The Dance of the Happy Elephant

This morning, filled with sadness and longing, and an undercurrent of anger, I asked the Universe to send me some help. I didn't wake up that way, but while turning off my alarm, I noticed a message from a loved one. It was an unpleasant message and I quickly set it down to begin my morning practice of energetic grounding and alignment (what some might call chakra meditation) and gratitude. I forgave myself for looking at the message before my practice, it was only natural to look at it, since I'd been anticipating a (happy) response. It was natural that I felt disappointed and I didn't have to let it sweep my day into a field of negativity. I got myself into a good zone and then went about walking the dog.

My dog.... she's full of exuberance and zest for life. She was eager to greet the morning smells and could barely contain herself. The air was a bit crisper today than it has been and I neglected to bring gloves along. I shoved my hands inside my pockets, hoping that would be good enough. Knowing that my beloved canine companion needed constant guidance to keep her from bounding from one natural wonder to the next. This morning, she was more frisky than usual. She pulled and jerked on her leash and I grew more and more frustrated with each block we covered. I pulled out my trusty gentle leader, my secret weapon to keeping her in line. But of course, today she was undaunted by the tug on her head and keep on with her uncivilized, frenetic caper as my hands grew colder by the minute. By the time we had returned, I was exasperated and spent. All the peace I had cultivated had dissipated like the morning dew.

Undaunted by this turn of affairs, I carried on with my routine. Morning hygiene followed by a deeper meditation and readings for the day. I gathered my things and headed to my cushion, and is often my wont, I hit up youtube for some supportive soundscapes. That's when I stumbled into a virtual space filled with the sounds of people singing praises to Ganesha.

I'm not Hindu and I don't typically listen to mantras, but I did spend some years exploring Hinduism and visiting with a particular Saint, and I developed an affinity for the "Remover of Obstacles"and the Vedic way more generally. Not to mention the relationship between Ancient Heathenry and Hinduism (but that's a different story for another day).

It seemed to be the perfect synchronicity for the moment, so I let the music play quietly in the background as I sat there relaxing my body and following my breath for the umpteen thousandth time.

As I sat, pondering the wildly variant terrain of my brief foray into the day, allowing my body and mind to settle, a cascade of memories of seemingly unrelated moments in my past swept by. One by one, appearing before me as if asking for a blessing. One by one, I acknowledged them; moments of childhood abuse, lost relationships, challenging conversations, hurdles I'd overcome.... it seemed my psyche wanted to revisit things I hadn't even considered in decades, right alongside the grief that lives in the cracks and crevices in my home. Each one, I embraced and allowed. Tears streaming down my face as the thread connecting them began to become clearer. I was seeing all the ways in which my own exuberance, my zest for life had been quashed. I felt that longing emerge, the longing to play, to express genuine wonder, to jump for joy. And I felt the oppressive nature of our society pressing down against that innate exuberance, all the ways we are taught to tamp it down. The fear mongering of the traditional media, the divisiveness of social media, the giant gulf between people on this side and that side (choose your labels, fill in the blank). And at the same moment, all these memories of every time my natural zest for life was squashed.

I told myself that it was only natural that I saw myself as being terminally serious, that I have long had difficulty playing games and often become frustrated. It was as if my inner child was walking dead for much of my life. After all, children were to be seen and not heard and one just never knew when the chaos might break loose.

So, I learned to be perfect. I held myself in a strict posture of just enough cheerfulness to make people think everything was fine, while not going overboard and causing a mess or a raucous. I kept my room clean and my shirt tucked in. I became a helper, a people pleaser, and a protector (of my younger siblings). As long as I was pleasing to the adults and able to anticipate their moods, I could shield myself and my sisters from the worst. I was always on guard. And this morning, it was all waiting for me, waiting for my attention like people shaking hands in a greeting line. Each moment, each memory, each fragment I embraced and said "I love you" and one by one they left, as if satisfied with my response and faded into the ether. And there were bigger ones waiting for me as well, in the back of line just to be sure I hadn't forgotten, were the stories my mother told me, and stories of her mother, and so many witches in the gallows. Ancestral trauma reminding me of the connection between then and now. The forces at work to keep happiness at bay. I sighed and said, "Yes, you too. I see you and I love you."

I thought, "Ganesha, is removing the obstacles to my exuberance and these tears are cleansing" and I knew this was true, on some level. I was also quite suddenly struck with a bit of shadow work I had done several years ago, wherein I was working with this very sticky shadow that kept morphing; each time I thought I had understood and integrated it's lesson, I found a new iteration of it. The final iteration was the image of this manically hopping elephant. It held a bunch of colorful balloons in it's trunk and it literally hopped from one spot to another underneath a rainbow with a pot of gold on one end. One balloon let loose into the sky and popped, and from that emerged this microscopic fairy that told me the secret of this shadow. It was working very hard to keep up appearances and distract me and everyone else from all the darkness within, the abuse, the depression, the trauma, the abandonment. And what I needed to integrate was present moment awareness, to know when I was catastrophizing or when I was glossing over red flags. I named this shadow "The Happy Elephant". At that moment, my tears turned to laughter or actually some combination of the two. I'm a sucker for synchronicity and this was ripe with it.

Things began to level off a bit and after I came out of meditation I decided to look up the word "exuberant". Now, you might think you know what the word means, "joyful, enthusiastic, unrestrained" and you would be correct, but it also means "abundant, plentiful, excessive" and some interesting synonyms are "high spirited, gay" while some interesting antonyms are "sullen, lifeless". But even more interesting is the etymology of the word which is "udder" and when you look up the etymology of "udder" you find Sanskrit "Udhar" and Old High German "Utar" which are used to describe credit or loan and ultimately mean "continued provisions" (point of note: both Vedic traditions and Germanic/Nordic traditions feature a Sacred Cow as the giver of life or the Sacred Mother). My laughter continued and I turned to my readings.

As a Heathen, I enjoy pulling a rune for the day. As a post modern human, I have an app that pops it up for me (supposedly it's all pre-calculated according my gender and my birthday). So this day, it popped up Berkana. Berkana looks like a pointy B. And it is primarily related to the archetype of the Mother, and is often seen as a pair of breasts or the profile of a pregnant person! It's often seen as a protective rune, as well as one of good fortune. And this morning I learned of another connection (which comes via the rune's other well known symbology, the Birch Tree), and that is the connection of working with the energy body (the chakras (Hindu) or hvel/ hyde (Heathen))!!

At this point, the laughter had overcome the tears and I was filled with wonder and gratitude. I set an intention to cultivate exuberance in my life and build in more moments of playfulness. I gave myself permission to drop as much seriousness as I can and just enjoy what the day brings. I knew it was time for me to allow myself to trust in the "continued provisions" of this miraculous universe and see things through the eyes of present moment awareness rather than the conditioned patterns that my upbringing and this society asserts is the correct way to live.

I know I'm out on a limb, but I always did enjoy climbing trees. I hope to see you out here too, clinging to the highest branch, singing your gratitude in the wind along with me.