I started a PhD program in Conservation Biology back in 2001... did all my classwork, all of my field work... but I never finished writing the dissertation. Last week my family and I went to visit Flagstaff, AZ where I had been working on said PhD. It's where my oldest daughter was born... and for her 10th birthday she wanted to go back... to see her roots. But so much happened for me while we were there. We went to visit my field sites... the refreshing aspen stands where I spent many days alone, looking for nests. But they were gone. Where there had been acres of aspen there are now only a few trees. The trees that are standing are sickly and sparse. Many have been cut down for firewood. My heart is broken. I grieved. Not only for the aspen... but... as it turns out... I grieved the unwritten dissertation. Have you ever felt the loss and regret mingle in your blood and settle in your stomach? Yeah. That. The aspen represented who I had been as an academic, and the visions and goals I'd had of my life at that time. What was staring me in the face was that it really was gone. Both who I was then AND the aspen stands themselves. The change left no room for anything but complete release. I couldn't pretend anymore that I'd ever go back and finish. Things change. Always. They die. They are born. The life cycle itself drives change. ![]() I was able to do a small releasing ceremony - burying a blank piece of paper (the unfinished dissertation) wrapped around a small stick (the forest) under the song of the plumbeous vireo (my favorite of the two species I studied). Sometimes we're blindsided by how we've changed as we focused on the details of our lives. And, for me, even when I had consciously moved on years ago... at some level I still clung to that persona. We all have to move forward, embrace who we are becoming. That's not always easy... but it's a journey I've taken over and over. This is just the latest iteration. How do you embrace change? Do you struggle? Or does it come easy for you? Bit by bit I've shed who I thought I was, or who others told me I am, to become more truly myself. Today I will sing to the wild in me, the true in me! I celebrate the passing of the academic as the true and only me, in the same moment that I grieve it. I embrace me as I am. And that heals me because it heals the perception I had that I wasn't enough.
8 Comments
Thank you Jill for sharing this vital sacred closing. It makes the time afterwards in the Santa Cruz mountains the day after your return even more special. I feel the robust power from this release of the past entering into what you are now creating and I am honored to support that in our friendship now.
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Jill
7/6/2014 03:37:40 am
Thank you Jordan, I value our friendship and am so grateful for the support! <3
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Kathleen
6/27/2014 02:35:42 am
Jill thank you for this wonderful reflection! Kathryn I were talking the other day about how we were both at a choice point and facing the necessity to release our old ideas of ourselves, especially our failures, in order to move into our new bigger evolved selves. I want to honor you for stepping into that process so beautifully. And for being such a graceful and powerful leader sharing your experience in such a creative, authentic way. Namaste.
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Jill
7/6/2014 03:39:07 am
Kathleen! Isn't it always such a process! Thank you for acknowledging the beauty of it... when things are a struggle, or have resistance in them, we can forget there's beauty. <3
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Jane
7/6/2014 12:44:23 am
Dear One, Jill, the content here, soothed the grief, I was not aware that I had, around 'old beliefs/and programs regarding who I am. Thank you for sharing your journey and wisdom here!
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Jill
7/6/2014 03:40:36 am
Jane, I'm so glad that it felt soothing. I think often we don't face the things that feel dark because we're afraid it means there's something bad about us. I too, though, have found that in facing those things I've experienced so much relief and release!
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Oh, Woman of Courage, Jill! As Carter Phipps says, we are the "cutting edge" of a human species we have never before seen, in this unprecedented evolutionary turn. How beautifully you model riding the rapids of old to new paradigm of who you are. To totally "let go" is such a monumental act of trust in your divine, inner knowing of "who" you have become, even when you can only see yourself with "evolutionary eyes!" You have co-created a microcosm of the new human woman "wombspace of love!" My heart bows in reverence to your heart. I am inspired to swallow hard and be brave!
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Jill
7/6/2014 06:40:07 am
Thank you Di! Thank you so much! Yes to swallowing hard and being brave! Glad to know I'm not alone! :) Bowing back to you dear one!
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Jill CliftonI'm an explorer of inner realms, a pattern observer, and an invitation maker. I believe that healing the world starts within. If you organize your blog conversations through Bloglovin' you can follow me there...
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