Life cycles of a modern woman
Four seasons, one woman, many lessons
Spring
I was, in fact, a summer baby, a Baby Boomer born into a family fragmented by war and lies, always on the move for work. Materially, we had enough, some middle-class aspirations, but zero emotional intelligence or intimacy. My stepbrothers who had been evacuated to New Zealand must have packed my mother’s mothering instinct into their suitcases and left it there.
I believe you are born into the family your soul chooses to be the agents of your karma, and it appears my karma was to be independent, self-reliant and forge my own path by the age of sixteen. In the early springtime of my life I smiled at the camera and looked contented, but my teenage memories are of abuse, defiance, anger and pain.
My mother had a way of making me feel worthless and my father, unwittingly, did that too by leaving when my mother was in her late autumn and barely able to provide for us. As they were outsiders in their families, I felt an outsider in mine.
Summer
A time when I made some mature decisions around education and training, but was terribly naive as I explored London in the swinging sixties, alone and without a safety net. I soon discovered community arts and joined a collective of actors. Here I embraced, diversity, equality, culture, politics and community action, under an inspired leader who was as subversive as he was brilliant. This was my university.
As my summer faded into autumn, I took some grown up decisions and converted my community action ideals into professional training and a varied career. At points, I filled senior roles I was ill-equipped for. But when your survival instincts are strong, you take the opportunities presented and find a way to flourish.
I worked hard, not only because I feared being ‘found out’, but because I needed to feel valued and bring value to those I identified with, the dispossessed and the vulnerable. It was easier to identify the vulnerability in others than it was to accept my own.
Life as a working mother dovetailed into spiritual seeking. As the material aspects of life settled into place, so the search for something greater grew.
I was so fortunate as I found what I was looking for in peerless spiritual teachers who were as loving as they were challenging. They gave me a sense of eternity, and I came to see this life as one branch of a much longer vine.
Autumn
This was the season where I expected to harvest the fruit on my vine, but instead it was a time of shedding and loss. At first, I was angry with my teachers and then with myself, for it became clear that hard work was not the path towards spiritual fulfilment. Belief, trust and acceptance were.
I was left naked, for all my defences and expectations of myself and others had been removed. Working harder was not an option, neither was blaming others, the only way forward was to accept that I was loved for who I was, not what I did.
This season was one of heartbreak, dismantling and self-examination, but it led to such gratitude. What remained shivering in the chill of the autumn was strong growth, as all the dead wood of illusion and magical thinking had been pruned away.
I drank the precious wine pressed from those grapes, drop by drop. I accepted the love within those droplets for the first time and knew them to be true. I understood within my heart the truth of my journey as I began to retrace my tangled steps through not just this life but previous lives.
Winter
You never know when you are in your winter months, your soul does, but inevitably the hallmarks are the passing of friends and loved ones, the aging of your body and the shimmer of mortality on the horizon.
Certainly for myself, who is perhaps in her early winter, the inevitable slowing down, exacerbated by lockdowns, has been matched by my quickening pace as I retrace my journey. With each footstep, I have come to appreciate the wisdom of the vine that connects this life to those that have gone before, and I have seen, for the first time, modern-day connections that explain so much.
Within the stillness of my wintery mornings, there is much movement, as I unveil the greater tapestry that this life has been a part of. I understand things differently, as each day brings new meaning through meditation and writing.
I am as engaged as ever in the repeating conflicts of our world, but it’s a gentle and a quiet involvement now. No banners to raise or slogans to repeat, just prayers lifting from my heart.
So often I want to cry out, ‘not again’, but then I consider how many times I have revisited the same lesson. How difficult it has been for me to let go of my beliefs, my opinions, and my anger when I felt displaced, valueless or unwelcome. How hard it has been for me to trust enough to be open-minded and open-hearted to that which I have been seeking.
Strange you may feel that I did not recognise at first that which I sought, but that is how it was. Love throughout my life was always conditional, earned, bargained for, and so when I was embraced by a love that asked nothing of me apart from being transparent to my soul, I fought, argued and denied it.
Spring
There will be another springtime when I pass to Spirit. A reunion with my Higher Self and a complete understanding of my purpose. A timeless realm where there is no past or future, just the present. Where the great spirals of Creation enfold the individual spirals of all our lives, and the learning that we have all endured is shared and rewarded with peace and understanding.
Then, the lucky ones, will be tasked with supporting the life cycles of new modern women and men as they too blossom and grow along the eternal vine that is life.
© ZD Finn 2023
Finn runs a healing and meditation practice in London, publishes her own inspired journals, and offers mentoring to those seeking to strengthen their own soul connection. zdfinn.com
