I’m feeling so much more fertile these days. Is there a way to describe the feeling of fertile without conjuring images of swollen feet and bellies? Of crying babies and glowing cheeks?

Puyo, Ecuador 2012

What about hands plunged into black soil, delicately separating tender roots, burying them where they can grow deep? Or the rich color of green in late Spring that permeates every crevice of the earth, creeping up between cracks in the sidewalk, growing upwards on the surface of rough stone, sprawling out, out, out. This kind of fertile reminds me of the rainforest dripping with moisture. Of things that erupt from the ground overnight, a hidden seed that becomes a leafy thing casting its shadow wide and far.

Meramac Spring, Missouri 2018

This is the kind of fertile I feel. Rooted. Earthy. Fecund. Contented.

Yet at the same time, twitchy. Like really twitchy. “Are you going through another crisis?” My youngest sister asks teasingly because the answer is almost always, yes. “Metamorphosis, not crisis,” I correct, with as much pretend seriousness as I can muster. I am in on the joke.

Photo Credit: Good Housekeeping

I am in on the joke but I have no idea what is going on with me. Or what is being born this time around. All I know is that it feels edgy. Bold. Like geometric patterns and sharp lines. Scarlett lipstick and metal. Less f*cks. More shoulder pads.

It feels pretty uncomfortable. Like crawling out of my skin. Like unbridled energy. Lightening. Unpredictable. A flash here and then maybe, thunder several moments later. It feels like the tension between wanting to be barefoot in the garden every day all day and putting on my tallest pair of heels and striking a power pose (like a BOSS).

The paradox of soft and razor thin. Fierce and open. Patient readiness.

Magic.

Becoming.

At the end of April I took myself on a road trip toward the hills. I looked for a place to disappear into the Ozarks and do some walking in the Mark Twain National Forest. It was medicine. It was not-quite full bloom but the palest of purple violets and translucent green. It was a full moon sitting by the fire and stoking the flames until the smoke rose higher.

And then Spirit reminded me of this: It’s not your job to stoke the fire. It’s not your job to add more logs or blow on the coals so that they don’t go out. Your only job is this- to burn with a holy passion. Let yourself be the flames.

The alchemy.

The transformation of elements into Light.

Mark Twain National Forest, 2018

I really want to do all the things. I want to have the poker (and all of the cards) in my hands. I want to have control over how high and how hot the fire burns. I want to know what I will turn into when Spirit breathes and stokes and adds more fuel to the flame. I want a timeline for when the smoke will clear and my eyes will stop stinging.

But that is not the way. And so I can be an offering- a vessel with enough space to embody fertile roots in damp soil and twitchy branches swaying in the wind going every which way, anxious for the bud to burst. I can burn with holy passion and let there be peace among the wildflowers of curiosity.

Let the becoming and the unbecoming work together in simultaneous spontaneity.

Again and again.

Palm Springs, Florida 2013