Closing Time

Greetings all,

I hope you are having a pleasant week and have some gatherings planned for the upcoming holiday weekend.  Spring is closing up and summer is about to begin.  This spring has been accompanied by a lot of endings for me.  I'm reminded of the song, Closing Time,  in which the refrain is, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

This week I revisited a place I had long avoided.  I returned to a street where some of the worst moments of my life occurred.  I'd been adamant about never going back there, at first it was a choice of empowerment, but later it was more laden with fear.  I was afraid of running into people I once knew.  There is a huge difference between not wanting to see someone and being afraid of seeing them.  My experience no matter how painful had shaped me, made me stronger, and helped me grow. My avoidance of this place was not in congruence with that though,  I was acting like the old me.  I was playing weaker than I am.  I was not acknowledging my own power.

In the South American tradition, Jaguar is the guardian of the west.  She is the one who conquers fear and transcends death, bringing us across the rainbow bridge to the realm of spirit.  She is also a taskmaster.  After learning a friend may be moving to the very street where my trials had once taken place I journeyed to see her.  She was quite clear, "You need to go back there...at least once."  She went on to tell me I was letting the story of what had happened limit me, I had to let go of the story of the hurt to fully claim my power.  It was time to close the door on the past.  Well you can't argue with Jaguar.  (Well I suppose you might, but smart money is on the jaguar).  So I girded my loins (metaphorically), put on my big boy pants and started gathering my energies.

So Thursday night one of my best friends was home for a change, and I called her saying, "Want to go on a little adventure?"  Of course she said yes, she is my friend after all.  So off we trotted with a slight snack detour.  (Adventuring is hungry business).  We then picked up the third member of our scouting party and then were off to see the wizard. Nope sorry, wrong adventure, off to slay the dragon, no let me try this again.  We were off to scatter ashes and pee on the graves of our enemies.  That isn't it either but it is as close to a description as possible.

So we crossed a river and came into that old neighborhood.  I could feel it as we got closer.  Some things looked familiar others had faded.  We stopped got out and looked at the house that the third member and driver for the evening had been considering.  Oddly enough the deal fell through on the house just around the time I had made up my mind to go see it.  (Coincidence maybe?)  So there I was doing what Jaguar told me to do.  She never said I had to go alone, she even told me what magical aid to bring to bear.  So we walked the neighborhood.  I recognized things but everything also seemed so different.  It had been over a decade, but there was a lot I either forgot about the place or just never noticed.  The major find on our tour de no force, was the house of the person who had bullied me the worst.  I almost passed right by without recognition.  It had fallen into bad times, there was a notice on the front door.  We didn't go on the porch to check it, but it looked like it had been condemned by the city.

Night fell we circled the block back to the car and set sail for friendlier ports.  I had said my goodbyes.  The past was dead.  Time had marched on, and now I had seen I wasn't the only thing that had changed.  People had come and gone, the neighborhood was different.  Not all that different though because the moment we stepped out of the car some guy driving by shouted, "FUCK YOU,", at us.  No one any of us knew, just a little welcome back to the worst place I'd ever been.  So I came, I saw, and I decided it was still a crappy place that I didn't need to be, but now it is just because I really don't like the place.  (The fuck you guy buzzed by us again as we were leaving I think he is the unofficial greeter).  As adventures go it was a nonevent, but that really was the point.  Still afterwards there were brownies and netflix, because hey we earned it, we braved fuck you's and inconvenient road construction.

So how does this all apply to you?  Well is there something still holding you in the story of victimhood?  Is there a place that you have avoided because of the past even though it is unlikely that danger still lurks there?  Have you built your story on the sad thing that once happened?  Are you being a pity whore (I totally made up that phrase and I love it but hate being it)?  What if you retraced your steps a little as the person you are now?  What if you could go back and shut the door on the past?  You don't have to go alone. Maybe you need to go back not to confront, but to lay to rest.  Let that old wound know it's closing time.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle