Un ravel

A cloth unweaving – threads unravelling until it becomes something almost unrecognisable. 

I am unravelling too, dropping with intention parts and pieces of myself that I thought made me. Some days I feel that I am losing every concept of who I was, my body changes daily, the intricacies of my life metamorphose. 

Some days, the wounding of what is being left behind is throbbing, more alive in some way, the grief magnified. Other days, I barely recognise the remains of my life. Like a garden that has been stripped off, barren. A garden with green shoots just beginning to come through, tiny buds, almost unnoticeable. 

Yet despite this bareness that might look empty to the superficial eye, the garden blooms from the deep rich compost. Never beginning from nothingness, but from its already full-ness. Just like what I am leaving behind – the life, the people I loved, the places I poured myself into, the dreams, they are not eradicated, burnt. They are compost, nutrient rich soil from which new life is taking shape. They feed a new life, a new dream rooted in what is true to the soul. 

The illusion is this: to the mind it seems easier to choose that which gives pleasure temporarily. To please the body, to move with urgency. I have been rushing to nowhere.

It seems easier than the dark aloneness that is required through this passage. The pull towards the undesirable is often strong and disguised as being True. Sometimes, the continuous strength required for this unravelling of self is exhausting. 

I find myself often pulled back almost towards what I am un-becoming. On hard days, I surrender to the Earth’s intelligence with the awareness that this is not my work alone, that I am being infinitely held by the roots of these old trees behind my house. To them, I am whole, even in my brokenness. 

It’s a process of unravelling each and every thread of who we believe we are. I am a Police Officer. I am a Law graduate. Personal Trainer. Bodybuilder. Lover. Daughter. 

I drop each one of these, one by one. It’s frightening when we leave the confines of what we defined ourselves with – there are no longer solid things to grasp on. It feels like I am losing parts of myself. 

Yet these names and designations are only that: names, boxes that squeeze us into certain types, roles, with precisely defined margins. We are all so much more. Unpacking our false selves is perhaps the most precious process we will ever go through – and those that are brave enough to begin it are truly blessed. The process of leaving, shedding these false identities with the aim of revealing the core of our Being, the Truth about who we really are – it’s hard to choose it. Unravelling feels like losing the plot – but it is so necessary to lose it in order to find a new one – the true one. When no longer confined by the walls of designations, we have a choice in Being. We choose how to move. We choose how to show up, daily. 

With this all changing, my eyes are the only piece still recognisable, unchanged – doors through which life begins at sunrise, containers for grief; they speak their words daily and love everything in fullness. Expanding and contracting in a dance with light, round and luminous – they reflect the moon. A sign that even in this unravelling, some things remain stable and intact. That even in this, there is a constant that Knows, Sees – Soulful. Never changing.