By Susan Spence
I suddenly saw you there. Not just noticed, but really “saw” you. You stood alone, exposed and now very visible as most of the surrounding trees and bushes had been cut away. It looked like some kind of huge force had raked its fingers through this area of trees and bush along the road where I walk, leaving a haphazard destruction in its wake. Some trees were chewed apart with only splinters remaining on the ground. Others remained standing their branches broken, torn off, having survived somehow but wounded, looking stunned. And there you stood. Untouched.
You were not a tall tree. Your bark resembled deep wrinkles that sagged down your trunk. You were already showing the effects of all the years that had marked your life. Some of your branches had already been removed, cut away to keep the hydro line cleared of your touch. Some of your bark was off and there was a long, thicker branch that had extended a good distance out to a nearby tree which was supporting it there in its branches. And there, in the lower base of your trunk was a gapping, wrinkled, knotted hole, looking to me just like an old, wrinkled, used up vagina.
I gazed somewhat dispassionately at this and surprised myself by feeling angry. You were just so revealing, so blatant in your exposure; now sagging, withered and ugly. Done. I wondered if this was how you looked all along, or perhaps this hole had only happened as you aged, and your bark became more vulnerable to penetrate by animals seeking your shelter. Maybe this was initially a knot on your trunk with a small hole that grew larger with your growth to maturity, and then, when discovered by insects, birds or animals became a place where they could find an entry into your soft flesh beyond that barrier of your bark. Poked, pecked and prodded by all these factors.
I did not want to look at your revelation. It felt too close to my own. To the sagging flesh of my own vulva, and all the challenges I am currently having with pelvic pain and incontinence. To my own feelings of being betrayed by my body; the abdominal muscles that hold me together, that protect the soft and more vulnerable belly, that help to support posture so the upper body is not sagging down and pressing in on the diaphragm and lower organs. The prolapse into my vagina and the frequent, strong urges to urinate causing accidents and anxiety. How had I come to this, after all my efforts?
You seemed unapologetic about how you looked, your haphazard appearance. You did not have the uniformity of other trees, their symmetry, yet you held a place in this bit of bush. You had support and you were still alive, even in the shape you were in. I would not have really noticed you until this exposure, even though I have walked past you many times.
Your bold revelation seemed to be staring me down. What was I to understand, to see? Was it that I was to come to some kind of acceptance or to reach a deeper knowing of my feminine being? I have never felt connected to a “Goddess” aspect of being female. I have always wanted, even needed to feel hardness in my body more then softness. Hardness gave me a feeling of strength while experiencing softness often felt more like weakness. Physical strength meant that I was capable, able to prove that I could care for myself as a woman, and I was not going to let any female anatomy get in the way of that!
Yet I did not want to look at you. I did not want to see this exposure. I felt grief in the realization that you had only been spared for now, and why I did not understand. It pained me to feel this helplessness; to see you there with a destiny that awaited. You seemed so accepting, while I feel shame, embarrassment and even anger at my body as I pee uncontrollably. I seem to have lost my ability to control this with physical effort. What did I do “wrong”? What did I neglect? Is this my punishment? Is this what I am resigned to experience now in my elder years?
Some weeks later when I walked by, I saw that your top trunk and all your branches had been cut off leaving that lower part – that hole. I did not want to pass by, to see what had become of you. This mutilation. The “you” I had recognized initially was gone. I felt no energy at all coming from what was left of you. Your final destruction came a few days later. Even before I saw what had been done I could smell the chewed-up wood lying in the depression created by whatever tool was used to not only grind up the remaining part of your trunk but also your roots. The other trees too had been cut down and now all the bush was gone.
Sadly, I thought, “I will not even remember where you stood in a few years time when this piece of land has been changed”. It is to become a road, I believe. Your burial place paved over; your presence erased. What place in me has been hardened, pushed deep into my being and is paining now to be softened, to be remembered, and released? The pain deep in my pelvis, the pressure, the heaviness and sagging of muscle and posture.
I too, stand revealed. Naked. I have left my “clothes” behind in my transition from what “clothed and hid” me in my professional persona to this time and place of disconnection, disorientation and unraveling. I am pulling the string of a knitted life sweater and it is revealing other truths that are stark and at times unsettling. It has been my journey this past year to really “see” me, to soften the hard places and allow other revelations. Is it my authentic self that is coming into focus? Will I be able to break through the grip of fear that often holds me and have the courage to step out into a place that is yet not fully known to me?
I have been honoured by your revelation to me. I have been blessed to “see” you and am deeply grateful. Your life force has returned to Mother Earth who nurtured you through your own life cycle. You have completed your own transition while I continue my journey through mine.
Susan