Pruning the past without destruction

Over the weekend I cut down vines from my back yard.

I've been having them crawl up the fence, over the yard and onto the external wall of my building. The neighbors complained lightly a while ago that the vine is bad for the old building. It finds its way into cracks and can cause structural weaknesses.

I dismissed what they said, not taking it seriously.

But then on Saturday I woke up and I'd had enough. The insects bite me under the porch whose roof is covered in new and old vine. Probably the insects nest in the vine. The dead vine is a fire hazard and the weight in the porch is heavy.

Cutting off the vine was no simple job.

It was tangled and heavy. The new green was wrapped around the dead vine. You couldn't tell where one vine started and ended.

The vine, what it does is wrap itself around the external structure. It paints itself around the solid thing.

When I first saw the vine, I was enamored by its tendrills climbing up and promise of a green canopy. I'd always loved climbing Vines and still do. The green living thing evolving over the stony structure lifted my spirits.

And I still loved it the day I cut it, the only thing that had changed was that I began to see the price I was paying for living it.

As I began to cut the wood Vines, the price I paid became clearer. I was unaware until I let it go how much it was costing me. The vines where trying to get into the air conditioning motors, suspended on the external walls; once I cut them down, not only did the old air conditioning unit stop making a rattling sound, the air it blew out was colder. Though the roof off the porch is white so you can't see the layers of dead and new vines that plated it when under the porch, once I'd managed to get rid of the thatch, the whole atmosphere felt lighter. A sense that the unseen heaviness of the vine was always there, sapping away energy; once cleared, so did the energy around me. And finally my bedroom, which I thought was gloomy, was far brighter, once the vine had cleared. So too was the entire yard, now bathed in sunlight.

I think it's no coincidence that of the shamanic medicines, Ayehusca, a blended herb, is made of two vines. Taking the Ayehusca I felt it reach inside me, probing like a vine. It tried to get into my brain but I would not let it. My trip was about control. Learning to begin to see how much of my life is about trying to control.

I see the vines around my house; the way they block the light, the way the tendrils attach themselves to solid structures, then attach to other vines, ending up with thatches composed of a tangle of dead and alive vines . Those thatches, which then take a formation as a shape in become an object which gets infested by insects. The more it is defined as an object with a defined shape, the morning it itself deteriorates. I see how I used to long for the vine to climb up the walls, so that something alive would embrace my house. But that, in the end in this live thing is trying to take over my house and blocks off the light.

Last Friday I went to a reflexology and massage treatment. I told her I'm doing IVF and that my current stage is just before returning embryos to the womb.

The lady who gave the treatment, like some other good therapists, is a bit like a healer. As she touched my foot or knotted muscles she said... breathe out and give up in control breathe in an receive with love. She told me to repeat this three times a day whilst focussing on bringing energy to my womb, by touching my lower stomach and back with my hands and focussing on that. She explained that this is a period of letting go, to be open to life and new life. I make room for the baby. To nurture the space inside me to be peaceful and welcoming. To have a stable warm space inside.

At the moment I'm menstruating. It's biological purpose is to shed the lining of the womb to make room for an embryo to implant.

And what I am learning about is to leave behind the past.

I started to glimpse how much of my energy in the present is mired in the past.

For example, my parents whom I both love very much, we're had imperfections at the skill of parenting emotionally. I mean, that's the case with every parent, but I've had years of therapy to work through my childhood. There are many things that I have a right to be angry about and yet have no right to be angry about. I know that sounds like a contradiction. What I mean is, I have a right to have been hurt and angry and distrusting and traumatised and all the other ways I turned out imperfect that led me to therapy, because my childhood experiences with them caused it. And could have been avoided quite likely if they had been more perfect people. But having raised to my consciousness the reasons for my anger, I have no right to be angry at them now. Because the only way I moved through and grew from having that therapy was to accept myself, warts and all. And if I accept myself warts and all then who am I to not accept them, warts and all? So I immediately have no right to be angry.

But the reality is I often do still carry anger towards them. When I'm not physically with them, often. But anger against who? The time has passed. I'm angry at ideas in my head. They are now old people, not parents who are younger than me now. I'm now 44. When my father was this age, I was eight years old. When my mother was this age, I was 14 years old, the she she left him and could not cope with a headstrong teenage daughter that she felt s threat. I don't really understand her. But I can never put myself in he shoes. And today, she is someone else. And the person she is, that's not someone who really remembers the past. For so long I've been angry at her for that.

But lately I've realized how letting go can be a strength. Not just a little strength, but a mega strength.

How often do I cling to ideas of ideas or relationshios because i want to avoid cutting my losses? But how much less painful cutting losses would be if I could let go of the pain that arise when I cut my losses. Do you understand? The irony is that the perceived pain associated with cutting losses is proportional to the resistance to letting go. If I can lose my inner resistance to letting go, it will morph from being a painful process to- instantaneously - being far less painful. It's in the mind.

I'm quite a fan of Nas Daily on Facebook. He has a t-shirt that says 54 per cent. No no. That's me. He's at 34 per cent. 34 per cent of his life is (probably) over, kaput. 54 per cent of mine.

Those thoughts that I hold onto that I should have released- living in regret and anger about relationships, decisions, sentimentality- they are like the thatch of dead and new vines on my porch. They seem like part of my house. They make me feel as if they are protecting me because their presence is a comfort, because there's something always alive and growing on it. But its a parasite on the reality of my home. It builds itself on to itself and when it wraps around the house it's guise is beauty but it's end game is to take over. And when I started chopping away at the thatch, only then did I realise how heavy, unwanted and superfluous it was. Only when I chopped it away did I realise that I never actually needed it. And that now my garden was flooded with light.