T.Y. Chambers's Blog

I’m so tired,

Trying to envision all the ways

Sacred ideas,

Which are always expressed in the masculine,

Might apply to me.

I have never broken an exercise-induced sweat in my life

But in my mind I am a gymnast

Twisting and turning

And flipping ‘God’ backwards and forwards

The ‘He’s’

And the ‘brotherhood’

And the ‘son’

And the ‘father’

All thrown about as if we were on stage in a ballet,

Strewn out on the floor like clothes in a teenager’s bedroom.

Too small

Too big

How on earth can I get these to fit?

Tossed about like a salad,

Which word tastes the most like ‘woman’?

Each word, a shard of glass from a broken mirror;

In which one can I see myself?

It’s so tiring,

To have to translate from male experience

Into female experience

And then apply that message to myself

It’s like drinking in the masculine

And drowning in it

Until the feminine is expelled from my body, mind and soul in a cleansing:

A watery exorcism

A dispelling of the truth of me; my interpretation of the sacred; my experience with the divine

How many times have you tried to rise up in a search for the sacred,

Only to be forced upon your knees and told that the journey has already been made by a man: that you need search no more?

For a person with no experience is but a child.

And we women have been kept as daughters,

Excluded from our sacred womanhood

By the ancient power of words that have scratched and scraped our skin and decorated our souls in open sores.

It’s so tiring to try to heal these wounds

That were passed down to me from my mother

And to her by her own mother.

But I do because I have found the cure.

It is to seek spiritual experience and interpret it for myself,

Through art,

Through writing,

Through dance.

Through music and journeying.

Through knowing what does what in my body and why.

Through accepting every flaw,

And through my emotions.

I stand in my womanhood.

That is the cure.

We are inside all that there is and all that ever will be

We are women, constantly recreating versions of ourselves by the light of the moon.

Waxing, full and waning,

Maiden, Mother, Crone.

Society tells us that we can only be one or the other at any given time,

But the wise woman knows.

We are all three.

At all times.

We are potential

We are the present moment

We weave visions of the future into blankets we lay over our loved ones.

Like Russian nesting dolls,

Under one layer of our woman lies another

Whose faults and mistakes helped build a stronger version of ourselves.

Never forgotten,

The wisdom of women past,

live on inside us,

Mother, Maiden, Crone.

We are all three at all times.

The wise woman knows.

They say that the role of the priestess in modern society has been buried

Like a crumbling temple left to fester under sand

Regarded unimportant by the men who determine

What society should embrace,

Remember,

And hold dear.

They don't know that the priestess lives on.

How many times have you assured a friend that they are good enough?

And how many ways have you given someone space to fall?

Have you ever given someone time to show you who they truly are? Even when they weren’t sure themselves?

And so the priestess lives on.

Can you remember a time when you witnessed a person kick away their tight bud?

Burst into blossom?

Embrace the sky?

And so the priestess lives on.

And when was the last time you kissed someone goodbye,

Leaving the wet of your lips on their cheeks,

Like holy water on foreheads,

Like rain on cracked Earth.

And so the priestess lives on.

To witness

Hold space

Bless

And heal.

This is the work of the priestess

So in you, the priestess lives on.

I’ve travelled the world, searching for items for my sacred altar,

A slab of worn wood, paint peeled back, placed in the corner of the room.

A reminder to pray,

A mirror to my soul,

Take me back home to God.

Meticulously placed beeswax candles resting in the four corners

A scattering of Turkish rose petals

An English yew tree branch

And an autumnal cluster of leaves;

Our Lady, calmly standing amidst the chaos,

Arms outstretched in surrender.

Yes, here was my holy altar.

But then I fell in love and I discovered my moon-like heart,

Which waxed and waned

And when I experienced the dark,

prayer was my light

palms touching was my way back home

the bow of my head was my surrender

my knees on the ground,

my truth.

And so all the candles

And leaves

And roses

Fell away until it was just me kneeling there

And it was then I learnt that my heart is my altar.  

And in my search for God, I looked for sacred space.

A place where the Divine speaks its drop-to-your-knees, throw-your-hands-up truth.

Where I could dance between ancient oaks

And pray on mountaintops

And draw the Goddess down.

But then my niece was born into this world

And her holiness was evident in her every breath

Her divinity pervading her every glance

Her Godliness, still in her touch and her smell.

She had been created in sacredness,

A literal sanctity that is the womb.

I knew I had found my sacred space within me.

So then I searched for The Word.

A snippet of wisdom that would remind me of home,

A map that would guide me back to where I had come from,

A holy story to connect me to God.

Until one day I decided to read my heart

And listen to the rush of the blood through my veins.

Sometimes, I was soaring over ancient Palmyra

and breathing in the fresh scent of Damascene jasmine.  

Sometimes I was underground, so alone with what I had done that my memories seeped into my flesh,

And my regrets burned into my muscle,

Until I realised my story had been written on my bones,

And it is this story that is now my holy book,

Its words, The Words of wisdom I spent so long looking for.

