We All Need a Village
This time last year, I went through a massive tower moment. In tarot, the Tower is rarely a good omen. In real life, when one is actually witnessing the very fabric of their existence being shattered in the blink of an eye, all that is left is to attend to our bleeding hearts moment by moment.
And that’s what I did. Like a nurse tending to war victims, I took my time to clean and dress every single wound until there was no blood or infection in sight. Nevertheless, a covered wound is not a painless wound.
I had to learn to live with the pain of my own past indecision or chronic impulsivity. The two extremes I kept bouncing in between. Looking for balance while healing was like walking on the thinnest ice barefoot. Eventually, as time went by, I started to feel a little glimpse of hope.
Then came a massive wave of frustration. Why are all the people around me in a much better place? Or at least they seem to be…Why are they where I thought I would be by this time in my life? What makes them so special?
The answer came from an Instagram post:
‘Don’t compare yourself with people who have a village.’ I had to be my own village. Even with the support of a therapist and a few close friends, I still did all of the heavy lifting myself.
A few weeks ago, a year from the events that had brought me to my knees, I found myself in the middle of yet another crisis. This time, a different area of my life was under attack, but the old wound of indecision and lack of clarity split wide open again.
As I was scrambling for answers and solutions, I took a moment to look around. Something was very different from last year.
I still didn’t have a village, but I was not alone. The people I summoned almost out of the blue by my side were mostly strangers, but they felt like family.
My understanding of the word ‘village’ a year ago was that one had to have an actual family or a community by their side to pull trough hardship. Another misconception was that you couldn’t just conjure up an army of allies from thin air.
In my eyes, such support needed years and years of deep connection, but life proved me wrong. A ‘village,’ even if made up of a couple of people, can be by one’s side overnight, if only one dared to believe in the power and the depth of human kinship. Time has nothing or very little to do with this. A complete stranger can become your strongest support system almost instantly.
As I’m still picking up the pieces left behind by the latest Tower moment that has swept through my life, I feel so much gratitude for the instant village of strangers that suddenly stood by my side in the middle of the storm.
May we all find the solace of leaning on someone else in our darkest night, even if we may never see this brave soul again.
