I did not feel like a “woman who runs with the wolves" today. I went to my PT and reported the miracle that I can now sit for four hours and do laundry and pick up plates from the bottom rack of the dishwasher. I also reserved a picnic shelter for Forest’s birthday party. I picked him up and talked about his report card with him and helped him write another page in his Foxy Serpent book. This is a character that he invented when he was five. At that time, just after the divorce, Foxy Serpent was visiting each of the planets in turn and the planets were covered by bones and poisonous plants and thorny vines.
Foxy Serpent was having a rough time.
The new Foxy Serpent book is called "Foxy Serpent and His Friends." His friends are Tail Elf, Bard Bear (who I hope is a musician), Dragongorge, and Hopeless Hare.
Good things are happening here.
So, why am I so relentlessly unsatisfied with every day when I am not helping to change the world? By this I clearly mean in a way that I can, like, measure or point to, which is the opposite of the systems wisdom that is inherent in nature and in The Great Turning, right? Plus, when I am listening to this voice, it wants not just metrics, but like, visible impact NOW. Why is it so hard to give myself this time to heal and be strong again and come through this period of what I hope is initiation and not just (Edith says) a self-indulgent waste of time?
And I was thinking about what to do with this unsettling and so-urgent-drive to make things better, so I checked Facebook because, you know, that's where I'm gonna find the answer to that question, right?
But actually, in a way I did. A friend had just posted that Cascadia Free Camps' story is out. And it's about the reintroduction of wolves! How returning wolves to the land changes the land. The story is about "trophic cascades," which is when a change at the top of the food chain has a cascading effect throughout the ecosystem. Here is a beautiful short video called How Wolves change Rivers.
Watching that had a strange effect on me. It activated in me a feeling of hope and life and connection, like Yes, I belong to that, and at the same time a deep feeling of peace that I am where I ought to be.
After we finished dinner, Forest had two fortune cookies for dessert.
The first one said "You stand in your own life. Make it shine."
The second one said the same thing.