My 30-year-old daughter arrived yesterday to visit us here in the mountains. We went for a walk after dinner, and the first thing I said to her was, “Is there anything you want to know about me? Anything you’ve wondered? Any questions you might have?” She gazed at me, open-eyed, frank, totally accepting of the question, not like it came out of left field, confirming that yes, she has wondered; she does have questions. I started by telling her about a Tweet I wrote that got 434 likes, lots of encouraging, supportive comments, and several re-Tweets about surviving survival sex as a homeless teen and how the shame is still alive and that I’m writing about it because the shame belongs elsewhere. My daughter said, “Tell me about that.”
So I did.
Was it too much? For both of us?
Spirit Guides keep telling me, “You did well, Polly. You did well.”
So here I sit on this fine Sunday morning before the sun pops over the mountaintop, enjoying the quiet in the house before everyone gets up, feeling grateful for the guidance I receive from my Loved Ones. They always let me know the right action for my highest good and that of others where it is in my power to help facilitate Essence. I will ask my daughter today, ‘How are you doing? That was a bit much, I know.’ She promised to let me know when the stories I tell are too much. She wants to know me, who I was, the stories that have made me who I am in this physical human form. These stories tell of my spiritual evolution as well, the essence of me. At least, that’s how I think of it, of me. And her. We are a unit, she and I — mother and daughter. And she is her separate self, and I am my separate self.
I want to flow in the spirit of Life, to reach my highest evolution…
I want to flow in the spirit of Life, to reach my highest evolution, which will take forever, I guess. I don’t know for sure. But I want to live conscientiously aware of my Being and vibrate with all the energy available to me and do my part in my capacity as mother to help my daughter do the same. And so, I want her to know her roots, where she comes from, who helped bring her into this world and chaperone her for a short while.
The sun has now risen and is pouring golden light onto the dining room table where I write. We are heading into the mountains today to view the peak blooms of the wild rhododendrons.
"All this self-questioning is not meant to be punitive or self-deprecating, but rather in the spirit of the birth of the Light of the World, that is, in the spirit of loving and enlightening our tired, burdened, and stale ways of thinking/acting in the past." from p. 260 of Untie the Strong Woman by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD