Lost Tribe, Found Tribe, Who Knows?

This is my third attempt at writing about this subject. I wrote valiantly and quickly the first time, with ideas flowing from my heart. When I finished, I had five pages, which I already knew was way too long, but cutting anything out was not an option for me. So I edited. And edited. And edited. Six times over several days, weeks. (And I hate to edit!) Then yesterday as I started cutting out huge chunks, I realized that it was time for a new start on what I wanted to say. I think I emptied out my heart on the subject of lost and found tribes, and it seems as though that’s what I had to do first, just as what we frequently do in life with finding where we fit or what we really think or feel.

My second try at this subject turned into another bunch of blah-blah-blah that even I didn’t want to read again, and as I started this third time, I know clearly that I am still confused. When this title came to me with a “who knows?” at the end, I could have considered that the implied “not knowing” would also pertain to me. I did end the title with that question after all! I do know how I began early in life to feel separate from rather than part of, and I do know how through life my perception of myself as separate and different continued to color my perception of what was going on around me, and I do know that as I started to understand all of that, I did sense myself belonging … and realizing that I had always belonged in places or ways I hadn’t known to pay attention.

So have I come back again to the same answer as I often do? Pay attention? Ecophilosopher and activist Joanne Macy talking about our environmental crisis, says “It’s like a trumpet call to a great adventure. You learn to say ‘It looks bleak. Big deal, it looks bleak.’” She also talks about “making friends with uncertainty and reframing it as a way of coming alive.” I know those messages are important to me. They stir me. I jotted them down on my pad next to the computer, and I find myself feeling alive as I read them again and share them here.

I also felt alive this morning while watching “our” two squirrels outside the window, one climbing all over the holder for the dried corn on the cob that he eats, and the other sitting to pick up the pieces of corn that drop to the ground. I felt alive earlier this week when our three grandsons were here with their energy and fun telling us about their recent trip to DC while we all drove to get ice cream from Jeremiah’s and sang “Jeremiah was a bull frog” on the way home. I felt alive when I saw and keep looking at the picture of my 18-month-old granddaughter grinning fully in her joy in painting herself all over with yogurt.

I also felt alive when I walked into a friend’s home recently and saw the dining table set for the ten women who were coming for dinner. These are all women who are living rich lives working for and making important changes in community and beyond. They have fought big battles and keep doing what is there to be done. The table setting was by women, for women, and I felt the stirring in my chest again. The artiness and the joy that was there … the power … “a trumpet call to a great adventure?”

Another friend invited me to see her art show and have lunch for yesterday, and the thought of that also filled me with the thrilling pull of coming alive. But what called me also yesterday, and more insistently, was the need in my body and spirit to be quiet and take care. I was disappointed to miss the time with this lovely woman who is expanding herself into her art so beautifully. While I didn’t like not going to meet her, I did see: Walk softly with myself. Pay attention here and be grounded.

Could it be that my tribes look different than they used to, and I haven’t recognized them? That the truth is that right now I am part of many … and all I need to do is pay attention to see it? Sometimes it does look bleak to me. “Big deal, it looks bleak.” Sometimes I do feel the pull of a trumpet call from somewhere that I want to be, and I feel lonely, frustrated because I don’t know where that somewhere is. The “what next” isn’t quite crystalized, come into its own yet. “See who you are, be who you are, there is much to be done,” said the White Wolf and the Wise Woman to me long ago. That is still true.

Be patient, Dale. Nothing is lost, and there is more to be found. There is always more to be found. Who knows? I do.

Today, I am wishing for you the stillness of paying attention to all that is found in your life. And as always, I send to you love and blessings…

PS: You may enjoy, as I have, this song “You Will Be Found” from the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen. It offers this beautiful promise:

You will be found
So let the sun come streaming in
Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again
If you only look around
You will be found

Listen here:

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