I wrote this song during a grief retreat I was called in to help facilitate on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in early November. During a “tree sitting” exercise, I sat beneath a tree by the water and started picking a simple pattern on my guitar. Fifteen minutes later, this song was written. I remember imagining the tree’s roots, and imagining my roots, and seeing them begin to exchange nourishment, trading sacred information.
This past year, and the last six months, have been a whirlwind, though I appeared to be relatively still. I was a hummingbird. I finally decided, after a lifetime of running from one endeavor to the next in a sneaky effort to avoid the discomfort of true stability, to avoid the parts of myself that have still been stuck in the distorted stories of my own trauma, to actually stay where I am. I almost didn’t, but in the few months leading up to my lease ending, I found a place in community here that I felt like a true “home,” a more organic version of that concept than I’ve ever really known before.
So I stuck my flag in the ground and decided to stay. And, as it usually goes, that kicked off a whole new healing cycle for me, which flipped my place in that community on its head. I don’t regret my part in that disruption, because it was a direct reflection of my self worth having grown, and, to be honest, it was time. So much of me was reflected back to my awareness. I started to feel safer than I ever have before, and that revealed elements of masks I didn’t realize I had been wearing. I needed space and time to set those masks down, wash my face, and get used to my truer identity. I don’t know how much space and time I still need. I trust the process, though it is wildly uncomfortable.
The almost two months since then have felt like ten years. So very much has changed in my person. I feel fully cocooned, protected from the outside world as I release and change and anchor in more of who I really am now, who I’ve really been this whole time.
I’ve been running forever, and then wondering why so few people have stayed. I do have many valuable, long-term, steady relationships in my life. I don’t want to discount those. But I’ve also been left a lot. I’ve been forced to come face to face with all the ways my defense mechanisms, as well as a general disregard of discernment informed by low self worth, have played a major role in that. It’s so easy to convince yourself you’re not running away when you have ambition. It’s easy to be left when you invest in people your gut told you to run from. It’s so easy to run when things get uncomfortable. But that discomfort just follows you from place to place until you’re finally forced to face it.
What I’ve learned the past few months, and what this song helped solidify for me, is that making a choice to stay in the discomfort is actually quite easy when you’ve invested in good people and community. It’s a painful no-brainer.
So I’ve committed to staying here, at least for now, so I can let my roots expand and extend and grow into a strong and sturdy foundation for myself. I know what I want to build atop that foundation, and I look forward to being surprised in Divine Timing with how it will all take shape and who will be there with me.
For now, I’m around.
xx Meg
This video was produced, filmed, and edited by Spilling Pictures Studio.
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