This is Day One of a New Year

Even the longest journey starts with  one step (from a Chinese Fortune Cookie), so today, without planning to, I took a baby step on a new pilgrimage.  New beginnings are clearly able to decide for themselves when they will launch, though I did have a few intimations from the universe that something was up.  It began with my awareness of a stubborn clinging to life (the sapling that’s determined to thrive in that scratch of soil between two slabs of rock) and a growing restlessness with feeling sad.  It continued when I ‘found my tribe’ upon discovering that there was a subculture of humanity called “Menopausal Women”.   Spurred on recently by a blood test that confirmed I was in full menopause (after more than a year without a period), I started researching the hormonal havoc leading up to this stage in life.  I am not talking women’s magazines here.  I am talking scholarly journals that describe how menopause can cause some women to implode with fury and destruction.    It is the quintessential black hole of emotion.  Add to that, seeing comedienne Sandra Shamas recently give her hilarious description of how menopause put a ‘carnival in her head’ and atomic rage in her soul, and you can’t imagine my relief to learn that I am not crazy.   I didn’t know I was peri-menopausal because I’d been on ‘the pill’ for years, so you could set your watch by my periods.  My marriage ended... I didn’t need birth control any more... the pills got flushed down the toilet and my periods stopped!  Oh! So that’s why I had hot flashes for the previous two years and would strip my shirt off at the dinner table!  (Don't you wish you'd been invited for dinner one of those nights?  You could have met 'the girls'.) Oh!  So that’s why I had insomnia for months!  Oh so that’s why everything was always getting on my last nerve!  Oh! So that’s why I would lie in bed on multiple occasions and sob “God- what the hell is wrong with me?!!”  I had no one to provide answers.  My sister wasn’t there yet, and neither my mother nor grandmother kept their uteruses long enough to experience menopause. You’d think maybe my doctor might have suggested this possibility.  Hello??!!

The other hint that I was about to embark on a new trail was the extent to which I couldn’t get a specific book out of my mind.  It was “Hinds feet on High Places” (a modern day Pilgrim’s Progress) and its Shepherd and Sojourner metaphor resonated with me like an Alice Munro short story.  In it, the protagonist named Much-Afraid learns to trust the Chief Shepherd to show her that she is beautiful, that she is loved and that she is loveable.  Along the journey, she builds small altars where she offers up her deepest fears and longings that have impeded her ability to accept grace.  On each altar she places a stone.  The book was staggeringly powerful for me and I suspected that it would be part of my healing from the terrible pain of a lost marriage.

But.... I did not suspect when I took my dog out for a walk this morning,  that I would return to my home much much later, marking Day One of a New Year.  It was a grey, rainy and muddy morning, not the kind of day on which one expects to find enlightenment.  I set off on a new trail with my dog and deliberately let myself get lost.  I wandered through ravines along the east Don River, under the 401, along stone paths and dirt paths. My dog was off-leash and we did not encounter a soul. After about ninety minutes of wandering I realized that I was in the middle of a picture perfect little forest with no signs of the city to disrupt my unexpected feeling of peace.  Suddenly I was compelled to set up a little altar like Much Afraid and my eyes fell on the perfect location.  At the foot of a strong tall tree was a lovely little patch of lichen (paging Alice Munro!) and next to that was a caramel coloured stone.  In an inspired act, I placed the stone on the lichen, stepped back and heard myself declaring to the trees around me that I entrusted to God (as I know Him through my Christian tradition... but feel free to substitute:  “Universe” or “Spirit Mother” or whatever works for you)  the remainder of my days and  that I was willing to relinquish my hold on my vision for my future so that He could work out the details of His.  It was a profound moment to say the least, because my vision included me being loved by a husband and never having to be alone... so that was a killer to let go of.  It was a moment signalling a new beginning, at least it felt like that.  I captured an image of my little altar with my cell phone, so that I could not later, in the midst of the day-to-day grind, deny its significance.