Lessons of the Labyrinth

Tags

adoptee, Adoptee Recovery, adoptee restoration, birthparents, labyrinth, recovery

“The end is the beginning,” – T.S. Eliot
Have you ever felt blindsided by life’s events? The deaths of people closest to me, all

The Labyrinth dates back 6,000 years.

happening in just a few years, was nearly unbearable. My adoptive parents, birthparents and husband passed away. How could I go on living? Did I even deserve to? In 2007, following the losses, I built a spiral walking path in my back yard and so it happened that the Labyrinth gave me a way.
The simple act of walking in to the center and then back out, helped clear my mind and reset my emotions. The labyrinth, though profound, is also very simple. When you come to the center of the spiral path, you reverse directions and walk back out.
In my case, the rhythm of that slow walking, combined with breathing deeply and feeling the air around me, gradually changed sadness to something like thoughtfulness. The sharp, ragged pain went away, and a feeling of acceptance took over. Through the days, weeks, months, and years, the labyrinth has been a way for me to tap the inner wisdom that is all too easy to ignore.
So powerful an influence was the labyrinth that I studied with Lauren Artress,
President and Founder of Veriditas, The Voice of the Labyrinth Movement. I read her books on the labyrinth, became a labyrinth facilitator, and hosted walks for friends in my own spiral path.
When I “went public” with my adoption story in The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries, I wrongly assumed that I’d solved the riddle of my adoption. I’d put my heart and soul into exposing my adoptee past. Through writing the book, I was finally able to forgive myself for a lifetime of oversensitivity about being an adoptee. In retrospect, I accepted the fact that reunions with both of my birthparents, while not a total failure, were not what I’d hoped they would be. I learned to accept even that. In the dealing with adoption department, I was done, finished, complete.
A friend will ask me if I’m “cured” or “over” the issues of adoption. The answer is “Maybe” or “Sometimes.” Like life itself, dealing with adoption is a work in progress. Thanks to walking the labyrinth, I am better able to recognize the negative adoption-induced feelings that come back to haunt. I have learned that those emotions are like the weather, ever-changing. Behind the clouds, sunshine awaits.
That said, I am not sure that one ever lets go of the “adoptee” status. For me, it is who I am. Of the hundreds of adoption stories I’ve read, it is as integral as the color of ones eyes. It doesn’t go away. So, while not “cured,”  I am now “accepting.”
Much of my life was shadowed by an underlying victim mentality. Now, I feel that obstacles forged an inner strength I’d lacked and made me more who I am. I have come to regard being adopted as a gift, not a curse. In this journey toward wholeness and self-acceptance, nothing has been a better teacher than the labyrinth.

The Labyrinth brings Clarity and Peace. In 2008, Elaine became a certified Labyrinth Facilitator.

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Adoption Recovery 101

Tags

Acceptance, Adaptation, adoptee, adoption, labyrinth, Reflections, Sarah Ban Breathnach

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

…Nothing so wise as a circle. -Rilke

This morning’s labyrinth walk yielded reflections that I’d like to share with you…

With the publication of The Goodbye Baby-Adoptee Diaries, a memoir comprised of diary entries from the 1950s through 1980s, I began to heal from years of repressed anger and pain. I forgave the past and myself. I redirected my imagination. Instead of dwelling on all those invisible wounds (from being separated from my birthparents), I was able to focus on writing.

After The Goodbye Baby, I decided that I’d moved on. Producing a memoir was instructive and healing. Helpful as it was, however, it wasn’t enough. Or to put it more accurately, it didn’t last. The stress and instability of my first five years of life sometimes come back to haunt me.

Here’s my newest “rescue remedy,” a three-pronged remedy for adoption recovery.

ACCEPTANCE –
Realizing the difference between dreams and expectations. As Sarah Ban Breathnach recommends in Simple Abundance, I’m following her recommendation:
“You dream. Show up for work. Then let Spirit deliver your dream to the world.”

WALKING-
I do this daily and I reaffirmed this intention with creating a new edition of my             guidebook Santa Fe on Foot. (www.santafeonfoot.com)

READING-
Allowing time each day for books.
I spend time reading for edification, for entertainment, for information, and (sometimes) sheer escape.

We really do not know what’s in store for us. As Sarah Breathnach recommends, “…we’ll only find out once we start investing our emotions in authentic expression, and not in specific outcomes.” Don’t get caught up in the “delivery details.”

Keep your dreams even as you accept what IS. Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for adoption thoughts.

