What Brings You to Tears

Soul Friend,

Did you get dizzied yesterday? Hah! I certainly did! I got spun round and round in the souks (markets) of Marrakech. Google maps was of little help and I ended up walking in circles as I was trying for a direct route back to my riad in time for a spiritual direction session via Zoom. I laughed at the Beloved's fidelity in making good on my intention to let myself be twirled!

And, note to self: there are no direct routes in Marrakech. Thankfully, I'd allowed an hour for what was supposed to take just 25 minutes, so I still made it back in time. ;)

Anyway, after my morning routine —writing, yoga, prayer, study — I'd headed out early afternoon in search of embroiderers. If you've been following this blog, you know a bit of my obsession with this old, old tale of The Lindworm (I'm going to keep referencing this, and I know I've already shared the link in previous blogs, but if you haven't watched it yet, do yourself a favor and give yourself to this 10-minute retelling by mastery mythologist Martin Shaw here.) which is all about the nurture and integration of healthy masculine and feminine energies. Increasingly, I understand this to be a primary call of my own inner work and my offering to the world.

So, in the tale you've just heard (wink), a young woman pledges herself to be married to a serpent prince and then experiences a sort of buyer's remorse, asking herself, "Why on earth did I just do that?" Well, an old woman appears and tells her all will be well, but she must prepare for "a year and a day" by embroidering twelve nightshirts for her wedding night . . . .These nightshirts become symbolic of a heart painstakingly educated for love, the divine feminine that is available within each of us, men and women. I'm interested in what embroidery might teach me about an educated heart and I am seeking a teacher, so off I go in seek of embroiderers.

My search takes me first to a women's collective. The work here is all done by women, sold by women, and the profits shared equitably among them. (Another lovely feature is that here there is no haggling over price, as there is in the souks, where men rule most shops. I have noted that in shops owned by women —few and far between—, even in the souks, they are more likely to be fixed price.)

The women here speak little English, and I no Arabic, so my questions are navigated with much sign language and very feeble attempts at French. When the shopkeeper pulls out the above slippers from a deep pile, they take my breath away. They are completely handmade. I purchase them, for what seems a song to me, gladly, but I am still no closer to finding a class with a teacher.

As I navigate my way back across the medina (old walled city) to my riad (airbnb), I encounter a neighborhood with some very fancy shops. Many of them hold no appeal for me as they are just selling very expensive Western brands. Not my thing. But some stores specialize in the most exquisite of Moroccan handcrafts, and these places fill me with delight. In one shop they are selling the most meticulously embroidered cashmere shawls. I am completely taken by these shawls that rightfully sell for about $3000. As I am admiring one green shawl, embroidered with the tiniest of stitches (much finer than the already fine stitches of the slippers), the shopkeeper comes and lifts the shawl from its rod and with easy style unfurls it before me, for my full appreciation. Much to her and my surprise, I burst into tears. I am completely overcome.

After we both recover from this overtake, I inquire with her, "Do you know anyone who would teach a class on embroidery?" We stumble a bit with language, but she directs me to another women's collective and gives me a phone number. The quest continues.

Meanwhile, I'm pondering, what was it that was so touched in me in the unfurling of that shawl? On one level, I do think I was simply overtaken by the beauty and the painstaking care given to create this covering for some woman's shoulders and heart. But on another, I think my longing for such an educated heart was evoked, and my sense, seeing those fine, fine stitches, that I have so much more to learn. A year and a day's worth of learning, which is to say, forever.

All this brings me to ask, Soul Friend, what is bringing you to tears these days? Or, where are you steeling yourself against such overtaking?

How might you nurture and widen these portal cracks? How might you reverence, welcome, and tend what they reveal?

And if you cannot recall the last time you were overtaken, perhaps you might become curious about that, too. Gently. Compassionately. When did all this protection start? What keeps it in place?

What if you could hold these ponderings, consciously, in the Beloved's presence? What if you could just sit, very quietly, allowing gravity to do its work and draw your energy down from the busy souk of your mind, right down into the peaceful riad of body and breath? And settled there, what if you could sense yourself beheld in the compassionate warmth— like that of a focused ray of sun—of the Beloved's gaze upon you? What if you two could sit with these ponderings together?

That might feel like just the sort of break you need.

In Love, for Love,
 

Lorilyn