September - Use your wings
Feeling overwhelmed? Reluctant to even look at your messages or inbox? Or perhaps just too tired to take on board the changing of another season?
I have to say, I feel as though this year’s energy culminated for me over the summer. In some ways, I’ve felt like I spread my wings and took my first flight into new realms.
It’s been wonderful being with my family, but I’m also secretly quite happy to be pulling out my autumn clothes, feeling the first shift in the air and beginning to think about the colder months ahead.
I realised recently that I haven’t written an article for a while. I’ve been writing poetry and stories instead - mostly for myself, for the time being. But there is something I’ve been thinking about that I wanted to share with you. Perhaps it will resonate. Perhaps it might even remind you to spread your wings too.
At some point in our lives, death crosses our path. A grandparent, a parent, a friend, someone we love. We experience loss and grief, and it shows itself differently in every one of us.
So I’d like to begin by telling you a story.
Her name is Rosa.
Rosa isn’t one particular person. She is an amalgamation of a few women I have known and lost, because although their stories were different, there was a thread running through them that felt the same.
Rosa was an amazing mother. She gave everything to her family and her partner, but somewhere along the way, it came at the expense of herself.
Deep in the pit of her stomach, she knew she had neglected a visceral calling - something wild inside her that wanted to spread its wings and fly towards her own dreams.
As a young woman, her dreams had been enormous. There was so much potential in her that it felt as though it were bursting at the seams, and there had been no reason to believe those dreams wouldn't become reality.
But Rosa fell in love.
Then she had a baby.
And when she gave birth, she fell completely in love with her child.
Marriage and children hadn't really been part of her great plan. For much of her younger life, they hadn't been part of the plan at all. So it took her by surprise when, alongside all that love, she sometimes felt trapped and lonely.
And then came the guilt.
The guilt quietened the voice of adventure. Her longings were pushed down, hidden and buried beneath everything that needed to be done.
As her children grew, Rosa discovered parts of herself she hadn't known before. Passions began curling their way into her mind, painting pictures of ideas and new dreams.
But by then, somewhere through the experiences of life, her sense of worth had become misplaced.
Motherhood hadn't caused those wounds, but the journey of matrescence had a way of illuminating them. Things she thought she had dealt with resurfaced. Her gifts were there, but so was the voice telling her they weren't quite good enough.
Her ideas sat silently inside her, raging to find their way out of a darkened tunnel guarded by monsters and queens.
She was never quite ready.
She told herself she needed more experience.
One more qualification.
One more piece of knowledge.
She just needed to make that thing, fix that thing, become that thing - and then she would be ready for the world.
But sadly, the darkness took hold before she could harness all that was inside her, and Rosa left this world for a lighter one.
And this is where I imagine her story continuing.
When Rosa journeyed beyond the darkness, she stepped into a beautiful world of freedom and joy.
All sense of shame, guilt, fear, worthiness and rage had disappeared.
There was only sunshine and love.
She met family and friends she hadn't seen for so long and realised she had crossed a threshold into something she couldn't have understood while she was alive.
Then she saw a winged woman passing by.
“Why am I here?” Rosa asked her.
The woman smiled.
“Because you needed to be shown how to use your wings. And one day you will be given another body, another life, and you will begin again. Your gifts are special, and they are needed.”
Rosa pondered this.
Strangely, she didn't even feel grief for those she had left behind. Instead there was an understanding - something almost impossible to comprehend from where we stand.
But if she could visit her children in their dreams and try to put it into words, perhaps she would say:
Life is a journey of lightness and love.
With every step there is a choice - how the next foot is placed, and what it is placed upon.
Do not waste those steps.
Do not waste your wings.
So many of the worries and woes that feel enormous now will mean nothing from here.
They are sparks from a flint, momentarily bright in the eye of the beholder.
So while you are here - live.
Use your gifts.
Follow what calls you.
And please, use your wings.
And perhaps this is where Rosa's story meets ours.
Because I wonder how many of us are waiting to feel ready.
Waiting until we have more time. Until the children are older. Until we're more confident, more qualified, thinner, stronger, wealthier, less tired, less afraid or somehow more certain of ourselves.
Perhaps you've tucked away a dream because life became busy.
Perhaps motherhood changed you so profoundly that you're still discovering who this version of you is.
Or perhaps there is simply a tiny voice somewhere inside you that keeps whispering, there is more.
Not more in the sense of needing to achieve more, earn more or become more. Quite the opposite.
Maybe it's about coming home to the parts of yourself that got left behind while you were busy being everything to everyone else.
And I don't think using our wings always means doing something enormous.
It might mean writing the first page.
Booking the course.
Dancing in the kitchen.
Saying no without explaining yourself.
Putting your name to something you've created.
Taking an afternoon for yourself without filling it with jobs.
Changing direction.
Resting.
Beginning again.
Or simply admitting to yourself that you want something.
There are seasons for nurturing others and seasons for nurturing ourselves. Most often, I think the two have to learn how to exist alongside one another, (this has become a favourite mantra of mine recently because it's been an invaluable practice).
And perhaps that is what September can remind us of.
Nature doesn't cling desperately to what has been. She changes. She sheds. She lets things fall away and trusts that another season will come.
So as we move towards autumn, perhaps you could ask yourself:
What have I been waiting to feel ready for?
What part of me have I tucked away?
What would I do if I stopped worrying quite so much about whether I was good enough?
And maybe most importantly:
Where are my wings trying to take me?
You don't have to change your whole life this September.
You don't have to become a new version of yourself.
Maybe you just need to make one small movement towards something that feels alive.
One step.
One feather.
One little stretch of your wings.
And see where the wind takes you.
Life is just too damn precious and short.
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