Friday, February 29, 2008
Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. --Starhawk
Cheri Mueller
What is Cocooning?
When I first started this blog, I was in a season of life that felt like a complete undoing. I was undergoing a personal death of sorts, a reversal of life as I had once known it. And suddenly everything came into question: my identity, my relationships, my purpose on earth, and even my faith.
Oh how I related to the caterpillar folded mysteriously into a cocoon! I struggled with doubt and depression, and clung prayerfully to a personal mantra:
"She harbors new life in her brooding cocoon with the delicate promise of wings."
Those poetic words were my reminder throughout difficult changes to hope and trust in the Creator's promise, that I am a NEW CREATION!
I'm a creative enough person to know that "creations" aren't "snap-finger" products. They take time, patience, and stubborn vision. Sometimes they need to be completely reworked. And most of the time they're messy.
After several years of brooding, spinning, waiting, wondering, and eeking out some form of trust that everything would work out for the better, something new is indeed happening--on the inside and the outside.
I'm living with new joy.
I wanted to mark these changes with a new blog title. "Butterfly-ing" is the closest I can come to describing the miraculous shift. But on the heels of these transformations, and as I enter midlife, I realize I'm still waiting. For new things, yes, and different things, of course, but somehow still waiting and still wondering about the same core issues: my identity, my purpose on earth, and how faith fits with it all.
And so even now, with the whisper of wings fluttering on the distant horizon, cocooning remains an apt metaphor. Hope still feels delicate. I still have questions over which I brood (I'm sure you'll read many of my broodings here). But, I'm learning to be more comfortable with the creative mess.
More and more, I'm letting Spirit-friend "go at it" in her studio (my own heart and soul). And I'm wasting less energy running after her, trying to tidy up.
Oh how I related to the caterpillar folded mysteriously into a cocoon! I struggled with doubt and depression, and clung prayerfully to a personal mantra:
"She harbors new life in her brooding cocoon with the delicate promise of wings."
Those poetic words were my reminder throughout difficult changes to hope and trust in the Creator's promise, that I am a NEW CREATION!
I'm a creative enough person to know that "creations" aren't "snap-finger" products. They take time, patience, and stubborn vision. Sometimes they need to be completely reworked. And most of the time they're messy.
After several years of brooding, spinning, waiting, wondering, and eeking out some form of trust that everything would work out for the better, something new is indeed happening--on the inside and the outside.
I'm living with new joy.
I wanted to mark these changes with a new blog title. "Butterfly-ing" is the closest I can come to describing the miraculous shift. But on the heels of these transformations, and as I enter midlife, I realize I'm still waiting. For new things, yes, and different things, of course, but somehow still waiting and still wondering about the same core issues: my identity, my purpose on earth, and how faith fits with it all.
And so even now, with the whisper of wings fluttering on the distant horizon, cocooning remains an apt metaphor. Hope still feels delicate. I still have questions over which I brood (I'm sure you'll read many of my broodings here). But, I'm learning to be more comfortable with the creative mess.
More and more, I'm letting Spirit-friend "go at it" in her studio (my own heart and soul). And I'm wasting less energy running after her, trying to tidy up.
Midlife Mosaic
by Cheri
I am a shifting mosaic
unsure
where all the pieces fit
sure
that some broken parts
have been both lost
and found
My gypsy soul wanders
the wild wilderness of
Forty
circling back and around
daring to walk
bare
the sensuous feeling of mud between toes
a little thrilled
a little scared
of this beautiful, holy, mucky mess
"Help me stand. . . "
or maybe I should pray,
"Help me stumble" to my knees
as I stagger
from the drink of
New Wine
I am a shifting mosaic
unsure
where all the pieces fit
sure
that some broken parts
have been both lost
and found
My gypsy soul wanders
the wild wilderness of
Forty
circling back and around
daring to walk
bare
the sensuous feeling of mud between toes
a little thrilled
a little scared
of this beautiful, holy, mucky mess
"Help me stand. . . "
or maybe I should pray,
"Help me stumble" to my knees
as I stagger
from the drink of
New Wine
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