Unnamed

“Only in the depths of the unconscious can any new global mythology find roots that will survive.” ~Marion Woodman & Elinor Dickson

Artwork by Lily Camille Clark

Our Name shapes our identity, determining how we dress, the people in our lives, our conduct, our choices, and helps us to survive. We state, “This is Who I Am” by presenting a job title, a role, an affiliation, a business – as though this definition is our contribution, our only way to have a place. We own it. We are proud of it.

And yet, there are times when our Name eclipses who we are. Crowds the process of becoming. And we need to let it go. Let go of the safety net that is our Name.

Perhaps it is our cultural inheritance – a legacy of fear of being orphaned with no Name to call our own. In a world of carefully measured progress, “I don’t know” for full-grown adults is not an option but a crime worthy of rejection – Lost Souls whose potential dwindles with the memory of what once was.

As I am further away from the Name that once defined me, I am learning to be comfortable in the unknown. Initially, I felt ashamed, with no response to the inevitable “what do you do?” In The World Out There, there is a sense of being invisible, powerless. Over time, though, I am coming to accept it like the shedding of a skin, getting used to the feeling of being naked, exposed.

When I first left my job, I considered going back to university. Throwing myself fully into the education system seemed like a viable and attractive option. Explaining to colleagues that I am leaving to go back to school is a respectable choice. It’s easier than saying I’m leaving to heal. It’s easier than confronting my life, full on, to face the emptiness that replaces a job and career.

Time for healing, time for unlearning, time for re-defining, time to allow the dark, murky space of the unknown to envelope me until a new truth emerges. There are no words, no language to explain this. This country has no Name.

My plans for going back to school haven’t worked out yet, and my dreams at night confirm that school is not my path, at least not for now. Perhaps this is all part of the letting go, where institutional authority has no place.

My education won’t be found in the lecture hall… But I am finding it through my prayers to the goddess, with the circle of women who support me, from the wizened crone in my dreams, and in the words and stories written in my journal – those intimate bits of wisdom, forever a part of me.

Alone with the pieces of an old life that will never fit back together again the same way, I am constantly in a state of flux – the push and pull of my feelings trying to keep me here, or pull me out. But the hierarchy of unspoken milestones and social roles cannot define me in this place. Authenticity doesn’t find us that way.

“The most important step in the evolution of our consciousness is the pulling back of the projections so that we can begin the process of looking for the Divine within.”
~Marion Woodman and & Elinor Dickson

The recognition we seek from others can never truly fill the longing in our hearts. It cannot relieve us from our struggles; it cannot make us whole. There is something else worth waiting for.

A new paradigm, a new story, a new mythology is unfolding. A new life is coming, and it has yet to claim its Name.