I went for a walk around the lake the other night on the paved trail I walk on often. On my walk, I noticed a rock that stood out to me. There were several planted trees near the park, and all had a nice bed of mulch and dirt, and just one tree had this bright, white and light brownish-ish, egg-shaped, hand-sized rock in the mulch. I thought about picking up that rock and claiming it as my own, a gift from the universe, or at least from this trail that I spend so much time on, but I didn’t want to have to carry this heavy rock the rest of the way home.
A couple of days later, I had forgotten about this rock but happened to be back in the same area, taking my lunch break at the park. I had time for a short walk, so I started down the path, and my eyes were drawn to that rock again. On the way back to my car, I decided to pick it up and take it home.
That evening, I took a good look at the rock. It was thick, made of clear or white colored quartz, with a vertical pink line visible in the middle. I washed the rock in my sink, trying to scrape off what I thought was a layer of grime from its backside. The rough debris did not come off, and I realized these rough edges, although not originally part of the rock, had become a part of it over time and has given it character, like the pink line. They are both signs that this rock had been through some trauma but had come out not only intact, but with depth of character.
I feel that rock’s essence as I contemplate my own journey through life.
Over the weekend, I had attended an Inner Child Healing workshop, and we were assigned some homework. Last night I worked on some of these homework assignments. One was to buy our inner child a gift. I had a hard time not feeling awkward choosing a child’s gift in the store, and I also found it to be a struggle to buy something just for myself. The only way I was comfortable with this really was to combine this trip with a holiday gift and grocery shopping run, with the things I was buying for myself blending in with so many items I was buying for other people.
When I got home, I opened the packaging on the two toys I had chosen and attempted the next part of the assignment: play with them. Playing was also awkward. I tried to remember how I used to play, enlisting the help of my young son to help me remember how. Along the way, I realized that not only does he not really play with toys himself anymore, but that he didn’t really play with toys the same way I did. Eventually, we made play time work out, and then I placed the toys on my altar to remember this moment by.
Later, I lit a candle and held on to an object that reminded me of my inner child. It was a Playmobile angel character with a blonde hair cut like mine as a child, dressed in a white robe and covered in glitter from a failed art project we had attempted with it. My son pointed out to me that this character actually looked a lot like a photo he had seen of me as a child. I knew what photo he was talking about because I could see it in my mind, too. This object helped me to connect with this inner child from that photo. I moved the hands to a position where it was reaching out to me. Then, I wrote from the perspective of this inner child, with my non-dominant hand. It was rough, but I understood the cry for help. I then responded to this writing with my dominant hand, with me as the adult writing back in a way that reassured this inner child, comforted it, parented it.
After this, I meditated for a while, holding on to some crystals: two small egg-shaped stones that I use to represent my relationship with my mother that is a source of inner child wounding, two amethyst crystals, and two pink moss agate stones. Both of the latter are good for forgiveness and healing, and I concentrated on these feelings during my meditation.
Following my meditation, I drew some Oracle Cards. The first ones that I drew, out of the Sacred Feminine deck, were Healing, Progress, and Intuition. I felt that these cards accurately represented the outcome of this inner child work I was doing. After this, I drew from another deck, and I drew two cards that have been coming up for me lately. “Star Mother” asks, how can you mother yourself? That is exactly what I was doing in the written exercise. The other card, Anna, Grandmother of Jesus, suggests a divine plan is unfolding. From a third deck, I drew a card that said, “Have Fun”, and it showed a picture of an adult profile next to a smaller, younger version of the same person, a child profile. I think this card was a reference to the work playing with the toys, and a reminder to keep that youthful innocence.
Later, I thought back on that rock I picked up, and how it seemed symbolic of my journey from my childhood to now. I felt the innocence of youth in its sparking whiteness, in the white robe of the character that I held up to represent me in my thoughts, in my connection to church and scouts as a child. I felt that pink line of cuts to the heart from the relationship with my mother, and the resulting debris that stuck to me as a result as I made my way through life as an adult dealing with unhealed inner child wounds.
In the middle of the night, I woke up because my dog was making a strange noise. She had gotten out of bed, and was rolling around in the living room, making happy noises like she was playing. Who was she playing with? I got up to check this out.
As I stepped into the space she had been in, I felt an energy around me. It was so pleasurable that I felt really good inside. I was filled with a feeling of peace and of deep healing. I stood for a few moments within this energy, feeling it absorb through me. My pains, especially my arm and shoulder that has been hurting for two months, suddenly felt better. I am not sure if this energy was something real or something I was simply believing in, but I think about Misty’s words when I asked her before about something similar: does the distinction matter?
The feeling of deep healing persisted as I went back to bed, as I woke in the morning and lay still, listening to the sound of crickets singing in the backyard, to the sounds of my family waking up, and throughout my preparations for work, through my workday. That healing feeling could be stemming from the inner child homework, the meditations, the crystals, the validation of my emotions through the cards, the reflections of the rock, the moment with this energy in the middle of the night, or all of the above, but overall, I feel so much peace, serenity and healing today and I am glad I took the time to spend in all of this.
