and appreciate our wholeness.  We have needed the contrast to remember who we really are.  How else can we truly appreciate the truth of our being unless we forget?

La Camina is the journey to heal the split, in our bodies, in our humanness, so that we re-connect and re-align with our divinity.  To walk the pilgrimage of the Celtic Camino is to physicalize La Camina.  We will walk in the "Land of the Spirit" and to embody the 6 pointed star within our bellies. We walk to heal the split for ourselves, for women, for humanity, for Earth, and even for the galaxy.  We are all connected, and what we do for ourselves, we do for all.  The opposites are integrated together to create a magnificent form that honors its parts and at the same time, creates a symbol that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Suseya!
Sahara 

Rupert

Yesterday I got to experience “My Body as My Map.” 

I went to see my friend Allison, who offers trauma healing work, and the way in is through the body.  I feel like I got to zip up and heal a small section of the split yesterday with the work we did together.

I knew I wanted to work with healing the split with her.  We talked a little bit at the beginning, and then she assisted me to bring my awareness into my body, starting with my feet.  I got to really feel myself in my feet and sitting in my seat!

Allison asked  me to say "NO" and to just feel what happens in my body when I say "NO.  Nothing dramatic or big.  Just a simple, clear, firm "NO" and then to allow that to resonate within my body and especially in my belly.

Following the map of my body, I felt as though I was on a winding road that was taking me deep into the mountains along the valley floor.  It was lush and rich with foliage, and quite difficult to get through.  I became aware of my little girl, Katie, hiding in my uterus.  Her back was pressed up against the wall of my womb as she curled herself into a ball.  I had a strange awareness that she both wanted to be found, and at the same time, did not want to found at all.  She felt scared and all alone, and desperately wanted someone to love and hold her, yet wanted to stay and hidden at the same time. 

She was about 2 to 3 years old, and felt very sad.

When I was 2 ½ years old, we moved from England to America.  I left everything that was familiar to me, including and especially my black Lab dog, Rupert.  We had been buddies.  We were together a lot, going for walks with my parents, playing together in the front garden, sitting in the little wading pool together.  The story that often gets told is that I would help him with his bone.  When Rupert had gotten all of the marrow out of the middle of the bone that he could with his tongue, I would then help him.  I would stick my finger into the marrow, pull some out for him which he would lick off my finger.  Then I would stick my finger back in and lick off the marrow myself.  Some for him, some for me.  Yum!

We left him in England when we moved because we were only going to live in America for 18 months, and England requires a 6 month quarantine when you bring a dog into England.  My parents felt it would be better for him to stay with some friends and then we would get him when we returned home.  That made sense.

Except that we never returned to England to live. 

I never got to have Rupert as my dog again.  By the time my parents decided to stay over in America to live, he had bonded with his new family and so they never brought him over here.  That made sense.

I first grieved this deep loss when I was 28 years old, 26 years after we moved from England.  It took me that long to acknowledge that I had experienced a deep loss and separation.  Whenever we had talked about it growing up, my parents’ explanations always made sense.  There was no room or encouragement to feel and express my sadness and grief.  After all, leaving Rupert in England made so much sense. 

Two weeks after I cried and cried and cried over losing Rupert, my dear canine companion, Restless, a half black Lab/half Husky, came into my life.  It was as though I had to acknowledge and grieve the loss of Rupert for another dog to come into my life.  She was with us for over 15 years, and she was one of those special ones.  Pure love, pure joy.  I loved this dog and still miss her.  Now we have a wonderful dog named Molly, also a black Lab…of course!  She’s already 10 years old and is a love.  Pure lab who loves walks, to get wet, and to chase a ball at full speed on land or in the water!

What I really experienced yesterday was how I felt that I let Rupert down.  There was no way that I was going to leave him or allow him to get left behind.  We had a pact together.  I felt completely safe and completely loved and accepted for whom I was when I was with him.  I loved being with him.  I wasn’t going unless he was going too.

Problem was that I was only 2 ½ years old!  I couldn’t do what I said I would do for him.  I felt so powerless.  I felt so sad.  I felt so bad.  I let my buddy down and we never got to be together again. 

So here I was at 2 ½ and experienced my first split between what my soul wanted, and what my body and humanness could do.  I could not actualize what my soul desired and was committed to creating.

On top of that was the huge loss of leaving my dear friend and dog in England.

Only to come to a country where everything was so unfamiliar and foreign.  It even smelled different.  I could understand people but they spoke so funny and everything sounded and felt so harsh.  I just wanted to go home.  Home to Rupert.  Home to England.  Home. 

But of course, that didn’t make sense.  My parents were here.  They loved it here.  They wanted to stay and live here.  And here I am, at 51 years old, still living here.  I sound American.  I look American.  And yet, I am English in every cell of my being.

Last summer, on my pilgrimage, I got to spend 2 weeks in England.  My daughter and I arrived by the Chunnel train from Paris and got off in a little station down in Kent.  My aunt lives nearby but other than that, I have no ancestral or immediate connection to this area of the country.  However, when we stepped off the train and stepped onto English soil, I immediately felt “I am home.”  It felt crazy and I tried to push it away.  But the visceral feeling was undeniably, “I am home.”  Every moment we spent in England, especially up north where I was born, I felt at home.  I loved being there.  Crazy part is that I sound and look totally American.  I stand out there, but I feel at home. 

