Intensity (started in Tahoe)

Within there is a tension that needs to be released. Tied in knots are the feelings...intertwined in a way that makes it difficult to pull out the parts I want to keep and the ones that need to go away. Like a tree that has grown through a fence, it is difficult to know where and how to cut the fence or the tree and maintain the integrity of one, the other or both. Maybe the key is letting go of the control of that situation... we can cut as precisely as we might and yet the tree dies or the fence falls apart.

Maybe it will be like the tree in my parents front yard. Recently, the city decided to fix the sidewalk and gutter through which a tree root had erupted ages ago. My father was delighted and counseled them to cut the root back as far as they could. My mother concurred, but she expressed her fear that it would endanger the tree. Months later, the tree has survived; it continues to think that any rain is fall and loses all its leaves and then miraculously blooms as soon as the sun comes out.

Maybe I am as strong and resiliant as that tree. Maybe watching it adapt to its surroundings all these years has rubbed off on me. Maybe I will bend and grow and change... or maybe I will lose a limb, fall apart, or die (lose something I think is intrinsically me). I can continue like this...emotions tangled hopelessly, or I can begin to cut, untangle, face each fear/emotion/knot and learn to release the ones I don't need anymore while still honoring the power/protection/safety these emotions have given me over the years.

I cannot name all the tangles yet... and sometimes I am afraid to even see them, but this one I know:
Bound together are the sense of abandonment with the strength and resiliancy I have exhibited so far in my lifetime. Like the Crone of the Motherpeace Tarot (you can look up the card at www.tarot.com if you want to see it and read their thoughts on the card), I am able to care for myself in a solitary yet graceful way. I have that power. I learned early to be self-sufficient. Perched precariously near that strength is the fear of being abandoned again that keeps me from connecting with others; from naming out loud what I want; from claiming the gifts the universe has been holding for me since before my birth. Those gifts are not out of reach, but I must get through the tangle in order to claim them.

Could intensity become vulnerability?