It All Comes Down to This
Every time Christiane, Alyssa, Johanna, and I get together to craft an offering, we find that no matter the specific content, our intention ultimately comes back to one thing.
BELONGING
One thing we have in common is that the four of us have parts that were painfully rejected by family, friends, institutions, and beyond. Oh my goodness how we’ve wanted to feel loved and held by those who simply couldn’t! We’ve shared stories with each other about moments of despair when we felt too broken or too weird to ever be really welcome in this world.
Our culture has it all wrong when it equates ‘fitting in’ with belonging.
The seed of our belonging has been with us since the moment of our conception and our unique essence is critical to the continued diversity of life unfolding and evolving. Although it may be hard to believe sometimes, we can’t not belong, and ‘fitting in’ often disconnects us from our inherent belonging. To truly understand and live into this, we must turn away from the strategic and malevolent messages of Domesticator Culture and turn towards the things that nourish our soul and our knowing.
This takes slowing down and tuning into ourselves with presence, which is often wildly uncomfortable. The dedication, acceptance, and surrender we need to dig deep and lean into whatever is happening cannot sustainably be done alone. In fact, ‘individuality’ and ‘independence’ work against our sense of belonging. Belonging is, after all, connection.
The other-than-human, natural world – where most of the Web of Life is woven – is an essential place to return to and commune with as often as we can. Here, we can observe with reverence and recollect our inextricable role in the planet’s unfolding.
It’s necessary that we cultivate our belonging in a well-enough community, which, in our experience, can be hard to find. We need other women to hold us when we forget our belonging. At The Verdant Collective, we cultivate well-women’s community in all sorts of ways, through the embodied stories of our longing, the remembering of what is well, in celebration and ceremony, and so much more.
In a world where women often have to contort or hide parts of ourselves, it’s important that we find the places where we can lean in and challenge the narratives we’re living with so that we can unfurl into all that we truly are. The Verdant Collective is a community of women that welcomes all of you, and there is always enough space around our fire for you to step in and take your seat.