The Weaver

When I was about 10, I read the book “The Giver” for the first time. I remember the haunting feeling it stirred in me, and the discomfort that it created, but I remember also loving it. It felt “deep” and something about the dystopian world the characters inhabited fascinated me.

I always identified with the Giver himself. But this always felt a little unsettled within me. Because, as much as I related to the character, I really wanted to be the boy, Jonas. I wanted to be Jonas because as the brave protagonist I felt like he was the hero of the story. He was the one who began to receive the memories from the Giver and question everything he knew about the way his community lives. Ultimately, he is the one who escapes and saves the baby from certain death—what’s not to like?

But as much as I wanted to be Jonas, I could never deny that I was probably still the Giver. And as an enneagram 4 who wants to be a 2, this actually makes perfect sense. (If you know you know).

Earlier this month I attended a Bereaved Mothers retreat in the beautiful valley of Southern California. Myself along with 25 other brave, beautiful broken women attempted to reconcile our “before” selves and our “after” selves and to try to assemble some sense of who we are after loss.

Two themes emerged for me while doing this work. The first was some thing I knew going in, and intentionally wanted to come to some more understanding of. And that is, I really want to connect with my baby. I want to feel like his mother, even though he is not physically here, and I cannot physically mother him in the ways I thought I would and that our society recognizes as “mothering”. How does a mother express her mothering when she has no baby?

The second theme that emerged was this question of who I am now that the season of bringing forth life with my body is coming to a close—my living son and bonus sons are getting older—and I am no longer a vessel of life. Now, the patriarchy would tell us that we have no real value beyond this. After all, the aging woman is probably the least revered in our modern American culture. Everyone loves the fertile, glowing, juicy feminine but what about the wrinkled, greying, perimenopausal woman? Who is she? What is her role and her importance? Who am I?

Pondering these questions in the sacred space of the retreat lead me to recall once again the story, The Giver. I shared that I always felt like maybe that was my destiny, that maybe I am the one who is meant to hold the memories, the pain and the wisdom. And while ultimately I just want to know my role, (after all, here is what a simple Google search says about enneagram 4's: "Healthy Fours are willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about themselves because they are determined to understand the truth of their experience—so that they can discover who they are and come to terms with their emotional history. This ability also enables Fours to endure suffering with a quiet strength. Their familiarity with their own darker nature makes it easier for them to process painful experiences that might overwhelm other types.") being The Giver feels kind of sad, lonely, isolating, and quite frankly, just not that exciting. After all, in the story, The Giver isn’t a life giver, or a hero, but rather is the one that holds all of the memories and all the pain. Do I have to be The Giver?? Maybe I can still be Jonas—maybe I dont have to accept all this patriarchal baloney that says aging women aren’t valuable, feminine, or special. Maybe I can escape! Ugh, I’m not Jonas though…I know that I am not a runner but rather someone who welcomes looking deeply into my shadows, who ventures into the wilderness and longs to return with gifts of wisdom about myself and the world ("Healthy Fours are honest with themselves: they own all of their feelings and can look at their motives, contradictions, and emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. They may not necessarily like what they discover, but they do not try to rationalize their states, nor do they try to hide them from themselves or others. They are not afraid to see themselves “warts and all.” ).

So there I was, having accepted that I’m not Jonas; I think maybe I’m The Giver, but I’m still not feeling so great about that. Sigh. Maybe I won’t answer the question just yet.

But then, on the last day of the retreat, one of my new friends shared some Tarot cards with us. Now, she didn’t really know much about Tarot cards and she certainly wasn’t doing readings or anything… But she thought it might be fun for everyone just to pull a card from each of her two decks, and read about its meaning and see if it held any wisdom or, the very least any just parting words of affirmation. I was first in line.

The first card I pulled was the “Weaver of the Web of Life.” And here is what the book said about that card…

“Wake up to the wisdom of the ancestors who taught of humanity’s great strength and creatively, yet simultaneously warned of its fragility and ultimate mortality. Our thoughts and creative energy have so often been used to spin webs of greed and competition, but Grandmother Spider reminds us that we also have the power to spin webs of generality and cooperation. You have the power—the responsibility even—to honor the primordial Feminine sustaining force within yourself, planet Earth, and the Universe.”

From the second deck, the card I pulled was “loss”. And here’s what it said…

“I don’t necessarily now how to guide you towards me. You know the way. You just need to take it. So, come back to me. Come back to us. Listen to the call of your soul it is asking you to come home to yourself and feel whole again. You’ve had an important time of doubt and maybe even a difficult dark night of the soul. You questioned everything, denied everything and cancelled everything. This time was crucial for you to balance your ego, energies and spirituality. I miss you and I know you miss me because of how often you shed tears. You feel something like unfinished business. Something that wasn’t done or wasn’t said. You feel like something isn’t right and that I should manifest myself more often. But I am here. Right by your side. My presence is not to fill that void you feel but to help you complete your mourning. So you may accept that, while our relationship has changed, our bond of love is still there. I am here. I help you connect to your divinatory abilities which are powerful at the moment.”

Now, I don’t claim to understand all of the mysteries of our universe, but I can tell you, the pulling these two cards was exactly what needed to happen for me at that moment. In fact, it essentially answered both of my questions.

And now, I understand why I have always identified with The Giver but yet never fully accepted that role… It’s because I’m not The Giver. I am not meant to hold all the memories and all the pain and be isolated and sad. And no, I’m not Jonas either. I am not escaping and rejecting everything in favor of some unknown “other” way.

I am a Weaver. And this is a visual I like. Instead of a lonely old crone sitting on a mountain top holding all the memories and pain or a reckless rebel running away in hopes of a better future, I sit with other women and we weave… We embroider the future with colors and beads, tying up knots of the past and dancing through fringe as we pass the knitting needles and the bag of yarn; giving and taking. We laugh, we cry, we stitch together the holes left from past hurts and losses and we just weave. The Weavers of the Web of Life.