Witnessing

"Do you need help?" her oversized energy, and unsolicited attempt to penetrate my husband oozed into our space.

"Do you need help?" she asked again, and this time my eyes met hers as my man continued to put our carry-ons into the bin above... "he doesn't need help" I heard myself say...my words, each one, fell deafly onto the floor between us and she proceeded to offer him directions, a cast of energy overshadowing both of us. "He doesn't need help," I said a second time more firmly and from the most stoic place within me I could source in the moment.

The two women near her rallied their single-focused energy around her, I could feel their silent hissing as they praised her for being so helpful in an attempt to lessen the quality of my response.

(I'm now contemplating if I broke my vow by speaking for him; the nuance of this practice and my devotion to it, to me, and to him is so important to me.)

The sensitivity I feel these days is excruciating at times; the new truth "you are either colluding in it and participating it in it, or you are learning to remember the truth of your nature" (Gillian Pothier) pulsing through my body, guiding every ounce of my be-ing.

I'm witnessing the world around me through the eyes of remembering.

Several weeks ago I was sitting in a cafe within earshot of a family, and I overheard the father say to his daughter, "Why do you do that? When I tell you something you ignore me and look away." It caught my attention and as I turned to see the daughter I saw her sitting at the small table across from her parents in her 8 or 9 year old body, doing just that, ignoring her father.

He continued and said, "when you do that you disrespect me," he was calm and full of heart. He persisted, trying to get her attention and an answer, and I couldn't help myself but look again. This time I saw her looking squarely into her mother's eyes, hers calling her mother in to collude with her.

And that she did, in a non-verbal mother-kind-of-way, and the daughter made her way into the mother's lap, into an energy all their own...leaving the father's heart and question hanging there - I feel sure it's still hanging...there.

I don't know the dynamics of this family, or this child, I only have my felt sense of her precocious nature before his question, his calm, clear and fatherly energy which I felt as truth, and my projective lens with a heightened sensitivity to energy.

I wanted the mother to redirect her daughter to the father. I wanted this father to be respected. I wanted the mother to imprint this feeling of respect into her baby's nervous system in this moment. And I wanted this girl to witness her mama and her papa's love for each other and for this witnessing to teach her what loving a man looks like.

Shortly before we boarded the plane a few days ago the mother seated near us slowly began to raise her voice as she argued with her husband. Her energy called attention from anyone close by. Seated between her two children she and the papa lost themselves in their messiness which spilled out for all of us to see - and feel.

I noticed the middle school aged boy, his deflated energy sitting between them hearing and feeling every word; emotionless. As the mother snared at the father I felt this boy's witnessing touch something tender in me. The daughter busy in her notebook seemed distracted.

They continued for some time, I felt their pattern, I felt her relentlessness, I felt the lack of respect and the wounds wanting love, I felt it all and then it was all over her face as the mother began to pout and sink into a littler version of herself - literally, right before our eyes...shapeshifting.

The daughter, sitting beside her mother looked up and began to notice and gather the story, trying to engage with her mother. And I heard the mother fill her daughter's ears and entire system with the mess that is not hers.

What I witnessed next was heartbreaking, and it took all of my might not to cry. I wanted to be anywhere but there, witnessing this incision point that I felt sure was indicative of their daily lived experience.

The mother maintained her wounded stance, stayed in her child-like form and pouty energy, not phased by her daughter trying to console her, mothering her...while the daughter tried and tried and tried to bring her mother back my heart broke.

I have the gift of sight, and I always have, but it is heightened now by the work that I do with women...and by my 52 years of lived experience and personal healing journey. I see and feel the depth of human experience in each of these stories, and while I've come into some mastery with my empathy over the years, it still hurts when I see something I know will be a lasting experience or that I have a felt sense will cause pain and suffering or is causing pain and suffering.

And this is where I turn to my faith, again and again and again...my faith that everything is in divine motion, that every human is guided by (their) Spirit on a deliberate path to expand, to become aware, to learn, to practice...to remember...

To remember that we are Love.