 

 

 

The End is the Beginning

Tags

adoptee, Adoption recovery, labyrinth, Labyrinth Resource Group, Liberation, Renewal, Summer Solstice, Walking

The sun reminds us to open our hearts to life and love.

As a “recovering adoptee,” I welcome every opportunity to break loose from adoption issues. My favorite way to achieve a fresh attitude is walking the circular path, the labyrinth. On June 21, I went to a late afternoon Summer Solstice Walk. The event was sponsored by the Labyrinth Resource Group in Santa Fe, NM. Perfect conditions: mild temperature, clear view of surrounding foothills and mountains, a congenial group of labyrinth enthusiasts, live harp music. The sun just setting. Before we entered the circular path, we read the following inspirational poem, contributed by poet Mary Ann Wamhoff and written to “celebrate the infusion of light from the summer sun.” In honor of the new season, I present her reflections…

Solar Power
We’re heading toward the Light
drawn toward the Light
entering this longest day
reaching for fullness of being
gravitating to it
just like a phototropic plant!
consciously leaving behind any darkness
leaving all darkness behind
any pettiness, stuckness
any narrow-mindedness, prejudgments
“my-way-or-no-way” attitudes
“I-can’t-do-this” points of view
releasing what is passing away
the unproductive
any hindrance to our becoming full, rich, complete
releasing duality, either/or, distractions
limited notions
Just let it go.
Let it all go–
what is old, past, done, less-than-useful
killing creativity
strangling our spirits
fearful, selfish, withered, dry, dissonant, dim

Walking the Labyrinth is a good practice for every season.

We’re standing in the longest Light
receiving its Goodness
Just like a plant, needing it to grow
to become who we really are
receiving the Love it contains
absorbing All Life
letting this warmth penetrate each cell, aspect, fragment, facet of our Being
taking it in
holding it close and dear
allowing it to work its Mystery
to have its way within us
becoming new, remade
We are rising from the depths of despair and hopelessness
embracing all Good
embracing this Light

embracing this brightness
merging with trust, truth, joy, fullness of possibilities

We’re returning with Light
shining!
emerging with Life!
Love to share
ready to be instruments of this Brightness
this Sweet energy
and focus it
to dispel any darkness
carrying Abundance
effusing this Power
stars walking here on Earth!

The labyrinth is simple: One enters, walks to the center, pauses to pray or meditate, turns the opposite direction, then walks out. Walking the labyrinth is a way to get in touch with who you really are, to bring insights to bear on your life. As I journey toward wholeness and freedom from past invisible wounds of adoption, I realize the wisdom of the labyrinth. The door that closes opens to an “infusion of light” and a fresh start.

Join Elaine every Monday for reflections on adoption and life.

 

 

Backyard Reverie

Tags

Agave, Bark beetles, Contemplation, Drought, Gardening, labyrinth, Relaxation

Once again, I’ve “re-purposed” my back yard. If that sounds strange, allow me to explain. Here in the Southwest, Anasazi Indians (literally “the Ancient Ones”) preceded the Hispanic and Caucasians who followed. After years of populating what is now northern New Mexico, the native people vanished, most likely driven from their dwellings because they had no water. Fast forward to NOW. A drought, seemingly like that of the 1200s, has returned to plague us. Environmental ways of coping with the new dry times have advanced, but they are not moving fast enough.

