It was June 11th, 2022. I know because I looked back at the photos that I took of him on my phone, and that is the day it happened.
When one begins their healing journey it’s easy to believe that it’s about the trauma and harm. One must begin the messy work of going down, down into the pain, looking at it from ground zero rather than the 30,000 feet of disassociation. This shocks the system quite radically. Sobbing is normal. So is intense rage. All of this uncovering and discovery can take months, even years. Sometimes we get so caught up in this part of the journey that we forget that it’s not really what the journey is about. We may not even know what the journey is about.
Sometimes we are thrust onto the path of healing without much intention at all. It just happens somehow. Sometimes we get into our healing journey and we wonder, if given the choice, if we would go back and choose a different route.
It’s that hard.
Feeling crazy is normal. As is overwhelm and confusion.
But none of this is really what it’s about.
The healing journey is about finding myself. It’s about learning to embrace everything with compassion. It’s not about getting rid of pain but learning how to hold it with tenderness.
It’s about bringing
all of my lost pieces
to the table and
finding a home for
each of them.
No part is unwanted.
All are welcome.
Often it takes a long time for some of my parts to come to the light, having been treated with such contempt, hatred, and shame, they have burrowed far down into the darkness. The healing journey is about coming to a place of grounded-ness even when deeply disturbing events or circumstances occur. I can know that I am beginning to heal when I know how to care for my needs, listen to my inner wisdom, and see people without having to label them.
For much of my life I believed that the animal I most related to was the beaver. Hard working, no-nonsense, disciplined, and perseverant. Beavers are known for building incredible structures to keep their family safe. This was my role from the time I was a young girl — making sure the people in my family were protected and well. I was a firm, no nonsense, black and white, getter done kind of girl. Yes, ma’am!
But as my journey unfolded, I began to notice another side of me coming out and she was tenderly familiar and also not.
She could fly.
She was a butterfly
and a wild stallion.
She rejoiced at racing through meadows simply for the sheer thrill of feeling the wind in her face.
She had a heart so big
that it could hold an
enormous amount of pain.
She was a lover of beauty,
authentic and deep,
full of love and
bursting with creativity.Finding her was one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened to me.
A river flows in Calgary, where I used to live and whose banks I often frequented. I fell in love with nature here and she loved me back. During my many jaunts I witnessed moose and deer, playful otter, swans, ducks, mama and papa geese with their passel of goslings, chattery squirrels, and dozens of bird species. It was my special place, and it held me while I wept, listened while I prayed, and bore witness to my anger without judgment or condemnation.
On June 11th, I went to say goodbye, as we were about to move to Texas. When I arrived, my usual place had been “stolen” by a family, and so I scooted up the river, looking for a private place to say my goodbyes. As my eyes searched for the perfect spot, I noticed a mini log jam in a small inlet. On the bank was a large fallen tree that I figured would make a perfect resting place. I was alongside the floating logs and sticks when I spotted him. Immediately, I could feel my heart pounding furiously inside my chest, my breath escaping with an audible gasp.
There in the middle of the log jam
was the largest beaver
I have ever seen.
He was floating,
belly up,
and he was dead.
Harsh, broken sobs — my own — mingled with the sound of water lapping against the shore. The symbolism drove deep into my heart and I, so overcome, could only shakily crouch down and sob with wonder.
“Let me go,” he seemed to say. “The old is gone, the new has come.” I didn’t know it yet then but death doesn’t mean that that part of me is gone forever. Just a baby in the womb leaves their cells in the mother’s body, even if the baby dies en utero, so this beaver would always be a part of me. I am still a hard worker, a protector of my family, and disciplined. It’s just that these traits had once helped me survive, and now I did not need them for survival any longer. Now I could simply enjoy them for the gifts that they are.
But the dead beaver was asking me to stop clinging to them as a way of life, as a way of survival. There is more to me than this. I can also fly.
Perhaps you have your own beaver story.
Maybe you also have been clinging to
a way of life that helped you survive.
Maybe it’s time to hold a funeral.
That’s what I did.
I picked some wild flowers growing along the river bank and gathered a pile of stones. With the stones I formed a circle and in the circle I wrote the word LOVER. With the death of the beaver, this was the invitation I heard.
You, dear heart, are a lover.
Then I threw the flowers upon the waters surrounding the beaver and I wept.
I wept for the girl who became a beaver because she had to.
I wept for the goodness of the beaver, who had kept her safe and alive.
I wept for all I had lost in thinking I was only a beaver.
I opened my hands and I let him go.
I opened my heart to the Love that
was coming down on me like a cloud,
surrounding me with soft, tender light.
I have a pond in my backyard. It is big and it is surrounded by big trees. Imagine my surprise when I noticed the bark of the pear tree was being eaten and then the Rhodo had some branches taken. Really with all the trees you choose the ones closest to the house. Yes, it was a beaver. We put some chicken wire around the body of the pear tree and hoped it would survive. It did. We did the same with the Rhodo and it also survived. Sometimes we don't think we will survive some challenge but we do, especially if we put on some protection. Loved this story.
I needed this, dear Fawne. I need to let go of the parts of me that have died, that I try to prop up. I need to live. You indeed are a lover, and I hold high regard for you and this honest journey 💚