Circles and Tribes

I sat in my long white car at an intersection not long after I returned to Florida, an aching in my heart threatening to push me into the abyss of depression again. The sun was shining down in magnificent rays all around me, the brilliance of late summer showing off her last hurrah before the Autumn equinox. All I could feel was sadness and suddenly I was absolutely not okay with that. 

"Help me," I whispered into the air around me, calling out to Diety, to God as Father, Mother, All. "Just help me, please."

I've realized, in the days following, that I need a tribe. I need to give and to receive, to dance and dream, to celebrate, to sorrow, to ritual with strong and wild women.  I understood this very clearly while I was visiting my home state. While reveling in the belongingness of home, I kept receiving messages to this effect, as well as messages that where I am is good, that life is progressing as it should and that if I engage with it fully things will be beautiful. I believed this in my soul because it felt like truth so very deeply. I felt the truth of it in the cells of my body, through the spiraling coils of DNA that help make me who I am. It felt right and wonderful. 

I returned home to rediscover that I am deeply in love with my husband. I found an indescribable joy in my animal family and in the bond that all of us, human and non-human, share as a loving, living unit. And still, I understand that I need a tribe of women to celebrate the turn of the year with, to dance in the moonlight with, to be sisters among. 

The depression arrived as it always does, suddenly and with vicious teeth. But I know it more intimately now; I understand that I'm not tending to my soul properly, and that sometimes spirit sickness is simply a way our souls communicate to us that change is necessary. 

No fear.

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