Me, Whole-heartedly

First and last name scrunched together

That was me- Carrie Lee

Hitting grand slams, flexed arm hanging, setting school records,

Carrie Lee

Alive. Feeling my greatness.

And then...

Putting myself in line,

don’t let yourself shine,

girls don’t play,

follow the rules,

go to school,

do it right.

Serve the machine.

Serve the machine

whatever it may be,

the car, the computer and society.

Ah...

The critical error-

The machine is meant to serve,

and yet we are at it’s service.

An exhausting life that is

Shaping ourselves into the wheels that turn.

Forgetting our soul is meant to soar!

Then he comes through the door

needing a spreadsheet of what I’ve done all day.

How did it get this way?

I am a caterpillar stuck in her cocoon forever.

I am miserable.

I’m a 1950’s housewife, of the un-liberated variety,

minus the apron and heels.

Shorts and flip-flops my only evolution

and I tell you I can not live like this.

He tells me I’m not contributing or sacrificing.

NOT SACRIFICING?

How can this be?

How can this be when I feel like I’ve sacrificed my entire self?

I can not draw up a spreadsheet

of the love and the care,

the precious time and the mundane.

And the feeding, and the cleaning, and the rocking,

and the giving of my simple presence.

Because of this does my contribution not exist?

There it is-

I am non-existent in my own life,

a life I thought I’d wanted,

a life I thought I’d chosen.

I cannot see myself

except through his eyes.

Those eyes looking at me incomprehensibly.

How did it get this way?

We cannot measure the immeasurable

so we say it doesn’t exist.

We ignore what comes in the silent exchange

so precious we cannot name.

We give our minds full reign.

We say we honor the makers of the home, the raising of the children.

Yet here in the USA we give no paid leave.

Our women die in childbirth in numbers higher than any industrialized nation.

It is accepted to display our breasts in public

but obscene to feed our babies.

There is still not equal pay.

And let’s not forget we had to win the legal right to use birth control pills

and that only just happened in 1965

and even then, it was a reserved right for married women.

Let’s not forget our grandmothers couldn’t apply for credit until 1974

and let’s not forget our mothers could have been legally fired from their jobs for becoming pregnant with us.

Let’s not forget that men are still making decisions

regarding our reproductive lives!

In this nation

Where I’m told how empowered I am.

So when I say

I am on my knees

They look at me through his eyes,

incomprehensibly.

You’ve got everything you need

You stupid girl.

But I know greatness

It is right here inside of me.

I know what I want

I want to be my whole and holy self,

my wild, organic self

my open, receptive, intuitive, trusting, heart-knowing self.

I know who I am

I am Carrie

Carrier of the creative

So I showed up every day

to greet her.

To invite my genius to come out and play.

Get up off my knees

Claim my life

Bare feet in the grass

I listened

and I felt my emergence.

Sitting with my self

Building an unforeseeable future.

Infinitesimal and nearly imperceptible steps

bringing me here,

grand canyons from where I once was.

This inner life,

it is everything.

Nothing had to change.

And everything had to change.

I know the world, I love the world, I am the world!

Not because I’ve been out there

conquering it

But because of this inner repository, this treasure trove of wisdom.

Inside of me the world spins round.

And now this vortex of love

spins out of me and into you.

When I see a woman in pain

I know she is on the edge of becoming something new.

I know she is capable of pulling up some previously unused power within her.

And I know we are all capable of using

our suffering, our collective crises

as doorways

to a higher human awareness.

Beloved opportunities to be whole and holy.

Now I see our tools and technologies

cannot bring progress

without progress in our human consciousness.

You see?

Just like me

who had to learn

that the heart must lead,

and the mind must be at its service.

Now I see

me

And he can see me now,

comprehensibly.