January 28, 2017
As I sit here in our family’s log cabin, high in the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by loved ones, laughter and safety, the burning logs in the woodstove crackle softly in contrast to the cold wind blowing against the snow piled up around the outside of the cabin. I love where I am. I feel happy with no lingering pain around the edges. My children and I have overcome, we are free, happy and prospering. But like the contrast of the fire and warmth and love inside to the cold mountain wind and snow outside, I can’t help but remember the desperate isolation I felt only a few years ago and how much pain had then threatened to overcome me.
It was a cold Pacific Northwest afternoon, slate grey and stormy. I drove home in a daze, betrayed and alone. No one understood my situation, no one was willing to reach out of their little safe world and protect me or my children. Nearly every person whom I had once trusted and believed understood me had left. Even our friends whom we had raised our children with for the last 12 years, our church leaders whom we had served beside for all that time, some whom I had personally been friends with since high school, and all my husband’s family who had been our closest friends and loved ones, all of them were gone. Our story was too tough to believe, to ‘fantastical’ but it was true. I had just spoken with a dear friend and ecclesiastical leader who made it clear to me that he couldn’t understand or support me and I was in shock bordering on despair.
I drove into the long gravel driveway between the ancient cedars that stood as sentinels on either side of the road like a gateway to our sanctuary. Without thinking more, I took an immediate right, onto the grass of our large field surrounded by ancient trees, rhododendrons, iris, 100-year-old blueberry bushes and other gorgeous plants and flowers. But it was winter, everything was dead, nothing was flowering and a light snow began to fall. I was in my church dress and heels. I had no thought but only pain that was overtaking me when I got out of my car and stumbled through the frozen grass towards a beautiful cedar tree at the far side of the field. I hadn’t thought to grab my coat and barely felt the cold as a winter wind swirled around me blowing my dress where it may.
I collapsed at the base of the cedar and leaned my head into the bark, seeking nurturing and peace. Ever since I was a young child, trees have been my friends. One of my first memories was of looking up through the branches of a Big Leaf maple tree with sunlight and faeries flitting through the leaves with the butterflies and ladybugs. I couldn’t have been more than 2 or 3 years old. I remember how happy and free I was and how much I wanted to fly through the leaves with my faeries. It is a bright and beautiful memory that often returned when I needed it, like I did now. My mind wandered to another time that wasn’t so happy, years ago, after my sister’s death when I missed her so badly that I went to the beautiful cemetery where she had been buried. I just sat at her grave and cried and cried. But there was no comfort in sitting next to her buried, decaying body, it was her soul that I missed. I remember getting up to leave when I looked around to see ancient cedars, likely hundreds of years old, I longed for comfort and could feel their peace. I found one that was especially large to sit under. I remember feeling its soul pulse out to comfort my shattered heart. My faerie angels didn’t venture too close that day, for I wouldn’t let them. I was trying to do it all myself. But I could see them fluttering in the nearby bushes and trees. I cried until I couldn’t physically cry anymore, regained my composure and drove away.
But as the snowflakes swirled around me and my cedar tree, on the cold winter day a few years ago, I wasn’t the same stubborn teenage girl. I was wiser, and more aware, and if it was possible, in more pain. This time, I knew better than to shut my faerie angels out or to shut down my heart even though it was breaking. It had taken me 20 years to overcome that mistake from before. I wasn’t about to do that again, but how in the world was I supposed to keep my heart open to all this pain now?
I could feel myself trying to disconnect from the pain when I cried out, “Please, help. Please, help. Please…”
At that moment, I looked around and saw faint wisps of glowing faeries, possibly even their spirits, I couldn’t tell. They travelled slower than I remembered and seemed concerned. Cedar faeries, snowflake faeries, frost faeries, faeries from all the plants and bushes and trees near me, all spinning slowly around in the snow and mist and wind. I began to feel growing sparks of hope in my frozen soul amidst the swirling emotions of betrayal, horror and raw pain. In a group, they circled me and my cedar, slowly chanting a soothing melody which beaconed me to follow them through the snow to a safe place filled with beauty, warmth and love. I wanted to follow but felt scared. Thoughts of my children waiting for me at home, my parents worried about how my meeting went, and concerns of where exactly I was going began swirling around me as well, when one of the faeries, glittering silver blue, reached out her tiny little hand. I reached out and held it.
I became a little disoriented at that moment when a small opening in the trunk of my cedar tree appeared. There was a rush of warm, inviting light and smoke and the faeries swirled into the opening. My little silver blue faerie began to follow. I stood, sore and cold, the warmth and smell of an inviting fire slowly melted all my concerns as I followed all the faeries down into the heart of the cedar.
