Let Yourself Be Pulled
My school picture (“Mrs. Ramos”) circa 2004
When Things Went Fast
I move through my life today at about a third the speed that I used to.
Let’s take the year 2004, for example: I’m co-parenting a six year-old and an eleven year-old, and spending the rest of my hours with the 25 five year-olds in my kindergarten class. Workdays are bookended by drop-offs and pick-ups at various locations, requiring lots of coordination behind the scenes. Evenings fill up with meetings having to do with sports teams or church committees or school business. On meeting-less nights I slip away to the gym to get some reading done on the elliptical machine.
I’m sleep-deprived and struggling to keep pace, but nothing feels expendable. I simply have to make it work.
What Else I Remember
Though embarrassed to admit it at the time, here’s what I’d do (with urgency and focus!) as soon as my last student walked out of the classroom at the end of each school day:
Sharpen every pencil and return it to its proper place.
Sort crayons back into the little 8-pack boxes, in rainbow order, switching out broken ones for new ones.
“Essential puttering” describes my classroom after-hours more accurately than “planning” or even “cleaning and organizing.” Other teachers enlisted 5th graders to sharpen and sort (how efficient!), but I see now that my over-stimulated nervous system desperately needed that time to regroup. I savored the silence. Placing things in neat rows seemed important to my health, if only subconsciously. The fact that it kept my classroom tidy was secondary.
In hindsight I see it as a ritual of self-care, of the body finding ways to self-soothe.
A couple hours later when my own kids and I were collected and home (to a vibe that could be convivial or tense, I never knew which to expect) I’d often head to the garden until dinnertime. Putting my hands in the soil, I understand now, was what mattered. The actual tasks I performed — weeding, trimming, deadheading the roses — were useful, but the puttering was the point. Synching my heart rate to the rhythm of Earth, that’s what drew me there.
I felt weird about it.
Pressure to be Supermom is real, so I wasn’t proud of my self-regulation strategies. Instead, I saw them as weaknesses, and the crayon thing as just plain weird. I should have been picking my kids up earlier from their after-school program. I should have been in the kitchen helping with dinner. It seemed selfish to want quiet time alone, when I could have spent it being a more perfect mother and wife. (Kidding/not kidding. That critic voice is relentless and images of idealized motherhood are ubiquitous.)
Our Souls Patiently Wait
I’m grateful for those connections to my body and to Mother Earth at a time when my life often felt overwhelming. The fact that organizing and weeding were my through-lines reminds me how generous and patient our Souls are. In the current podcast episode about Rituals (click here to listen) I quote Michael Meade as saying, “Our job is to get close enough. The motion of the Soul is not to be utterly accurate, it’s to be in the roughly right area. And once we can do that, then something of the other world comes and takes us the rest of the way.” [emphasis mine]
Unconsciously performing mundane tasks that nevertheless create spaciousness in our day is apparently all our Souls require of us. Stay tethered to it and Soul will handle the rest. Resist the urge to completely numb it out, or cave to pressures of someone else’s idea of perfection.
Do the thing that makes no sense, if that’s what you’re pulled to do.
Slow, Stretchy, and Still
My life is intentionally slow now. In the podcast, I describe morning rituals that involve watching darkness make way for daylight, hearing the birds wake up and chatter, stretching and moving on a yoga mat in ways that feel good, and meditating — finding stillness in which to really listen. I mention the altar that I created, once I realized I had the agency to create my own altar, even though I am not a priest. 🤪I talked about connecting with ancestors, and giving greetings and thanks to the natural world.
This can last for three or four hours. (Still, I’m done around the same time I used to get up!) I realize that I’m privileged with time these days, which is why I told you about 2004 when my days were very different.
Soul work, like everything else, is not one-size-fits-all. Fortunately, your Soul is precisely you-sized. It’s also on your very same schedule. ✨
For When You Have the Capacity (and when you don’t)
I want to leave you with these invitations to let yourself be pulled:
When you have the capacity, connect regularly with your body and with the Earth body. Notice the subtle tugs of what those two bodies are asking for, because they’re definitely calling to you. The messages are out-shouted by the noise of our culture, so you have to pay attention. And if what you feel pulled to do makes you feel like a weirdo, that’s a good sign. 😉 Dance on your front porch? 🕺🏼Lay down in your driveway and watch the clouds? 🌥☁️ Talk to the squirrels? 🐿 Making it a daily ritual simply adds the spiciness of intention. 🌶
At those times when you feel maxed out by your life, notice where you’re being tugged despite it all. How are the trees trying to catch your attention? 🌲🌲What are your hands drawn to do? ✌🏽👉🏽Hang on to those life-lines and follow them whenever you can. They will save you. They will bring you home to yourself when you’re at risk of getting lost.
Embodied Wisdom
Any time we tune in to the wisdom of our physical body and the wisdom of the land, we help balance the scales toward wholeness. Daily rituals keep us connected to this wisdom. Whether proudly or timidly, consciously or accidentally performed, our actions contribute to the healing of our own Soul and the Soul of the Earth.
With a heaping helping of gratitude and soulful salutations,
Pam
P.S. 👉🏽📷I would love for you to email me a photo that depicts one of your rituals and/or an altar you have made. I’ll include these in the next blog post, so please send yours no later than October 11th. 🙏🏽 Gracias!
P.P.S. In case you’re playing along, we’re in month two of heART❤️SCHOOL. There are no barriers to admission, so congrats, you’re in! As for the curriculum: Last month’s word was AGENCY, as in knowing you have power to affect your life. This month the word is RITUAL. Each “month” begins with the podcast episode, which arrives on the 23rd. (I know — it made sense at the time.) Then on the 3rd of the following month is a written blog post like this one, and on the 13th is a post consisting mostly of photos. (Hopefully including yours next time!)
Another fun fact about heART❤️SCHOOL: The words for each of the nine months make up an acronym. Hmm, wonder what it will spell? A… R… __ ??? Stay tuned! 🤓
P.P.P.S. There’s no such thing as being late for heART❤️SCHOOL, so invite a friend by forwarding this message. They can sign up for my email list here. 🙏🏽
