 The Triple Spiral. Also known as the Triskele and Triskelion, and often believed to be the oldest symbol of spirituality.
My very first tattoo was this also. A much more simple design. That sits on my back, on the left shoulder blade. The Triple Spiral. Maiden, Mother, Crone. Surrounded by flowers. Because I got more tattoos. After this first spiral, shortly after this, I spiraled. Tattoos of plants and flowers that lie on my skin as art planted in the dirt that is my flesh. Watered and nurtured by my soul and breath. After that first Triple Spiral, shortly after this, there have only been flowers and plants. And trees. A ton of leaves of trees. Until now. Because a few months ago, reflecting on… well, reflecting, the spiral dropped in. I need this again. And I went googling for images and found this one that is now here, (did you know that now here, combined is nowhere?!) on my arm. My virgin arm. The Triple Spiral is a symbol of the cycle of birth, life, and death. And of the three elements—Earth, Water, Air. And the three Celtic worlds—Spiritual, Present, Celestial. And the Maiden, Mother, Crone. This feminine power of transition, growth, transformation. This ethereal energy radiating outward or inward of growth, birth and the expansion of consciousness. This path, never linear, as each step winds us ever inward into ourselves. This Triskelion, it is a symbol of the perpetual journey of growth. And evolution. And transformation. And it is a reminder of the interconnectedness of all things. Phew. This is a lot of words. Worlds. Words. I get these tattoos, all of these plants and leaves and flowers and spirals, for many reasons. They honor my family, my husband and my children and my grandchildren and myself, in the tradition of Celtic Tree Astrology. They are an adornment. An amazing collection of art lives on my body. They are a planting. I was a wise herbalist healer Wiccan woman in a life past. Celtic based and potion making, with gardens that grew out from my green thumbs. In this, current rendition of my life, not so much. And so flowers and leaves on my skin is a way to keep these plants growing. To keep me growing. And these tattoos, they are a reclaiming. Marking my skin. My body is mine. This is important. I went to this amazing artist for this most recent piece. In Massachusetts on this most recent visit east. Fat Rams Pumpkin Tattoo. (I know, what a great name, right) in Jamaica Plain. I worked with Binx. She worked with me. And we created this intricate piece that took five hours. My arm is sore. This piece is beautiful. I am thinking I now needs hands, adorned with flowers of course. This will be my next tattoo. Stretched from my wrist upward and holding this Triskelion Triskele Triple Spiral Orb as an offering to the heavens inside me.  I was really mad last week. And wrote a writing that I planned to share last Monday. I had already written the ‘My Back’ piece as the writing for last Monday’s writing, but then Hersh Goldberg-Polin was brutally murdered along with six other young and beautiful people and my heart broke. And I was mad.
And I wrote a piece that I thought I would post. And then, last Monday morning, I woke to the clarity that this anger, while it serves a part of me and while we need it—we need to be angry— this anger, coming out on this page and shared, it puts me in this place of possibly alienating others. And in this moment of grief for the loss of these six brave souls, and for the continued trauma of my Jewishness, and for the constant violence against my people, and the violence against all others who are the focus of this organization that calls itself Hamas, but is really a cancer, I don’t want alienation from others. I want inclusiveness. I want light. I want connection and understanding. And love. And so I posted the ‘My Back’ piece, that I had written first, knowing that this newer piece, that came up out of me in response to my grief , and in response to my grief camouflaged as anger, and in response to my anger too, that I would sit on this piece over this week and rewrite it in this way that is more in alignment with where all of me is at. So I’ve rewritten this piece. This piece that I wrote last week after all six beautiful souls, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, age 23 and Eden Yerushalmi, age 24, and Carmel Gat, age 39, and Almog Sarusi, age 26, and Alex Lubnov, age 32, and Ori Danino, and age 25, were murdered. I rewrote this piece so that, while there are parts in here that embrace this anger, there is also possibility. There is responsibility. There is humanity. There is saving our humanity. There is honoring the existence of our humanity. Honoring the existence of our humanity because perhaps if we notice it is here, it will appear. 2. “Nothing happens to you. It’s happening for you. There are times where you might find yourself buried in a very deep and dark place. But just know, that maybe you have not been buried at all. Maybe you’ve just been planted.”