What is this Sacrifice-Thing?

In case you missed what I was getting at, by sitting in my frozen fallow field, and in case I missed it (which is more than entirely likely) it is this: My writing vocation cannot come without grave sacrifice. Geez. This is not what I want to hear from my unconscious mind. I want my ease and effortless now! I didn't know that this is what "sacrifice" meant. Can I give my calling back now? No? Shoot.

This is what it is like: My daughter wants extra money for a field trip, and I have to say, "No, sorry, honeybee. Mommy is a writer."  My son wants some new food treat at the store as I am frugally buying groceries, and I have to say, "No, sorry, little peach. Mommy is a writer." I would like to buy a new winter coat, and I have to say to myself, "Get real. There is no extra money while you are developing this writing. No, you can't buy a bottle of wine. No, there is no vacation yet. No, don't expect little goose-bump treats and surprises while you are laboring in the field of writing." It is either, "No," or it is giving up on my calling. It is agonizing to understand this fully now, late in the game, and to look at the big picture of my life and to comprehend that nothing will change until I fully accept this bill.

So when someone excitedly announces to the world that they've been "called" to do something, I am not likely to be the one who cheerfully high fives them. I'm the sober one in the corner, thinking, "uh oh." I know it is possible that had I answered this call, made these sacrifices when I was much younger and less obligated to be responsible that it might have felt differently. All I can say, is that I was doing the best I could under the circumstances, and this is the first moment in my life when I felt that, "Now, it is possible to focus on that calling." That may be the way it is happening for you, or maybe your calling is buoyed by a different kind of angel-winged support. At any rate, I do believe that old saying that "nothing good comes without a sacrifice." It is just unpredictable what will be demanded of us.

I know that I am lucky beyond measure to find myself in a supportive relationship. Even my children will back down from their age-appropriate demands when I say, "I'm writing." I have friends who are equally good writers working nearly full-time to support themselves while they write. They may not have children at home, but they have bills to pay. The sacrifice is always there.

There are no guarantees. I may write into this void until my dying days, but it is somehow a requirement of my soul. Freeing myself from the fantasy, that I can serve everyone else’s needs and desires instead of writing, or still writing, is terrible. I have spent the better part of a year second-guessing this lesson that’s been poking around my heart. While I have made easy money before in my life, it was strange and dehumanizing to me. This experience, even sitting in the frozen, fallow field of my dreams is very human feeling, and, for even this truth alone, I am grateful for the sacrifice and my good fortune to follow it to its end. I hope by setting this example that my children will have the grace to follow their dreams early and ruthlessly, but I know that every person has her own journey on the spiral staircase. I hope that my orchard of peaches, my writings, will one day bring pleasure to those who stumble upon them. I feel like these are not fantasies. I hope I’m right.

a sacred sacrifice

Sister was born with me. She lived in the southern region for all of my years so far. In her youth her only job was the same as mine...to grow strong and independent.

One day, about fourteen years into life, Sister woke up to her purpose. Filling with the Moon, she became full of herself. Her moods changed. She demanded attention when darkness fell, and the Moon reflected less light, afraid she would never become full of confidence again. After years of this cycle, she became used to it. She fell into a rhythm like the tides of the ocean. Sister hit her stride. Sweet, tidy and pink she went about her business ignorant that there would be more demanded of her.

As time went on, she found herself reaching out to become more, as we all do. She sought her purpose with a vigor that she demanded be matched by the desire of some puny little fish that swam in one day. She would never make it easy to take her over by anything less than a wish for life. And, sure enough life grew within her. During those 9 months she stretched to her capacity and then stretched further. She became the ocean itself. She became the vessel for all beginnings, the vesica piscis, the perfect one. Creation itself happened upon her shores and she reveled that she should be so lucky as to have this purpose: the Great Creatrix.

Sister was visited somewhere along the way by a muscular stranger. This stranger attached itself to her walls, fed upon her tide pools, and became stronger and invited more. All the while Sister kept to her work of creation and manifestation. Two perfect beings were squeezed out of her sea when the time was right, and though it was taxing beyond belief, Sister felt fulfilled again in yet a more profound way, and she rested.

