The Braving Sleep

Recently, in a group I’m in, the facilitator shared a story with us in which the main character — a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter — comes to a point in her life’s journey when she has to make the transition to becoming her own Wise Old Woman/Guide.

For years, when she had need of guidance, she traveled into the woods to meet a Wise Old Woman, who would guide her to a secret place and sing a special song and provide her with what she needed to address her challenge.

At one point in the tale, her son gets very sick. She wants to find what’s needed to heal him.

So she heads into the woods. But the Old Woman is nowhere to be found.

After shedding some tears and feeling the fear that she will never find the secret healing place on her own, she feels a small nudge inside "walk down the road".

She struggles at first, to find the entrance to the secret place where she'd gone many times with the old woman, but find it she does.

She struggles to sing the song that the Old Woman used to sing to gain entrance.  But she finds her voice.

She struggles once inside to know which way to go.  But she keeps following small nudges.

She struggles with doubt and fear, that she's made the wrong choices. But she keeps finding the courage to go forward step by step.

Still, there comes a time on the journey when, heartbroken, discouraged, and afraid she will never get what she needs to help her son to heal, she once again finds the strength to sing the powerful song she’d been taught by the Old Woman.

The words from that part of the story called out to my heart, and have strengthened my joy and my resolve this week. 

I share them with you hoping that they will be nourishment for you as well.

“But she was not singing for her son. Not yet. She was singing for herself. That she might be brave. That she might sleep the braving sleep that would ready her for what is to come. The goodness, and beauty and life that was still waiting for her.”

It's with this vision in mind, that I will be holding a powerful, compassionate, brave space of support for a small group of white spiritual women and gender non-conforming beings.

If you want to show up at this crucial time of change not only for yourself—because like the woman in the story, you must do that— but also for those who live in brown and black bodies that are even more targeted than your own.

This sacred gathering takes place on Zoom on Thursday, February 13, 7 PM ET. You can learn more and register for this conversation here.  Let's join together and support each other to take our Next Step Forward. 

Let's all become the wise women, healers, and leaders who are needed at this time.

And tonight, in the midst of All That Is— and it is A LOT I wish for you that you may sleep the “braving sleep.”

And open to the goodness and beauty of the life that is under your feet right now. 

And that is to come. 

We are still alive.  Our stories are not over.  And we are the authors.

With love and courage,

Deb