There was a time when I would wake up, recite Ephesians 6 to “put on” the Armor of God, and then pray St. Patrick’s Breastplate.
“Today I put on a terrible strength
Breastplate of St. Patrick
invoking the Trinity,
confessing the Three
with faith in the One
as I face my Maker.”
The world around me was a fighting place, and I needed protection since I was in combat. I needed to be on the Right Side, a warrior, bringing the Sword of Truth to the world.
I think of her, of me, of the way of being and moving in the world. The world I inhabited was not a soft place. There were all kinds of forces of evil to confront. Most of them invisible. Softness and vulnerability were in earned pockets, and not the goal. The goal was to not need softness.
I now know that this script is rooted in a colonial structure that goes back into the Bronze Age– back when we learned to tame horses with bridles, began enclosing land, and set up a class structure to inherit the power that comes from enclosure.
These roots are deep. With enough distance, enough life experience, education, and compassion, I am able to begin the work of unlearning this way of being.
I am ready to put down my sword, remove my helmet and take off my cape.
In this Dreaming Moon I am present to one aspect of what it has been for me to show up to this work. I have been reflecting on the role isolation, that “hermiting,” plays in unlearning this way.
One of the hard lessons for me during the Black Lives Matter protests was that I am not a safe person. All my life I had “trained” myself to be the hero–the defender and fighter, seeker of Truth, with God at my back, and the invisible privilege of being white in a white-supremist country. I was blind to the ways I participated in oppression.
There is a lot to unlearn, and I am still not a safe person for many. I mostly know how to fight and be Correct. It doesn’t take much for me to armor up and stand on the defense.
This time in the woods is a critical time. I am not being healed. I am being unmade. I am looking deep, past my family roots, past my American roots, through the ages of Empires, down past the Bronze Age, and maybe even beyond the Neolithic.
I am digging deep, looking for my roots in the stones–I am in search of my ancestral way of being that does not enclose, entitle, and arm.
But to pick up a shovel, I need to put down my sword.
This Dreaming Moon leaves me with a wish: I wish to disarm myself.
Alexandra Ross Works 