73. The Embrace (Then)

Tir (1) is heavy and pregnant with memories and the pain of melancholy. She yearns for flight, weightlessness and birth, freedom from a long dark sorrow. So here is Old Self (2), midwife and healer, coaching and calling the labour on. Tir’s fullness is the acts done against her. She did not always create another to take the abuse. At times, she herself was the protector, unwilling to let anyone else go through the torment. Truddi Chase, author of “When Rabbit Howls” said her original person died at the age of two but Tir, our original child, chose to live, was able to live, despite all that happened to her and to us. She found strength somewhere inside of her, strength she doesn’t always realize she has. As well, she knows that, bit by bit, she must learn what happened to the rest of us. She wants to find out what she could not stand before.

Old Self begins by pressing the front of her body into Tir’s back and lovingly wraps her arms around the young woman, embracing all of her pure heart’s pain. And then she waits. When he is ready, when we are ready, our body as bird, Raven (3), presses his body into Old Self’s back. Then with a powerful rush of air, gathering all of the energy that surrounds them, his immense black wings enfold the two women. Contract and release, contract and release, breathe in and breathe out, the process of labour, urges whatever it is that needs to be born into the light.

When she sees that she is no longer needed, Old Self lets go and removes herself from the embrace. Again, Raven wraps his broad wings around Tir, enfolding her, holding her tight and with some urgency, to his chest. Then together with arms and wings, the movement of back and forth, contract and release, the very air is carried upwards and lifts them to fly. They swoop in unison over our head and we feel the pressure bear down on us like hungry angels. There is a singing in the wind, a song that weeps and a single voice which rejoices. This is The Transfer of Pain. We are now the Bearer of Memory and Tir has given birth to flight and weightlessness, to some kind of freedom that will hold her hard and bring her strength, that will enable the innocent child to be born again.

This is our journey evolving in front of us. It takes away the meaninglessness of the past. There is cause and effect here, purpose and form. This is The Remembering .... and more.