Uncharted Ground

A few weeks ago a message came to me that was simply this: “If there is no room in the world for someone like me, then I have to be someone else.” Certainly my experiences recently have pointed out very painfully that I cannot find a place for me here – everything is a road block, and all my good efforts, at projects, at volunteering or at friendships, have all only resulted in diminishing me more. Where does one turn when there is no flow? So, when I got this message, it came as no surprise.


The idea that we all exist as separate individuals is well accepted within our culture. I was raised with no different belief than this. One spirit, one soul, one being, one body – separate from all else – singular individuals.

This paradigm is changing for me, changing to the point that I don’t even know it means to say “I” or “me” anymore.

Not that long ago, I came to understand that the elder spirit, a tall lean man with long dark hair who shows up for our fire ceremonies is simply “me” from another life, another chapter of myself. Never before had I heard or read anywhere that we are our own spirit guides. It was a startling revelation, but after a time, it started to make perfect sense. Who would be more motivated to watch out over me than a part of myself?

I am now working through the next paradigm shift for me, that “I” can actually leave and yet there is an “I” that remains. I have seen “myself” through a journey as someone who has left the “me” that is still here and gone off to be in a more gentle place. The greater part of “me” is gone from here.

And then there is the “me” that remains. This “me” is far less than the one who left. Without her I can barely get through the day. I need her, but she does not need me. To ask her to come back, back to this life that doesn’t work for her, would be an act of selfishness on my part. It was pain that caused her to leave, I should not ask her to come back to that.

So what is the “I” that is left? I honestly feel like an empty tin can, discarded on the ground. When I look inside I don’t find anything – no hopes, no dreams, no motivation, just emptiness.

There is no one to talk to about this, as there is no one in my world that believes in fragmented souls, of a multiplicity of being.

I am unsure that the scraps of what remains of me are enough to piece together another person and continue and even if I continue, who will “I” be. If I water and fertilize the scraps, will they grow into another person? I don’t know who I am any more. I am sad that there is no one to even understand the person that I was has passed on.

I am on uncharted ground.