Hands of a Rope-Braider

It’s happening everywhere. You’re doing it. I’m doing it. Stoking the fires of a long-cold hearth. Trying to open a door to a path well-traveled and forgetting each time that the door in question has rotted; there’s not even a doorframe left. And yet we reach again and again, because it “should” still work. It’s always worked, after all! Why won’t it work anymore?

In many ways, we are like unwise necromancers, giving rise to what is already dead, and what cannot survive any longer. The ecosystem no longer supports it. It is a misuse of our stewardship to give life energy to such things, as these revivals bring us only suffering and pain. The way we have been trying to live - and I do mean capitalism and rugged individualism - has long reached its expiration.

Rope-braiding is steady work.

In my Human Design health sessions, I speak to each person about the solar plexus. Defined or undefined, it makes no difference - we have all been harmed by the western way of invisible lip sewing. We commit a homicide upon our bodies as we poision ourselves with feelings left unfelt and words left unspoken. We let our emotions reach the confines of our bodies - the throat constricts, the eyes fill to the brim, the stomach turns within us - and we tell ourselves, “see? I am feeling it.” And then we give a good shake and a hard swallow, banishing the feelings back inside without allowing them to dance in the space around us. Without allowing them to do their job. Our bodies beg us to weep, but what we are doing is not grieving. We are holding tightly. We are leaving clawmarks.

Rope-braiding is quiet work. Purposeful. Intentional. It is hard on the hands at first.

I have a completely open spleen. In many ways, the state of my physical body is a reflection of all the people I am exposed to on a regular basis. We are all exhausted. We are, most of us, frantically pouring water out of a flooding boat with a soup ladle, whispering hurried words of prayer that somehow, some way this will be enough to stop what is already here.

Sometimes I wonder: how can we know so much about the mind-body-emotional-spiritual connection and still refuse, as a society, to give it the proper reverence it deserves? I mean… we know trauma is passed down through DNA. There is a great deal of research exploring the ways our emotional state shows up in our physical bodies.

Rope-braiding is lonely. Communal. It is versatile.

It is becoming undeniably clear that what is “correct” for each of us is different. The evidence is everywhere, if you are paying attention. There is no one-size-fits-all and that includes everything you have ever endeavored to argue with anyone about. I don’t intend to encourage you to agree with things that are not for you, but I want to encourage you to expand your capacity for holding multiple truths. Part of being in community with others is being able to hold the difference that naturally exists within that.

Rope-braiding is complex and each maker has their own method.

This death is many years in the making, and I have thrown a tantrum at many stopping points along the way. I have tried again and again: Perhaps if I add even more to my plate…if I try just a little bit harder… I will be able to fix everything and bring things back to “normal.” If I kill myself a little more, I can fix it. But I can’t. I have been trying in vain for at least the last year to do things the way I’ve always done them, and it’s worked less, and less, and less until…it stopped working at all. And so, the choice is clear. I can continue trying the old way, and I can continue making myself sick with stress, worry, and pressure, or… I could look toward something new.

We have to flip this thing on its head. “This thing” being life and how we’ve been living it, collectively. I don’t want to continue living in a world where everyone makes half-jokes about how awful we all feel as a way to cope with being alive. I don’t want to live in a world where one of the leading causes of death in our youth is suicide. I want to live in a world that reminds me why I want to be alive. I want to see the beauty again. I want to find my peace. So, I can’t stay on this path any longer.

Because I am the rope-braider. The alchemist. My hands are worn and calloused. My heart is tender, raw, broken, and open. I reach into myself, and then back out to you, holding tight to the thread that’s connecting the two. You can be the rope-braider too, if you so choose.

We must learn how to feel our grief.

We must learn how to find each other and hold each other well.

We must learn how to take care of the life that is all around us.

Let us stop trying to bring the old way back to life. I want us to live, now.

Here are some songs that can help you tap into your grief energy. Let it break. Let it fall. Let it die.