Tuesday, October 14, 2014

When being is a coming out

 
photo credit


I am a moth cocooned. 
Seed breaking open in the earth. 
Match flame flickering on cave walls. 
A waxing crescent moon. 
A chick sodden in birth's yolk, pecking her way out to bigger life.

* * * * * 

I stood in a barn on Saturday and watched these chicks behind glass, incubating, stumbling around on shaky legs, fluffing feathers as they dried. A row of eggs in front showed varying signs of birth in process. A beak poking through webbing cracks. The upper half of a tiny body wriggling, struggling in slow motion, to emerge. 

She looked so alone in that foreground, the only one breaking this far out. I wanted to stay and cheer her on. I needed to know she'd make it. Instead, I finally whispered to her and walked away among the children clamoring around the farm.

* * * * * 

In passing conversation, people often ask, What's new? and the most honest and compelling answer would be - Me. I'm new. 

But this, of course, is not for words exchanged in a hurry. 


It's one of those seasons where most of life seems to be happening beneath the surface and I forget how hard it is to translate this kind of life into words at all, let alone here, in my writing. My writing, in so many ways, has become my way of seeing. My gauge of sight. If I am not writing, I fear it is because I am not seeing. Anxiety swoops in, strings her web across the walkway, and I feel it on my skin, trying to shake free. All the things I am not doing in order to live the life I desire, all the ways I am not being that normally open my eyes to see, taunt me.

Until I STOP. 

And remember where I am. For maybe it's true that I need, for the rest of my soul, for the care of my body, to slow down and sit and rest in these places of seeing. But scolding myself only makes me curl in a ball of shame.

And maybe it's true, too, that be-ing isn't always a quiet rest and slowing down, as much as this is what I crave. Maybe be-ing can also be a coming out and into who I am, who I've been all along and who I'm still becoming. And this, right here, is not a quiet process. It's turbulent, exhausting, unnerving, compelling. Yes, this. I am compelled to come out. To become this person I can't quite see yet, but who is slowly coming into focus.

It's a season of staring from the inside at walls that are cracking, opening, breaking. A pushing up and out of the earth. A shaking out of birth's dampened wings. And I am learning, ever so slowly, to be more gentle with myself, for it's hard to see in here.

Harder, still, to grasp for words. And yet, I reach.

* * * * *

Joining the beautiful, gracious community at Unforced Rhythms.







10 comments:

  1. "It's a season of staring from the inside at walls that are cracking, opening, breaking." ... Oh, I may be grabbing onto that phrase, friend. Imagining what it feels like to be the chick inside the egg indeed gives me more grace for myself as the one also inside the thing just now cracking open, unable to really see what I am becoming and what the world will look like when I become it. Just love this. And you. (And meeting up with you at Unforced Rhythms on Mondays)

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    1. It helps, doesn't it, to imagine ourselves in this process - to give this grace? I'm so grateful for whatever you grab onto, friend - whatever you want, it was never mine to give. And that is the beauty of it all. xoxo

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  2. Praise God for transformation -- from caterpillar to butterfly, from doomed sinner to new creation in Christ. Thanks for the beautiful post & God bless.

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  3. oh my, sometimes i think, I am just going to read Kelli and Amber and who needs to write!. but then I, like you, know if i am not writing I am not noticing. that is true of me. during some of the silent periods on my blog. of course sometimes, meds and surgery steal your brain and you couldn't write even if you are noticing! thanks for this. Very timely tonight for me. I feel a sort of emerging too. Blessings

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    1. Good Lord, Carol, surgery will DEFINITELY steal your brain! I wasn't good for much after my surgery. And you know what? I'm glad you push through that thought of "who needs to write" - for surely we need your words, too!

      I'm looking forward to hearing more of this emerging that is taking place in you...

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  4. Love this - "What's new? and the most honest and compelling answer would be - Me. I'm new."

    Isn't that true for each of us, each day? We just don't often pause to consider what a miracle it indeed is. Thanks for this, Amber.

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    1. A miracle, indeed, Lisa! How much I miss by not pausing to consider...

      So good to see you here. Thank you.

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  5. Wow. This is sacred. I hardly know what to say, but thank you, friend. You are a miracle, new and shining in your becoming -- right through the mess that feels so unlovely. I adore you, sister.

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