I love the time and in between
The calm inside me
In the space where I can breathe
I believe there is a distance I have wandered
To touch upon the years of
Reaching out and reaching in
Holding out, holding in
I believe
This is heaven to no one else but me
And I’ll defend it as long as I can be
Left here to linger in silence
If I choose to
Would you try to understand?I know this love is passing time
Passing through like liquid
I am drunk in my desire
But I love the way you smile at me
I love the way your hands reach out and hold me near
I believe
I, I believeThis is heaven to no one else but me
And I’ll defend it as long as
I can be left here to linger in silence
If I choose to
Would you try to understand?Oh the quiet child awaits the day when she can break free
The mold that clings like desperation
Mother, can’t you see I’ve got to live my life the way I feel is right for me
Might not be right for you but it’s right for me
I, I believe
This is heaven to no one else but me
And I’ll defend it as long as
I can be left here to linger in silence
If I choose to
Would you try to understand it?
I would like to linger here in silence
If I choose to
Would you understand it?
Would you try to?
Would you try to understand?
~Elsewhere, Sarah Mclachlan
I spent many nights in my teen years, head pressed up against the speaker or headphones in, listening to this song on repeat, tears streaming down my face.
This song got the most tender, and darkest places of myself that I was never able to express or felt like it was safe to share with the world.
Last night, under a full moon in Capricorn, after a huge moving of rage, anger, and huge energy through my body, I hit play on this song for the come down.
Something new struck me as I listened to the lyrics I know so very well.
“I love the time and in betweenthe calm inside mein this space where I can breatheI believe there is a distance I have wanderedto touch upon the years ofreaching out and reaching inholding out … holding in …”
I felt Her.
I felt the very place in my body where I hid from the world, to protect Her.
The deep cavernous place in my chest.
Deeper still than my heart.
Like a secret cave.
A secret hideaway only I know about.
I was transported back to all of those nights of insomnia, lying on the basement floor of my mom’s house, dancing with the reaching out … reaching for love, intimacy, connection … and reaching in … inward for safety, safety, protection.
This place.
As an adult and a somatic therapist, I have worked with the many intricate ways we self protect and disconnect from our bodies and the physical world (also known as disassociation), but as a tender human, holding her teenage self there on the basement floor, listening to those words and feeling the very space where they reside – that is a very different experience.
There is knowing, and then there is knowing.
For the first time, I felt the portal – the fluid in and out space, liminal space – of where I danced and created my layers and cloaks of protection from the outside world.
The complex web that was to protect the tender heart of my human spirit and carry me safely into adulthood.
Except cloaks are a tricky thing.
They are very much real and tangible, however, they are still a costume serving a purpose and the tender thing – the tender thing never ceases to be tender.
“I believe this is heaven to no one else but meand I’ll defend it as long as I can beleft here in silenceif I chose towould you try to understand?”
Anger.
Rage.
The thing that I have been trying to protect, so precious, so tender.
Deserving of its own complex cloak.
Leave me alone.
I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.
I’m hurt and I don’t want you to know that.
I’m afraid you will hurt me more – or manipulate me in this tender place.
After an argument, my lover once told me he hadn’t taken the offensive things I had said personally because I was like a wounded animal trying to protect Herself. He was right.
“and I’ll defend it as long as I can be left here in silence”
I think that was the first time I clearly saw where a lot of my unprocessed anger and rage came from.
Beneath our anger, there is always a tender place in need of protecting.
Anger comes in the places where we have been hurt.
It sometimes unconsciously draws lines where lines have been trespassed, placing boundaries where we were unable to articulate them from an integrated place.
Rage is rooted in those tender places that have been trespassed over and over again.
Under all of that is the most tender of tender places of our soul.
Our unprotected and undefended heart.
Last night as I listened to these lyrics in the coming down from letting rage ravage through my cells, moving it, letting it move me, holding it in the bigger thing, letting Her – the animal intelligence – move loosely, freely, in all of her ugliness, and spite, and hate.
Moving and moving until the grip of anger loosened to deep grief, and holding her there, in tears, in sobbing, in forgiveness.
Really for the first time really feeling Her – this deepening of the knowing of her – from where she stood as a child, a teen, and now as an adult human woman.
I can feel the peeling of the serpent skin, new tender flesh exposed.
It’s time to feel and see and witness these things.
They are inherently uncomfortable.
They are supposed to feel messy and undone.
The intelligence of animal is moving through us, guiding us, lovingly showing us the way.
Today, in rest and rejuvenation, I will feed Her.
Give Her strength.
Nourish Her.
Listen to her wisdom.
I slowly shed my grip on pleasing others.
I slowly release my cloak and manipulations.
Slowly, bit by bit, I call on Her to protect me.
Slowly, slowly I trust in Her a little bit more each day.
“I would like to linger here in silence if I chose to”
