When I think about preparing for changes that are coming in 2012, I remember a chalk pastel I did titled, “feeding the homeless.” It has three symbols for welcoming change within its image. I think first we must find the natural parts of ourselves that are still living in the wild terrain of our possibly over tame and certainly over controlled lives. Maybe this is the feel of sunshine on a cold January morning, or the sound of rain rattled by the wind against the window, or the tenderness that comes spontaneously to our faces and hearts when we watch babies sleeping. This natural part of us has a sturdiness and vitality that lives with a simple grace beneath the fantasy stories of aggression, cynicism or fearful alarm we can tell ourselves. Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote so beautifully about this wild woman and man in each of us that I am reading Women Who Run With the Wolves again after these many years for insight about ways to be the change I want.
Once we find the tracks and traces of our natural self, no matter how faint or smudged, I think we need to leave food inside those footprints that will strengthen our wildish natures. I believe that food is our willingness to create; to dance, sing, paint, and tell stories, read Oracle cards, join drumming circles. I feel that when we do something that makes us afraid, that upsets our comfort with staying hidden, that lifts us out of our ruts and potholes—we discover we can fly. We discover we are capable of anything. The change that meets us is the wind that lifts us; it is the change that we ourselves create.
