Mother's love. Naola says that many women shared with her that in childhood they lacked maternal love. She has heard it in Mexico, in Israel, in Russia, in Ukraine and other countries. When the women told their stories, she felt great sadness and at the same time understanding why this happened. Their mothers went through wars and hardships, most of these women lived a life without a man, had to survive. And here there may be a conflict between understanding the context and circumstances — and the feelings that we experience. The conflict between understanding and feeling.
As young children, we can understand our mothers, but at the same time feel the lack of unconditional love.
"When we are young children, we learn to love and express our love, but when such a conflict arises, the flow freezes. Awareness of this makes it possible to transform the patterns that developed in early childhood in order to start the flow of love in the right direction.
Have you noticed that the energy of love is the same as the energy of hate? There is only one difference – love flows, and it brings pleasure, but when the same energy stagnates, it causes pain and becomes hatred. I've always been surprised how in a couple in which people are madly in love with each other, they then hate each other with the same intensity… Have you come across something like this? When you feel so much love, and then you feel just as intensely indignation, hatred, rejection… I always imagine such an artery, a vessel in which love flows, and then something happens that creates an obstacle, barriers in the way of flow... for example, communication disorders, misunderstanding ... then the arteries become clogged, and love cannot flow... and turns into disgust, hatred.
It's as simple as all the important things in life… Sometimes we unnecessarily complicate everything."
All these taboos of our culture, all these understatements, facades behind which real life hides, gradually de-energize us, stopping the flow of life.
We cease to be alive when we do not pay enough attention to this blockage in our vascular system – all these untold imperfect stories, torn leaves in the book of destinies.
In pursuit of perfection, of an image, we are trying to conform to a certain social reality of the culture of "correction" — the conditions of the game that were invented by people like us. And we are successfully coping with this within the walls of a big city. Our doors are closed in our homes, we hide from each other behind tablet screens and beautiful shots from our lives. We are measured by facades, but what really unites us is our pain. Our imperfection. Our stories.
As the writer Ann Lamott said recently at her speech, "we all screwed up. "We are all broken, exhausted and scared, even those who, as it seems to us, have everything grasped, so you should not compare your inner with someone else's outer."
Avoiding pain, we become puppets in the arena, acting out other people's scenarios and trying to improve stories that do not belong to us.
But what we can do from time to time is to make an inner effort and wake up, but not once and for all, but in every next moment. To walk through shame, guilt, fear into the center of the cyclone, discovering what we have never been separated in. Then this life, unique, unrepeatable and so imperfect, can be lived from a completely different quality, and we will finally be able to look into each other's eyes, without guilt and shame, without turning away, without hiding our eyes, without trying to seem different, different.
Vulnerable, helpless, naked, wanting only one thing – to be accepted in this human fragility in the face of that more that leaves no choice. To have a hand that can be squeezed. A shoulder to lean on. Eyes in which you can find compassion and support. But at the very depth – the one who will witness the very fact of your existence with his presence, will give you a space filled with oxygen to breathe and live what is.
This is what Naoli does with us here, and what she does every time she is silent, answers a question, sings, rings a tambourine, conducts her seminars, helps to come into this world and sometimes leave it. It reminds us that what we live about and what we cry about is about one thing. So close is what we are all looking for — one has only to kneel before the primordial power of the earth and grow roots into it, allowing it to nourish, love and support its children. And the support we are looking for is not somewhere out there, in the hands of doctors, therapists, parents, partners, but even closer - where our skin comes into contact with the air, where our feet touch the ground, where cool air enters our nostrils and revives us, where our hearts beat in unison with the ancient pulsation of Mother Earth.
I'm as scared as you are. But I open doors and windows, let all these stories into myself, letting them sound in my inner space, and I no longer need names to know – we are all here like blind kittens thrown into the water, looking for heating and at home. That's just nowhere to find it, except inside.
And then I take a breath and allow myself to expand so much that all these stories as sacred codes penetrate inside through the thickness of beliefs, layers, social masks, fossils... softened, melted ice and tears burst out to allow myself to be in the womb again and be born again, with such a surprisingly tangible feeling that it may be different. And this "other" is not rules at all, not advice, not commandments, not "must", not "must", not prescriptions, nothing that promises "wonderful beautiful far away". This "other" is about sobering honesty with yourself.
And now, in this hall, I look at the faces of the women who surround me and see how these words, emerging from incredible depths at different levels, cut through cracks like marble, through which light gently pours. These words slow down, outrage, awaken, provoke, bring fears to the surface, faces change before our eyes… The mind is at a loss, does not know whether it is possible to believe in the possibility of such a degree of honesty, such a degree of freedom ... and the body responds, responds, dances, gets high, luxuriates.
And the more I am in contact with myself, the more these stories are about me.
I've been wondering what word to call you, Naoli. And one thing came to me – an earthquake. Perhaps because for me, returning to these early experiences of birth is associated with a completely real earthquake that has stirred up these days. But this word was born in me. Through you speaks the power that destroys the false in order to allow the new to be born. You are one of those who stand on the border of life and death, give a hand, support, deliver, send into life and with the same care accompany to the other world, carefully and with tenderness… You are here to unfold and show that death is also an integral part of life, that the flow of life never ends, originates in ecstasy to continue and express itself in endless manifestations…
I'm writing this for you. You, who once lost a child and still can't let him go.
I'm writing this for you. You, who was put on your lap by a family friend in childhood, after which any touch to your body returns to the primal fear for life, and not to pleasure in any way.
I'm writing this for you. You, who can't look into your mother's eyes without feeling guilty and afraid, for allowing yourself to live and not die.
I'm writing this for you. You, who doesn't love and every time you go to bed with him, only waits for it to end. But he can't leave.
I'm writing this for you. You, who flinches like a rabbit in front of the headlights when he comes home. Because with him comes fear for his children, buried dreams and dreams.
I'm writing this for you. You, who knows no other love than being hit with a belt and humiliated by those who are the whole universe for her.
I'm writing this for you. You, who are learning to live anew after being left alone with three children, having lost her husband and home.
I'm writing this for you.
Because we all live the same pain in the interweaving of our stories, we are cramped in our roles, but we are taught to defend ourselves, collapse, close our mouths and eyes in time.
I'm crying with all of you.
Because I am you.
Meanwhile, the song of the Earth sounds.
The author of the text is Annie Petrosyan
