we need the lost parts too

want to know a secret? most nights, after i tuck my kids to bed, i take my dog on a walk. we run as fast as we can to the end of my street. i feel like a kid sneaking out and i can’t help but smile big. we come to the wash, the stars are bright and the air feels free, and i am met with a particular feeling i can’t put into words. as i meet that feeling there, my 19 year old self, my 14 year old self, and my 10 year old self join me. and sometimes… we dance.

my ego tries to tell me that i have lost it… whatever the fuck “it is”. no one in their right mind dances in streets and talks to all the soul parts inside.

“stay civil tara, don’t let people see you dancing. god, why can’t you be normal?”

then i remember how completely absurd life is and how completely beautiful and i let myself be seen by strangers in the wholeness of who i am. sometimes…

and when i do i swear those parts of me shine so bright because they wanted to dance, they wanted to sing but they were so incredibly scared of being seen.

i have a 7th grade friend i met in my neighborhood who told me about the bullies who stole her art notebook and tossed it around the classroom.

she tells me how she still draws, but now she keeps it to herself. i think about all the times i have shared a part of myself just to let it be tossed around, returned to me tattered and torn. i think about how i shamed it and banished it from my sight. i remember the vows i have made to myself to not be so reckless next time.

i tell her about the bullies in my own life and how it doesn’t hurt any less but the difference is i am learning to not hate myself for letting them make me cry. i tell her how opening our hearts back up is maybe the most brave thing a human being can do and you will get hurt again but don’t you dare numb. i say maybe we can help each other.

she tells me about how much time she spends in her room and how loud the thoughts can get and i want her to know right then and there it won’t always feel that way but boy does it feel like it.

she asks me what color i would be if i could be any color and i tell her purple. she smiles big and says “me too”. and i can’t imagine life getting any better as i gaze into her eyes and i see the little girl in me reflected back and i tell her all the things i needed to hear. i vow right then and there to let my door be a revolving one for my new friend because that’s all that matters right now.

and there is so much loneliness in the world and those of us who have the people are still awfully afraid and something isn’t working.

we have left parts of our soul tattered and torn and spread all over the timelines of our lives. these parts, they wait patiently for us to find them. each one holding a story, a memory, a feeling you forgot you could feel. they are us and we are them and we are fools to believe the past is in the past. our bodies remember and our psyche remembers. when you find them, treasure them like the gifts that they are. love them, listen to them, let them speak.

i love psychology and i love talk therapy (shocking if you know me) but the healing that has taken place on a cellular level, has come from my work in my own psyche. my entire world opened up when i chose to dance in the liminal spaces… the feminine parts inside. the spaces that culture has silenced and replaced with religion.

we have forgotten the importance of story and the importance of archetypes. we have forgotten the mystery that surrounds so much of life. the act of story telling, of age old myths, can help us remember who we are. they help us dream and they can enter into the parts of ourselves that the mind cannot access. our culture that worships the masculine, the calculated, the seen and proven, rejects this sort of thinking. either that, or it can quickly be turned into dogma/formulas. there are no formulas for this sort of healing. there aren’t even answers. there is only this magical absurdity that we desperately need. the world is yearning for the return of the wild feminine… and the feminine is inside every human.

not long ago, i kept getting this little niggle inside that was telling me “go watch a little princess”. i kept putting it off until it got louder so i gave in, low-key annoyed. and jesus, did i have a soul part wanting to come back. i cried the whole movie as the story paralleled something inside of me… something desperate to be seen, witnessed, and integrated back into my life. this particular story told in this particular way was a catalyst for the healing of a part of my pysche long banished.

i am sure most of us can agree that religions are dying and also that this hyperintellectualism is honestly just fucking stupid. you can just read the history that wasn’t buried or burned and see there have always held the wisdom of women, of story, as sacred. there is a line in the sand where it was suppressed and replaced with a hyper-masculine view of the world that is literally killing our planet. we have been lied to, we have lost our connection with the earth and with our own selves and one another. what better time to remember. what a better time to remember that we need myth like we need air. we need the nuance and we need the spaces where there is no right or wrong, there just is. rest here.