All the while the muscular strangers became more vigorous and insistent about space. It was like this one day: Sister still felt as beautiful and pink as ever when she went out to the movies. She took her seat half way down the row of seats as she always had, to get the best view of the action. Trailing with her were these big sweaty rednecks who she politely ignored most of the time. But when she was with the Moon, full in her splendor, she found she couldn't take her place quite right, she was in fact right of center, pushed off course. And, when she had to shed her fullness, the strangers got in the way, and she pushed them with all the might she had to push two children into the world, but they would not leave. Sister became exhausted. So there she was at the movies, and these strangers took the seat in front of her, and beside her, and the biggest one sat on the back of his seat and fell backwards on top of her smothering her until she could hardly breath much less watch the creation she'd come to watch as the puny little fish came towards her with a wish for life.

She pushed that stranger out of the way as much as she could and offered the empty corner of what was left of her vast ocean to the life that wanted to be. And, they tried to repeat the miracle. Alas. The little life could only grow for a few weeks before the strangers smothered it with jealousy claiming Sister was THEIR mother, and they would not share her anymore. The little life resigned its light to some other realm, and left Sister bereft for months. She convulsed violently to rid herself of these obnoxious strangers who would never amount to anything but hardened,lost dreams. She pushed and pushed, and bled out more than she could bleed out, and the rest of the month lay there in a pool of self-doubt urging me to help, to take some action that could relieve her misery.

How can one say good-bye to a twin, a sister who is so much more impressive than one admittedly is or may ever be? My Sister within gave life to my greatest joys, and to just abandon her to some surgical solution seemed overwhelming and disrespectful. But, when I got a load of those strangers suckling greedily upon her, I realized that something had to be done. And, I did hope we could just get rid of the strangers and continue on our journey of Creation on the physical plane together. That was possible for a time perhaps, but it went on so long that the strangers were having a party now at both our expense, embedding themselves deeply into the vascular streams that fed the ocean. Two ways presented themselves. Let the strangers have their party until Sister or I died, whichever came first, or make a sacrifice of death befitting a Goddess.

Sister showed me what it was like with that vision of having a stranger suffocate her at the movies. I couldn't believe I'd let that go on so long, but I was unaware of her problems as I nursed her creations in life. Now that we understood each other we could find a way to make it beautiful together. Understanding that an initiation is the process of transmutation, giving up one thing to take on another, sacrificing a part of oneself, that another might blossom, Sister offered her existence to me to consider an unexpected appeasement to Creation.

When we initiated together in the cause of the physical plane, we were an amazing and smashing success until the invasion of the strangers. I mean we fulfilled our purpose together perfectly. We sacrificed our time, our energy, our appearance, our everything to participate in giving new life, and we hummed. It was an easy sacrifice. It should be noted and celebrated that we can hardly call ourselves a failure in that respect. The fact that the strangers couldn't be shed is perhaps a genetic lesson passed down from grandmother to mother, mother to daughter until finally one of us makes a conscious effort to comprehend it.

I was told by wise woman, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, that the masters of old believed that a body part lost in this realm is believed to continue to exist in the spirit realm, perfect, whole and complete and ready to work on a different level. The uterus, my Sister, is the vessel of creation, the embracer of magik, the great manifester, and she's been really awesome in every regard. I thank her for her partnership, and her innate wisdom as my teacher in listening to the rhythms of life Hirself. But this final physical act may be her most glorious.

Willingly, she leaves this body because we both know that the strangers cannot follow her there as long as we make this sacrifice a conscious one. We sacrifice the physical life of this womb as an act of initiation into the Creation and Manifestation of that which will best Serve Love. In the Spirit Realm Sister will hold open the space for new ideas to take hold, and she will help me to nurture them and keep them in the oven of manifestation until they are ready to be pushed through the birth canal and into the World here and beyond. I make no apologies for sounding off for the love of wombs gone everywhere. We do not hate you when we let you go with this fullness of intention. This is not an easy sacrifice, but finally a necessary one and I am with you, Sister.