--Berel Solomon 3. I wrote a piece a while back. A long while ago, November 23, 2015. I wrote a piece called It’s Time (Again) To Save (Our) Humanity. This is that piece, edited for now-- I have been thinking a lot about the pain that surrounds us these days. Whether the violence that has hit upon every shore of every country, the silent weeping of birds and beast, or the deep, soft murmur that echoes from the earth as her essence is ignored and we soil her skin. At first, this pain, it pained me. To the extent that I could not take it in. It was too much. The news hurt my soul. The information was toxic to my spirit. My skin, like the earth, was tender. And so I shut it down. I stopped letting the information in. I checked out. And felt, for a short but sweet time (or so it seemed sweet in the moment of it) that I was separate from it all. And so safe. But this is not my truth. It was merely a temporary rest. A getting ready. For my opportunity to save myself. Because what is really going on, whether man against man, against beast, against earth, it is a trigger for us to tap into our higher selves. To rediscover our connection to each other and to Spirit, God, One. Call it what resonates within you. And let it resonate within you. Because this is what this time is. It is not about saving others. It is about saving ourselves. It is about finding our true essence. Embracing our beauty. Seeing our potential. Our power. Our grace. Our love. And so when you see the news on the television, in the papers, on the ever-in-use computer, see it for what it is. A wake-up call. Our wake-up call. A kick to our soul's ass into getting going again. The world—earth and animal and air—it has aligned again to move us to see the work we need to do. Because we have lost ourselves. And the little reminders, they did not work. We needed something big. Something our bodies and our minds and our egos cannot ignore. Something that shocks us so we can get out of our own way. So that we see again. So that we wake up. And so the Universe—Spirit, God, One— it has given us this. This moment. The Universe —Spirit, God, One—has given us this moment. The Universe—Spirit, God, One—is begging us to wake up. If we believe, as I believe, that we are here, in this physical body on this sweet, soft ground called earth, to reach our fullest potential—find our true power, embrace the light within ourselves—then we can see clearly that all of this, the mess of it, the pain and sorrow and loss of it, it is here before us to move us forward towards the place where we are journeying. And at this moment when we rediscover ourselves we will remember each other. And see (again) that we are not alone on this journey. That we are connected. To each other. That we have been connected all along. All of us. 4. Julia Haart released a video last week. In response to the murder of the six hostages that were found in Gaza. The six hostages that were murdered by Hamas only shortly before they were found. Let this sink in. These six beautiful souls didn’t just die. This was a deliberate killing because, Hamas, these heinous humans, would rather these six beautiful people be dead rather than be saved. When I first heard that Hersh Goldberg, age 23, an American citizen, kidnapped and tortured in Gaza, had been deliberately murdered before he could be saved, along with Eden Yerushalmi, 24, and Carmel Gat, 39, and Almog Sarusi, 26, and Alex Lubnov, 32, and Ori Danino, 25, my heart broke. My heart is broken. And I am angry. And I feel paralyzed. And hopeless. And angry. A friend of mine sent me a text. “Fuck Hamas. And fuck these stupid college kids.” And I thought, yes. Fuck those stupid college kids. And anyone else, anywhere in the world who, in anyway, supported Hamas. Which means not denouncing Hamas. You don’t have to just be raising the banner for terrorism to show support for Hamas. Complacency shows support. Silence, silence shows support. And then my sister shared Julia Haart’s video. Yes, I said, when I listened to this. Yes. Their blood is on your hands. If you are not repulsed and angered by the murder of these six beautiful people, shame on you. This is not about who’s side you are on. This is not about your political beliefs. This is about your humanity. If you are not repulsed and angered, shame on you. Shame on you. Any of these hostages could be you. If you are not repulsed and angered, shame on you. Their blood is on your hands. Please watch Julia Haart’s video. Please share this video. It is a call for our humanity. It is a call for our humanity. What is happening right now, it is call for our humanity. 5. “If you want to see God save the innocent, you must get off the couch and save the innocent. If you want to see God feed the hungry, you need to feed the hungry. If you want to see God stand by while innocent suffer, all you need to do is stand by and do nothing yourself.” —Rosh Hashana service prayer book commentary ~  I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about a piece of the puzzle. I wrote, in the “You’re I, And I Am You, And The Only Map You Need is Love” piece, about this piece of the puzzle that is big while it is small. Big, in that it is dense and full and weighted. Small in that it is just this tiny last piece of a vast and complex whole.
