Last evening I spoke of the process of returning.
It is true we must open our hearts, branch out and experience living.
It is also true that we must decide to return to our roots, our culture, our historical lineage our most practical way of living, our best lives, to be well.
This is a process I call returning.
Last night I spoke of the experience I received over the years in negative judgments with the improper assessment that I could not let a child death matter in child protection I was asked to ” carry and clean up” go.
The truth is others were granted the privilege of moving on and letting it go by nature of their limited involvement in the matter.
I was still in the experience, being called back to court every couple of years to testify right up until 2018. For 14 years I was required to revisit, relive, and re envision the matter to the courts. I was still in fact in the experience.
I was not permitted to return to me.
As I reach the longest period I have experienced in between subpoenas since 2004, 15 years, I pray that this time I am permitted to release that period of my life and allow it to come to rest, but never forget.
I pray that I am permitted to return to me.
I can feel the returning process occurring in my being.
A solidness, a security, a sense of spaciousness and pride at having met the call.
But also a pleasantness that I am slipping back into a warm pair of old slippers deep in my mind, body and heart.
Lori Ellis-McKinney (2019)
