Taking Back the Power to Pause
The Women of Sweeney and the Conversations You Have the Day After a Funeral
Vacation won’t do it.
A pandemic certainly didn’t work (at least, not for long, and certainly not for the knowledge worker with wifi).
The birth of a child is no guarantee.
From experience, I can say that the only thing that stops the world—or at least our relentless need to be part of the activity in the world—is the death of a loved one.
Of course, this isn’t universal. There are plenty (or at least “some”) who give themselves permission to pause and rest. There are a rare few who do so without thinking they need “permission” at all. There are people who can stop before the final edge.
Perhaps I’m revealing too much about my own workaholic, hustle for worthiness tendencies. Perhaps I’m finally ready to stop the glorification of busy and coming clean about my lifelong addiction is a painful, necessary part of the process.
I have the gotta be productive glint in my eye. Maybe you do too. Maybe, like me, you’re working on it and trying to find another way to be.
True to the name of this publication, I consciously try to take my myth as my medicine. I look for the antidote to our modern economic and cultural madness in the ancient stories. I study and share the old tales that take us back to the cycle of the seasons, this wisdom of the more-than-human world, and the relationships that exist beyond commodification. I do this to heal myself, and in hopes that it might help some others at the same time.
Mine is a case of patriarchy-induced perfectionism, and it’s baked into many generations and just about every contemporary American transaction. Maybe yours is too? It nor just an American problem, but I feel we perfected and exported it to the world. I can’t be sure of how severe my case is in comparison to others, but I trust that the road to healing is long. There may never be enough mythic medicine to “cure” me in this lifetime, but I’m not sure “total recovery” is really the goal.
I do think that we can re-shape our relationship to the busy and decouple our sense of worth from our productivity. And I want that to be possible at any time, not just in the moments we find ourselves on our knees.
The last time I truly stopped
My mother died nearly thirteen years ago. Right now, time accordions, and it feels terribly recent. Early on that summer morning when my father called with that terrible news, I dropped everything (except caring for my infant daughter). I quit my job in academia a few weeks later and never went back. (Though I didn’t know it at the time, leaving a salaried job and taking on entrepreneurship would mean I’d create my own gorgeous, unwalled prison where “the pause” would seem an impossible dream.)
I miss Mammy more right now than I have in a long while. Maybe it’s something in the stars. Maybe it’s because the great blue heron are returning and her spirit is always on their wings. Maybe it’s the nature of the stories I have been reading and writing. Maybe it’s because I am tired and I long for the kind of rest and renewal that a beloved baby asleep in her mum’s arms keeps in her bones her whole life through.
And, I am thinking of the way the world stops when there’s a death because this week’s story takes place the day after a funeral. Part of me will always be in the lawn chairs in the backyard of the house I grew up in, telling stories and shedding tears, and trusting that time had would stand still for everyone in that circle.
In Two Worlds, Two Women: A New Perspective on the Mad Sweeney Story, I tell the story of Eorann and the Mill Hag, the two most prominent women in the story of Sweeney (Suibhne), the pagan king who was cursed to roam Ireland, alone and insane, because he murdered a saint’s young cleric. I offered my own retelling of the “traditional” version of this story in the last season of the podcast, Lost in the Wild, At Home Within, which was based on Seamus Heaney’s epic poem Sweeney Astray, a translation of the medieval Irish manuscript.
When I wrote my version and folded it into a size that would suit a podcast episode, I had to cut the characters who intrigued me most: Sweeney’s wife who tried so hard to stop her husband from tangling with Saint Ronan, and the Mill Hag who tempted him back to the wilds after a brief return to society.
This time around, I imagine a conversation between these two women as they reckon with the unexpected death of a man who has actually been lost to them for some time. Eorann is a queen with a house to run and with a strong sense of duty and “the way things ought to be.” The Mill Hag (her friends call her Millie) lives outside the margins, and perhaps she always did. Time would work differently for these women, but as they mark Sweeney’s death, time stands still for them both.
Right now, as I am struggling with the burnout that comes with believing I am never going to be able to pause, I am more grateful than every to have this week’s guest Loraine Van Tuyl in my life. I described to Loraine the way I felt myself coming through a wasteland that is, in large part, a feature of my own creation and a result of “always on” entrepreneurship. (Those of you familiar with Sharon Blackie’s If Women Rose Rooted will feel particular resonance with this image.) When you’re in the wasteland, the strange, out-of-time period surrounding a loved one’s death can appear to be an oasis. Any chance to break out of the crushing routine could be a relief. Or so it appears, mirage-like and misunderstood.
It goes without saying, gods know, that I am not asking for Death to pay a visit. But I am realizing how I can only really imagine setting down every responsibility, every “should” in the face of that sort of tragedy and disruption.
That is no way to live. And so it is time for that old way of doing to die.
Again, taking my myth as medicine, it’s a long process. I am doing what I can to address my addiction to being connected, available, and prepared. I am wondering about all the ways that I am imprisoning myself in the “good daughter of the patriarchy” mindset of Eorann—even if no one is really asking me to.
The Mill Hag is the Wise Woman and the Wild Woman. She knows there is life beyond the kitchen, the farm enclosure, beyond the calendar and the commitments. She is the one who knows the landscape so well that she creates with land, rather than leaving it wasted by her busy, distracted footsteps.
What’s possible when her voice is allowed to speak as clearly as Eorann’s?
Our Guest this Week
I didn’t expect to write about my mother and death this week. As you’ll hear in my conversation with Loraine that follows the story, there are so many topics and themes to explore, it really could launch a dozen newsletters and more.
In my quest to slow down without having to stop the world, I have been spending afternoons on the porch (it’s unseasonably hot here in the Hudson Valley) and letting myself (or could I just say “choosing to”) read Loraine’s most recent book Soul Authority: Liberatory Tools to Heal from Oppressive Patterns and Restore Trust in Your Heart Compass. Deeply rooted in the world and all of the struggles we face individually and collectively in this moment, Loraine’s work is also sourced by spirit and inspired by the wisdom of lifetimes.
I highly recommend her book, and our conversation, which touches on so many of Loraine’s signature ideas and ways of being:
Speaking as a psychotherapist, Loraine explores trauma around attachment and Gabor Maté - the struggle to be safely attached and also authentically ourselves. How do we connect, trust, and grieve in that context?
Gabor Maté’s work is particularly relevant to the legacy of collective and individual trauma in Ireland. Kathy Scott’s work with Irish cultural organization, The Trailblazery, is devoted to applying these ideas, promoting healing and “post traumatic growth.” Here’s one example of Dr. Maté applying his work to the Irish context.
Loraine’s diverse ethnic background as a woman from Suriname, and her PhD dissertation on diversity and identity. Her work as a healer is focused on reconnecting to nature, beyond dualities and is rooted in a critique of clinical psychology that is based on ego and obtaining objectives
Lorraine describes the importance of the elements in her healing work, as well as the practice of re-TREE-ting, at the Sacred Healing Well. Learn more: www.thesacredhealingwell.com/SoulSanctuarymeditation