I have given my whole life to my search for the sacred,

And discovered myself instead.

My body is the temple in which my altar stands

And my womb is my sacred space.

The words on my bones are the words of God

And the wisdom they contain is my own.

Here is the sacred woman and this is the truth of her.

So to you sister, I bow.

There’s a reason why I fall to my knees in the desert

Why I relish every miniscule grain of sand

Why my heart skips a beat at the sight of mighty mountains emerging from golden beds

Why I feel I am in the presence of the Divine.

I know why I have the urge to pray in the desert.

Why my palms press together and my forehead touches the Earth,

Why my tears drip to the ground in recognition of the circle of life

And every step I take is a walk of gratitude.

I understand that to enter the desert is like a twirl in a circle dance,

A footfall in a labyrinth meditation,

A line from an ancient chant, born from the voices of women passed,

Still reverberating off of every rock, every mountain side, every heart of every person who ever walked the Earth.

Because the desert stands alone

And in its aloneness lies its strength

For the desert is what it is and it knows

It is no more than a desert and no less.

It lies and it burns, scorched with the passion of thousands of suns

of love,

from love,

In love

With itself

Because it is at peace with the nothingness of its soul

And in its nothingness it manages to capture the meaning of life:

Acceptance,

Surrender,

Forgiveness,

And teacher desert achieves it all in perfect stillness.

I want to be like the desert wild and raw and free

With no expectations and hopes of my own,

Except for the desire to

love,

love,

love

And be guided.

Just as the desert embraces the void

So do I want to fall into nothing-ness

And just as the desert relishes in its emptiness

So do I want to become that empty vessel for God to fill.

For the desert is a reflection of me

And I of it.

God has taken over.

Nothing but love lives here now.

It was inevitable that in my grounded-ness, I would create fertile soil, midnight black and deep inside.

It spreads far and wide: an unploughed field, an unkempt garden, a rich connection to mother Earth.

And so I bury things there.

On all fours I crawl, brought to my knees by the glimpses of divinity I catch in my soul.

I sense I am doing the right thing.

I dig away,

Looking for the right spot to bury my feelings, my memories, my happiness, my pain because I am not looking for illusions of light, I am comfortable here in the shadows, shaded from the moon by the trees.

My hair’s a mess and I’m not wearing shoes but I always continue to dig.

It hurts to let go and I sometimes howl in pain, but that is the nature of the bury-things-woman. She doesn't run from her primal self and she would never deny her past.

Because I bury things, deep down inside, that’s just what some women do.

To be strong.

To love fierce.

To die only to herself and for nobody else.

I bury things and breathe deep.

For I am the heart of the Earth where pain seeps in and where wounds of our ancestors fester.

In my grounded-ness it has been impossible not to grow roots and that is how pain travels and wounds never heal.

It is in these roots that sacrifice reigns and loyalty wins and connection lives on.

And in my grounded-ness I have smoothed over; a rock on a seashore, a stone in meditation, under a busy, indigo sea.

I may bury things but I am all things strong.

You say it brings me down,

That my love for others keeps me on my knees.

I say it is in this love that I rise up.

First I bury,

Then I rise.

Rise in my strength of heart.

Rise in my love for God.

Rise in the power of women past,

Rise in my potential to heal.

I rise, rise, rise.

Despite what you think, I will not fall, because I cannot fall.

I am woman. 

I’ve lost you.

I wish I’d known that the journey to find myself, was in fact an unlearning of all I knew,

Including you.

Because now we are two ships passing each other over a midnight sea and the quiet of it shatters my soul.

I’d wail in sheer pain at the unjustness of it all but I’ve lost my voice to the waves and the shimmer of the moon mirrored on the water has stolen the last of my light.

There’s nothing I can do but let you go and make wishes on stars for tries again and karma and miracles and strength.

I like to imagine what I’d do if I had a second chance with you.

I think I’d open up.

I’d grab you by the hand and lead you to remnants of my broken-self scattered over dry desert.

I could show you the pieces of me I discarded willfully and those I lost to hurricanes.

Those that caused my death.

Those that gave me new life.

If only I could have a second chance.

I’d take you back to that moment when I could not unfurl my wings, scorched from the cremation of my friend into ash. I’d show you how I danced between love and oblivion but still found my way home.

I wish I could reminisce with you about the day I died to myself. That night I stood in darkness to adore the light. I stood in silence to find my voice.

If I had a second chance, I thought I’d lead you to where I came of age; to where I honoured the truth of myself; to where I fell apart.

But you’re here in front of me now and instead I thrust my hands into wet clay and build a wall, planting evergreens so that I can never be exposed in the winters of my life.

Because I never want you to know that the summer sun doesn't burn inside me and that my spirit can no longer sprout flowers like it used to. I don't want you to know that the same spring breeze won’t shake both our branches and that my frost won’t always melt at dawn.

So you look into my eyes and I see wounds from the loss of me there.

I want to shout from the tallest oak to let you know that I am not broken – down,

That I have just broken – out.

And I want to grab you by the shoulders

To tell you that I do still love,

That I do bleed,

I cry.

