Cord-cutting: Uprooted

led by Stephanie Greene in Wild Soul

Chakras cleared, the image renders before me: a field of tall green grasses, some as high as my shoulders. Mountains line the distance, the sky overcast, but the weather here matches my mood. It is no surprise that clouds cloak the sky as I prepare to do one of the hardest things I have ever done.

The grass waves in the wind, whipping a white dress around my limbs. I look around to get my bearings, and then there she is. I spot her as she crosses over the horizon. She’s wearing a white dress just like me, and she looks the way I remember her, not the way she looks now.

She comes to stand before me, a respectable few feet away. We look at each other, and her expression matches mine: a determination to do what needs to be done, no matter how painful it might be.

I break the silence. I have so much to say to her, but all of those words have already burned on the altar of forgiveness. “Let’s just let this be goodbye.” My words are almost lost among the wind. Almost.

She nods.

We lay down side by side in the grass, our shoulders nearly brushing. The grass protects us from the wind down here. I grasp her hand in mine, small and warm. It feels like we are girls together, again.

I grasp the tether that connects us, dry and white. It has not been tended to for a long time, and this will be the last.

It is strong and thick in only the way a deeply-rooted connection can be. I find the stem in the center of my torso and start to pull. Suddenly, my whole system comes alive with a mental map in my mind. The tendrils of these roots have overlapped my nervous system. For each nerve, vein and artery, there is our connection, a copy of the same map in my body. That is how deeply you rooted into my life. For thirteen years these roots spread and spread and spread, down to the pads of my fingers, the soles of my feet.

My arm shook as I pulled, the connection not ready to go willingly. I struggle and heave, using all my energy until finally, the tether pulls free of my chest, every root still intact.

I look over to her and she gives me one last smile, then her and the tether in my hand crumble to dust and blow away in the wind, speck by tiny speck.

Exhausted, I bury myself right there in the dirt, a process my subconscious names in the moment “seeding.”

Then I blink and I am at my eternal bonfire on the cliffside. I walk to the edge and see other bonfires in the distance, a friendly reminder that I am never alone in this work.

Suddenly, a sound echoes from the middle of the bay. I peer out over the dark and choppy waves, but see no one. “Hello?”

The call comes again, closer this time, and I recognize the sound as me. It always is, but this is a part of me I exiled long ago. It’s time to integrate her back in.

I call back, “if you can hear me, follow my voice. I will meet you on the shore.”

I start to run the trail that will lead me to the beach, and the chapter closes, a cliffhanger waiting to be revealed when I return.

*image is not my own