Dreaming in Green: Healing from the outside

Dreaming in green, 2020

I have this true story to tell you, but I'm going to write this part in third person, because I think it works better that way. I like thinking of it as one of those tales that become a part of an ancient oral history.

A beginning

Who knows where the beginning is but here is one beginning: One day, about two years ago, the sun was shining in a blue sky and there may have been a few fluffy clouds. Jennifer was walking toward home, with her dog Coal... her mind was wandering somewhere up in the clouds. There must have been clouds.

Finding home

Well, not just yet... Jennifer was feeling untethered. Disconnected. Without deep roots. Grieved. Having lost two anchors (her uncle, then her grandmother) over 30 years ago, she wondered if grief was available to her. Why grieve now? Again? Still?

What does such aged grief look and feel like? Is it real? What comes of it or from it? 

And where were they anyway - the anchors and the many family members lost since? Were they ancestors? Were they the kind she could speak with? Could she remember what they might say to guide her? Did they remember her? Could they? What attributes of their's could lead her to home? To roots? 

Look up

For days on end Jennifer and Coal walked the same stretch of road, morning and evening. Sure as a promise.

​Jennifer looked up and talked up...Through tears. Through questions. Through fragments of memories and stories. Through dark mornings with twinkling stars and sometimes moonlight so bright she could turn off the flashlight and still see. Through changing seasons...Walking, talking, wondering, wandering, asking, noticing... Something was happening. Something finally spoke back.