Here’s another aspect of the split:  I am English but look and sound American.  I live in the States, but feel at home in England. 

One of my deepest dreams is to live in England again.  I want to go home.  I want to be home.  I want to live in my home and dig my roots deep into the soil.  Perhaps part time, perhaps fulltime.  But this is one of those sacred and courageous dreams that doesn’t make sense and also that I have no idea about how to do it.  I want to go home and resonate with the soil, my history, my ancestory, my roots and re-claim that part of me that I left behind 49 years ago -that little girl who loved her dog.  The little girl ( I keep typing “gift” instead of “girl” – that happened 2 or 3 times now)  who loved and trusted with a big open heart and who knew that she could create and manifest what her soul desired. 

I feel like I got a piece of her back yesterday.  I feel her in me, not hiding out in my belly, but integrated more into who I am.  A small section of the split healed yesterday. 

I also know now that Rupert is okay and that he forgives me.  I didn’t so much let him down – I let myself down.  I also know on a soul level that Rupert and I had an agreement to go through this process together and that he would lovingly assist me to experience the split.  I came here to experience the split so that I could also experience the wholeness.  I agreed to the split, just as Rupert agreed to assist me to experience it.  He knew that it would be painful and leave a long scar, but he wanted to be sure that I experienced it with as much love as possible.  He also knew that he would be part of the healing and my returning home to wholeness. 

And here he is, walking La Camina with me, all these years later.  He didn’t know when I would walk La Camina, but he knew I would, and he has been patiently waiting for me to come home and for us to walk together again. 

Thank you, Rupert.  I love you.

Suseya!

Sahara 

La Camina, a.k.a. The Celtic Camino

So if I have spent the last 20 years getting by and not dealing with the split, why now? Why now am I choosing to focus on healing the split?

This is a question that I have been asking myself. I really believe that my choosing to heal the split represents a convergence of intention on every level and that the time is now! It chose me and I chose it.

I committed to the work of "healing the split" during the ritual from now nearly 21 years ago - it was the summer that I became pregnant with my now 20 year old son. It really doesn't matter if I remembered the ritual or not. I made a commitment that afternoon that has powerfully shaped my life. And now I am remembering that commitment.

Also, a year ago I became a pilgrim. Last spring, I walked the last 170 kilometers of the El Camino de Santiago in Spain and then I traveled by train with my then 15 year old daughter up the Celtic Camino from Santiago up through France to Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh, Scotland. I am clear that as a pilgrim, we have both our conscious reasons for our pilgrimages and also our unconscious reasons that only become apparent after we have completed our journey. Perhaps if we were to know the true reason for the pilgrimage we might not take it, so we go on our journey under the pretense of our known reasons. Yet the pilgrimage works its magic and the real reason always emerges anyway.

Walking the Camino and traveling up the Celtic Camino was a pilgrimage of initiation for me. I admit that I knew it was an initiation, but quite honestly, at the time, I had no idea what I was being initiated into. This is what has revealed itself over the past year. Sue Kenney, with whom I walked the Camino last year, says that "when the Camino is over, the journey begins." What is so interesting is that Sue is back on the Camino right now walking through Galicia to Santiago. She is walking a day or two further than we did a year ago, but I am reliving my Camino as I follow her on her Susesya page in Facebook. It is so alive and pulsing in me a year later, as though I can remember every step that I walked.

My journey began when I left Rosslyn Chapel last June.

In the perfection of Spirit, without my having to do anything to plan this, I traveled to the city of my birth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England. I began my journey home at my birthplace.

But I jump ahead of myself. I want to share more with you about my pilgrimages as they are essential to why I am healing the split and even writing this blog today.

While I was on the Camino, I realized that walking the Camino was my physical and spiritual preparation for the Celtic Camino. While everyone else was walking the Camino as their pilgrimage, I was walking in preparation for my sacred pilgrimage, the journey that follows a sacred configuration of seven pre-Christian sites, from Santiago de Compostela, Spain, up through France to Rosslyn, Scotland. This sacred configuration forms the route of a "pilgrimage of initiation" used by the Druids and Christian mystics in their search for true knowledge and enlightenment. These 7 sacred sites actually correspond to the 7 chakras of the human body.

Even before I left to travel on this pilgrimage, I called this journey “La Camina.” I could feel deep within myself that it embodied for me the sacred feminine and the hidden streams of spirituality that flow beneath the surface, connecting all of life, rooted in the body of the Earth and the ancient wisdom traditions. After my experiences on the pilgrimage and in my journey over the past year, I am more clear than ever that the Celtic Camino is a profound "pilgrimage of initiation" and that even more importantly, it is an initiation of deep feminine wisdom and healing.

Hence, LA CAMINA. It is the way of the feminine, a feminine journey to bring one home to oneself, in body, in wholeness, balance and deep connection. One is not hit over the head. It is subtle, yet profound. It unearths oneself from the deep core of our being without our even having to be aware of it until it starts to spill over into one's life, like a volcano.

It has not been a violent process for me. The volcano isn't spewing hot lava ferociously, at least not yet. It has been persistent, oozing, heating up, not to be ignored and you'd better pay attention to me kind of volcano. As I write these words, I realize that the goddess Kali is here with her fiery energy, demanding that I pay attention to her, to me and to honor this process. If I don't, she will boil forth with molten lava.

I made a commitment to heal the split 21 years ago. I traveled La Camina and was initiated.

The time is now.

Suseya,

Sahara