Canary in the Mine

I think I am like a canary in the mine. My struggles right now do not bode well for others. The canary was an early signal of imminent danger for miners and my experience as a highly sensitive empath could very easily serve as a warning. While I know myself to be strong and resilient my spirit is aware of a deep wounding that has been caused by the environment and the dis-ease widely evident in humanity.

I have taken a lot of damage in these last cruel years. I find myself uber-defended and ever watchful of where the next attack is coming from. That is the real damage I suffered in the Trump years. In the immoral character and strategy of attacking the vulnerable (whether for country, gender, race, poverty, illness or disability) my world became less safe. I am having trouble letting go of a generalized fear that became firmly embedded as one travesty of spiritual bankruptcy after another occurred. I understand grief and loss more than most and I believe the enormity of mental health impacts of cruelty and Covid have only begun to emerge.

I see myself as a compassionate person and have been privileged to walk with many as they faced death. The skill was openness. The work was creating safe space. The art was surrender and the sacred. I was altered in the many years of this practice and set up for the sensitivities I now experience.

My post hospice form does not “fit” well in our current climate. I find chaos, conflict, and disrespect to be assaultive to what I value as real. I become agitated, hyper-alert and primed to defend. I get sick of mind and body.

I heal and then thrive when it is quiet, gentle, sacred, artful, loving and in nature.

I think for my own peace I may have to cloister in one way or another. I know I will need to let go of my mentoring role for the young women ready to make the world right. They have given me hope these past months. Their kind of warrior stance requires youth, energy and idealism…. These are ghosts of my past. My contribution to healing now lies internally.

Will have to see if I can release the canary.