You tell me my heart is like ice,

Not understanding that you contain the mystery,

The beauty,

The warmth of a raging fire.

Of course I can’t let you in.

So I continue to sit here and work on my walls,

A song on my lips,

A beat on my goat-skin drum.

And I try to ignore the fact that I’ve lost my dear father,

On the journey to find myself.

My spiritual path is my own. It is called the-way-of-the-one-who-lets-go.

There’s only one rule on this path, and that is that you,

Release

Relinquish

Let go

Let live and let die.

I know now, when to give up. For I have lived wild like the wind, and I have fallen like the rain and I have burned with the sun.

I’ve grown roots as yew trees grow roots.

Desperate and unruly but with a target in mind.

Blind, I’ve felt around in darkness, under the cold Earth and in places where it is too lonely to breed love.

But burn I did anyway,

And twirled roots around dead things and brought them up to the surface, too afraid to let go.

Until I realized that holding on wouldn't raise him from his deep sleep,

And squeezing him tighter wouldn't make him wake.

For he is dozing in his peaceful slumber and my burning sun can’t touch him.

My screams on the wind are muffled to his ears.

You said it was unnatural, dear sister, for him to not love you back, for him to not comfort you in your hour of need. That it was unnatural to have such a lack of compassion as he showed you time and time again.

But what is more unnatural?

For a cherry tree to retain its blossoms in a hurricane?

Or a leaf to stay green in a snow storm?

Or an apple to cling to its branch and ignore the voice calling it home?

Things die sister.

Things die.

And some things never grew to begin with.

So be like the wise Earth, blessed one, and welcome the winter.

Because you deserve to live like the wind.

Oh my beautiful sisters!

Don't you know it's okay to bow your head to receive your crown?

Like the way the Great Mother releases summer every year and welcomes death.

Let go.

Let in.

Let out.

Know yourself and meet your queen-self. She calls to you to

Stop

Breathe

Feel the heaviness.

That's right. Feel it.

There, on your right shoulder is the weight of that mistake you made.

There, on the other is the burden of that loved one you think you’ve failed.

The crushing on your back is that relationship you just couldn't get to run right. Oh! How you tried! How you loved! How you burned!

I Stop.

I Breathe.

I Feel and the pain of it pierces my chest; the guilt of it squeezes my heart. My hand reaches over my left breast as if I have the power to heal with an open palm. I hang my head and my hair falls forward, tickling my chin.

I stay like that for what feels like forever as I silently travel back in time.

And it is in that silence that I hear a voice. Her voice that can only be heard in rain storms and tsunamis and forest fires.

She simply says rise.

And so my spine realigns as my chin leads the way and I rise.

Rise because life goes on.

Rise because we are free.

Rise because you have done your best.

Rise because you have loved like ocean waves.

Rise in the knowing that there is no shame in bowing to pain because in rising you do no less than reclaim your queen-hood. And you will rise again. Wiser and wilder than before.

Oh my dearest sister.

Didn't you know it's okay to bow your head to receive your crown?

I feel like I’ve spent my whole life trying to show you who I am.

But you can’t see me, dear friend,

You just won’t see me.

You have ideas of who you want me to be,

And there are those visions of who I should be that leave my colour smudged and my shine, dulled.

Do I conform and die?

Live and lie?

You don’t want to see me.

One evening I journeyed to the desert to ask the Goddess what I should do.

My gypsy skirt scraped the sand,

Grains in-between my toes,

And I was just about to give up and go home,

when a glimmer of sun illuminated out from behind the dusty mountains.

It lit up my heart, and moved my soul, and I heard the words,

"You were created in the spirit of 'be'"

And it was there that I had my ‘bright night of the soul’.

I was going to 'be'.

I clambered upon a sand dune and simply broke down,

Broke up

Broke out

And as I raised my arms up to the Heavens, my wrists made snapping sounds and my ankles clanked apart.

In the desert is where I saw myself for who I am,

But you dear friend,

You can’t see me.

You say I love too hard, that I love too soft, that I need too fierce after only one night.

But a lunar eclipse only takes an evening to complete,

And a meteoroid needs only a second to fall,

A cloud takes an instant to burst.

A thousand stars can die in a minute.

I am reflected in them but you can’t see me.

You say I’m too emotional, too feeling-full, too ‘woman’

But who can stand the weight of mountains

And not sink back into the soft, grassy Earth but a little?

You say it is because I am weak that I lie here on the ground, my tears wetting the soil.

I say it is because I am the Earth, and that sometimes us women get called home,

To water baby seeds.

To grow new life.

If you keep focusing on how far I fall,

You won’t be able to see me when I rise.

And if you don't see that I have risen,

You won’t know that I am not the same woman who fell.

So dear friend,

I vow to stop wishing you would change your mind about who you think I should be.

If I can be found in the Earth and sky then so can you.

And if I can accept me then so can you.

And if I can see beauty in myself then so can you.

For I have learnt that I can’t make anyone see.

All I can do is show you who you are,

just by being me.