The Century Plant towering over my backyard

Like other people in my town, I do what I can to help the situation, to conserve water and vote for environmentally helpful legislation. But having done that, I just want to enjoy what is. As the weather turns nice, I spend more and more time in my back yard, and as I putter about, I recall the yard’s different stages of being.
As I reflect on the yard and my journey of healing from adoption wounds, documented in The Goodbye Baby, I find parallels. Why the newly philosophical mode? Maybe I have finally calmed down enough about being adopted to enjoy and appreciate being here now. No longer agonizing over the fact that my grounds cannot be the way they used to be, I review the yard, remembering its former guises.
In the 1970s, there was a miniature forest of piñon, so dense that you couldn’t see more than a few feet. When there were trees, it was easier to grow things. I planted and tended a large vegetable garden. Aided by moderate watering, Nature provided abundant rain to help it thrive.
Fast forward a couple decades. The vegetable garden was long gone when a drought and subsequent bark beetle invasion decimated the piñon, taking 70 trees in all. There were bare spaces where shady groves previously existed. Weeds, that apparently scoff at the desirable plants’ need for water, thrived.
Mourning the loss of shade, I wandered about. My mission, an impossible one, was eliminating weeds. Anything that bloomed, whether or not it was officially a pest, was promoted to the status of “wildflower.” In addition to this anti-weed campaign, I listened to birds and gazed at clouds.
Part of my ongoing restoration of the back yard was building a seven-circuit labyrinth. So, in addition to weeding, I added labyrinth walking. Ambling, sauntering, trudging or lightly treading, I circuited the spiral path in—to center—and back out. I’ve continued to walk the spiral path for eight years. The labyrinth provides an important respite, a chance to simply be.
Beyond the labyrinth, I’d planted a blue-tipped agave plant from Mexico originally but purchased at a local nursery. It was perfect for the newly rock-scaped back yard. The hearty agave lived in the soil unobtrusively, pleasingly and attractively. No water was required other than what nature provided.
Words can hardly describe my surprise when I discovered that my agave seemed to have gone wild. A stalk was growing up out of the center at the rate of three to five inches a day!
Miracle or monster? I checked with the nursery and was told that the agave was actually a Century Plant and that it could grow up to 15 feet tall, would bloom and then die. I could cut the stalk down, thus saving the plant or I could simply witness the saga. I named it “Ferdinand” and witnessed the skyward trajectory until it was 15 feet tall. After that, it dried up and started to wither. I left it standing for another season. Finally, however, Ferdinand toppled over and the fellow agave plants, as if in sympathy, shriveled and died.
The agaves are all gone now but in their stead I’ve installed a cold frame garden plot and compost bin. Just as I’ve grown into a new iteration of my life, so has my yard. My reverie brought with it a message: A metaphor for life itself, or more likely just a “postcard from the yard.”

Elaine Pinkerton dreaming away the afternoon

Lessons of the Labyrinth

Tags

adoptee, birthparents, child adoptee, inner peace, labyrinth, Lauren Artress, recovery

“The end is the beginning,” – T.S. Eliot
Have you ever felt blindsided by life’s events? The deaths of people closest to me, all

The Labyrinth dates back 6,000 years.

happening in just a few years, was nearly unbearable. My adoptive parents, birthparents and husband passed away. How could I go on living? Did I even deserve to? In 2007, following the losses, I built a spiral walking path in my back yard and so it happened that the Labyrinth gave me a way.
The simple act of walking in to the center and then back out, helped clear my mind and reset my emotions. The labyrinth, though profound, is also very simple. When you come to the center of the spiral path, you reverse directions and walk back out.
In my case, the rhythm of that slow walking, combined with breathing deeply and feeling the air around me, gradually changed sadness to something like thoughtfulness. The sharp, ragged pain went away, and a feeling of acceptance took over. Through the days, weeks, months, and years, the labyrinth has been a way for me to tap the inner wisdom that is all too easy to ignore.
So powerful an influence was the labyrinth that I studied with Lauren Artress,
President and Founder of Veriditas, The Voice of the Labyrinth Movement. I read her books on the labyrinth, became a labyrinth facilitator, and hosted walks for friends in my own spiral path.
When I “went public” with my adoption story in The Goodbye Baby:A Diary about Adoption, I wrongly assumed that I’d solved the riddle of my adoption. I’d put my heart and soul into exposing my adoptee past. Through writing the book, I was finally able to forgive myself for a lifetime of oversensitivity about being an adoptee. In retrospect, I accepted the fact that reunions with both of my birthparents, while not a total failure, were not what I’d hoped they would be. I learned to accept even that. In the dealing with adoption department, I was done, finished, complete.
A friend will ask me if I’m “cured” or “over” the issues of adoption. The answer is “Maybe” or “Sometimes.” Like life itself, dealing with adoption is a work in progress. Thanks to walking the labyrinth, I am better able to recognize the negative adoption-induced feelings that come back to haunt. I have learned that those emotions are like the weather, ever-changing. Behind the clouds, sunshine awaits.
That said, I am not sure that one ever lets go of the “adoptee” status. For me, it is who I am. Of the hundreds of adoption stories I’ve read, it is as integral as the color of ones eyes. It doesn’t go away. So, while not “cured,”  I am now “accepting.”
Much of my life was shadowed by an underlying victim mentality. Now, I feel that obstacles forged an inner strength I’d lacked and made me more who I am. I have come to regard being adopted as a gift, not a curse. In this journey toward wholeness and self-acceptance, nothing has been a better teacher than the labyrinth.

The Labyrinth brings Clarity and Peace