My Grief, It Is Blue

I recently stepped gently into a medicine journey. This was not a deep dive. 
 
I have done a deep dive before. Back in January 2017, I dove into a weekend of ceremony dressed in white with many others, in a canyon in the hills above Santa Barbara. That first night was too deep for me and it took many moments that were mere seconds to say out loud, help me, and then I was surrounded by these beautiful people who took me to a safe space and helped me re-regulate before coming back to my temporary community of medicine travelers. The  second night offered me a more respectful balance and I danced in this power of this feminine plant that still, to this day, sings songs I remember. When I remember.
 
There was a just the right depth of a psychedelics journey that joined me for one amazing night at Burning Man, with my daughter in 2019. Ah, the joy and laughter and art and sand as we adventured to the far reaches of the Playa.
 
Then there was a deep dive only a few weeks before this most recent one. In that one, the medicine was strong. The energy was masculine. And while this ‘get it done’ masculine motion serves me often, in this time of exploration that my life journey is taking me on, I am finding I need to ground into the feminine, and this medicine, it did not offer what I longed for. I wanted to get out. But out was not real because I was not in anything. Except myself. I was in myself and couldn’t get out. I was scared. The whole time.  
 
Yet this, this fearful journey into the chaos that is my mind, offered me lessons that re-activated for over a week after. The wind was softer against my skin. I could hear my steps against the gravel of my road. I was so tall, then short as I walked outside. My meditations fed me glimpses of moments of nothing. Beautiful nothing where I wanted to stay for a long time.
 
The newly connected synapses in my brain soon calmed and revisiting the journey stopped. I have the memory, parts of it scares me still. And I find I can no longer tap back into the peace that is the nothingness of just moments in the turmoil that is me.
 
And now here is this most recent, almost five-hour journey, again with wise grandmother plant wisdom mixed with fungi from the earth to propel me along. The dose was low and the dance was sweet and I felt, in this relationship I had with this medicine magic, that we were in collaboration.  A constant dialog of question and answer. Of I need to take a break to are you ready to come back in? And soon, Yes, I am ready to come back in.
 
I spent a great deal of time, on this journey of hours, lying on the dirt in the corner of the yard of the home of the healing woman that shared her potion with me. I lay on the dirt, my head on my sweater, rolled up to soften a flat concrete stone. The sun on my skin, the earth against my back. I went in and out and in again.
 
In this container of infinite feminine wisdom, my grief, it is blue. The color surrounded me. Sometimes dark, sometimes more dim but always blue. The tears nestled into a blue haze each time I dropped into my sorrow. And I did. A lot.
 
I cried. A lot. And fell into love. And where at the beginning there was mostly grief, by the time I lay outside, I saw that my grief was a habit. This did not mean I did not honor the emotion. My grief is a marker. 
 
And also my lover and it is hard to step away. And this wise medicine from the earth, she kept reminding me, honor the grief and come back to the light. Honor the grief and come back to the light.
 
Till finally, I could land in my sorrow dance and sway for a moment before quietly stepping away, so as not to miss the lesson the medicine wanted to share.