“and say with our actions you belong.”
These words quoted from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, “For When We Greet Each Other” shaped my last blog. And ever since it has been distilling in my body-mind-spirit complex. Today this got a lot more real.
This morning, like all mornings I fill my tea kettle with fresh water, press boil, and place a “PG Tips” tea bag in my mug of choice.
This day, as I wait for the water to boil, I hear the phrase, “and say with our actions you belong” at top volume, as if someone is shouting at me through my kitchen window. It continues to shout, penetrating through the shrill whistle of my tea kettle.
I pour my tea and sense the words swirling around me—hot and urgent, just as the water surrounds and sinks the tea bag. Moments later as I stand witnessing the magic of said tea bag steeping, savoring the sensation of wet steam landing on my face and glasses, the words stop.
Like a hummingbird that stops suddenly to rest on a branch, letting all the effort of feeding and flying go, the phrase lands with a thunk. A welcome visitor to my weary menopausal body and taxed mental-emotional landscape. The resonance of these words now vibrating on the inside.
As I turned my attention inward I heard a nuanced shift, taking the meaning deeper still.
AND SAY WITH YOUR ACTIONS— YOU BELONG!
At that moment, the lights came up in the dimly lit theater of my brain. Does the tea belong to the water? Does the finished product belong to me? Do my personal habits and actions add up to my own belonging? If so, how?
The vibration of this quote brought me to my knees. Not literally to the cold stone floor, thank you very much, but to the recognition of this truth.
If we don’t know what belonging is on the inside, we can’t act in ways that illicit belonging for anyone else. First, we must belong to ourselves.
This begs the question, what does belonging look like, feel like, taste like? How does this internal resourcing serve? When we finally belong to ourselves, how is our life different?
If you haven’t come up to speed on belonging, the down and dirty is here. Today we credit Brené Brown and Maya Angelou for teaching us that “You only are free when you realize you belong no place -you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”—M.A.
Brown takes this wisdom and puts it into a tidy package. She says, that we can’t look for belonging outside of ourselves, it is NO PLACE, as Angelou says. And that we belong —every place— only when we belong to ourselves first.
To my knees, to my knees.
So if everything depends on treating each other well and using our actions to communicate belonging, as our poet shares, then belonging must be an inside job. How can I give what I do not have? What I do not know?
Sipping my tea allowing this juicy download to percolate I am reminded. I have been here before. And some truths are worth repeating!
So today I move from a place of recognizing once again how vital my relationship to self is and can be. It is the source of what we do and the actions we take or choose not to take.
I am not suggesting we only focus on ourselves and get lost in the self-obsessed world of “Me, me, me and what about me!” You don’t have to look far to see the damage this mind-set is causing our world.
Instead keep asking yourself, “How, where & when do I belong” and “Can I belong to myself?” If belonging to self isn’t true now, what will it take to make this a reality? Think in terms of a moment of belonging, not a destination where you feel you’ve finally arrived.
And in the moments, when you feel the coolness of your in-breath and the warmth of your out-breath, feeling your body arrive in present time, ask yourself, “Can I belong here and now?”
As Angelou and Brown suggest, once we belong here, we belong “every place.” Welcome Home.
In this healing arts community, we humbly and proudly include aspects like Belonging with those we serve. These deep inner places are of great relevance to our overall health. We recognize and allow for the whole person to be seen and cared for.
Much love & kindness,
Kari