A last bit of the whole to fill the hole. It’s the essential part, the root, the beginning. It’s small in size, like the size when you put your thumb and pointer finger together and make a circle. It’s that size. But it’s big. It’s the size of a vertebra, yet as big as the all of me. But let’s talk about my back. I have this thing with my back. It’s called spondylolisthesis. My photo with this writing kinda sums it up. It is the slip of an upper vertebra slipping off a lower one, in my case, L5 and S1. It happened either when I was 12 and fractured my spine or I was born with a fractured spine. Either Or. The doctors don’t know and it really doesn’t matter when. It matters that it is. This fracture in my spine (the Spondylolysis) that causes the slippage (the Spondylolisthesis). The fracture creates an instability. And a continued slipping at times over this so many years. Anyway, this spine. One of the reasons why the Drs thought I fractured my spine when I was 12 was because that’s when it started bothering me. But it could have just been that this is when it started bothering me but it happened much earlier. I have been managing my spine for 50 years now. Lately it’s been awful. There are other times that it has been awful. When it’s awful it hurts to stand. And sleep. Those things mostly. Standing and sleeping. Oh, and walking. Walking fucking kills me. When my spine is bad, I am in pain. Or I can’t feel my legs. Or feet. Mostly my left one. This has happened before. And then I manage it, and often it’s ok, and then it’s not and I manage it again. But this time, this last rendition of my unstable spine thing that I have, the pain has shifted to the right side. This is new information which means I need more information. When you have an injury (or spine defect from birth) for your entire life that you discovered 50 years ago, and in all that time the transfer of pain from the spine to the leg went down the left side…and now, at year 50, of my 62 years on this earth, the pain runs right …well…this is new information. And so I need more information. This is going to be a long, and dense, piece. And (just so you know where we’re going here) we will end up back at the missing puzzle piece. So I had a new Xray taken by my (when I broke my foot and when I tore my meniscus) Orthopedic Surgeon that I love because his goal is always to avoid surgery if we can and he referred me for 12 weeks of PT, which is like the very best thing ever! And he also referred me to a neurosurgeon because “this is a pretty bad Spondi” and well, you know, this is where my spinal cord lives. And I called my son, because, well, you know, he is this gifted Postural Alignment Practitioner and Somatic Experiencing Therapist and Healer. And I went to my most favorite Chiropractor to look at my Xray again and he checked my feet, which I can’t feel, and now I have a program in place to work on nerve regeneration and spinal mobility in that unmovable spot. So… This structural instability that is my spine. This structural instability while certainly a structural trauma, is, I truly believe, the physical manifestation of the lack of safety that I feel. Both. Because while it is a structural injury (from birth or after), it is also the space/place, where this last, deep and challenging but we’ve got to heal this shit trauma, piece lives. My trauma settled into this space. This is where it found its home. Or it found a home and my body, in all its infinite and intuitive wisdom, circled round these emotions and formed their home. Either Or. And it really doesn’t matter how. It matters that it is. And I know that this is. How do I know this? Because every time I do the physical work to help stabilize my spine and alleviate the pain, every time I do these somatic and PT and alignment exercise movements, I cry. This is Somatic Therapy in its truest form. Release the physical and the emotions are set free. But not until I feel them. A lot. It would be easier if the emotions released quickly through the trauma space in the body out into the air to heal with the universe. But no, first I get to feel them. And process them. Wade through them. Perhaps pick up pieces of information but not always. And heal them. I get to heal them. This is hard. Which makes it hard sometimes to do the Somatic and PT and alignment exercise movements because I don’t want to feel the deep feeling emotions that come out. I don’t want to feel them and heal them. They hurt. And I’m tired. So back to the beginning of this piece and the solving of the last piece of the puzzle piece that is the size of my vertebra but heavy and soupy, dark and concentrated. The Universe, in all her glory coupled with this beautiful sense of (compassionate) humor I know she has, she re-misaligned the misalignment of my spine so that the pain, it is so really bad that I can’t function through it. So I have to heal it . Which means I have to heal the emotional piece, that last piece of the piece that is the size of my vertebra but big. I have to do the physical work because we are not messing around now. I don’t have feeling in my feet. This is bad. And so I can’t escape the physical work which means I can’t escape the feelings. That’s how this work works. So, here I am, with my back that is my Achillis Heal and also my Savings Grace. Because without its pain message, I could choose to ignore this last small piece. That is so fucking big and sits, just the right size, inside my misaligned spine. Without this pain, I could maybe ignore this. But I can’t And so I do it. Because I am brave. |
Elizabeth RoseMother, Wife, Friend, Sister, Daughter, Dancer, Rower, Runner, Dog and Cat lover. Archives
December 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed