Compliance causes us to be exiled from ourselves.
To be ourselves causes us to be exiled from others.
The choice is clear. Or is it?
This was the rhetorical question left hanging in yesterday’s post. The choice may be clear, but that certainly does not make it easy. Few important choices are.
We don’t want to be in exile. We don’t want to be the outcast. We want to be embraced, welcomed, and understood; known and loved for our truest, most-honest selves. A given. And rare.
Exile is a common theme in stories – sacred and secular, fictional and true. Again, in Women Who Run With The Wolves, Estes says, “In fairy tales, the role of the stranger or the outcast is usually played by the one who is most deeply connected to the knowing nature.” Ahhh. Now this makes so much more sense to me.
Think of the outcasts so common in our fairy tales – whether Disney’s version or not:
Cinderella
Snow White
Sleeping Beauty
Rapunzel
Belle
Think of the outcasts so common in scriptural narratives – regardless of how you’ve heard them interpreted:
Eve [Genesis 3]
Hagar [Genesis 16]
Jepthah’s Daughter [Judges 11]
The Woman at the Well [John 4]
The woman caught in adultery [John 8]
What if we understood all of these women as those who were “deeply connected to the knowing nature?” They were not waiting for Prince Charming or any kind of white-knight-rescue. They were in exile expressly because they would not comply, because they could not choose exile from themselves, because that decision meant exile from others.
These are tough choices – made from a place of deep groundedness, deep knowing, deep truth. Not fairy tale. Real.
Exile, yes. Alone, no. These women and so many more are our companions.
It’s a feast, a reunion, a stunning and beautiful gathering that occurs in the desert! A joining of the many souls who know – deeply; who know you – deeply; who invite you to be in exile with them.
There is no way to both stay and go.
(Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves)
For your reflection:
- Not easy choices, these. Do you feel the binary, the dichotomy, the either/or? What do you do with that?
- Do you feel at all encouraged that the stories you’ve known – whether sacred or secular, fairy tale or real – provide you companionship in your own exile? Which stories speak most deeply to you?
- What is your instinctual, gut-level response to “there is no way to both stay and go”?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this paradox. But I love it most when I’m not feeling like the outcast, to be honest.
My life has shown me that there is a balance, a harmony, between these two positions. When I’m in that place where people around me love me and embrace me, I drink it in, but I always remember that the most important acceptance is from myself. When I’m not feeling embraced, when I’m feeling the outcast, the opportunity is to remember that through my connection to myself I’m also connected to everyone other human life out there, especially the ones that trigger the greatest feeling of being outcast. It’s two sides of the same coin. And as I’m gaining life experience, I’m getting stronger at staying true to myself in both situations.
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So lovely, Charlene. And of course, it’s all about balance; never either/or – always this blend of compliance/exile, relationship/independence, included/outcast, embraced/excluded. Even more wild, it can change with every circumstance, every relationship, every day! The key, as you’ve pointed out, is to be true to yourself no matter what. Thanks so much for saying so – and for being here!
Once again you have given me so much food for thought, Ronna.
I love thinking back, and remembering all the stories I’d heard myself as a child and then rediscovered them (and many new ones) when reading them to my son when he was little. So many good memories.
Due to the “different” path I was forced to take after damaging my spinal cord, there have been many times when I felt as though I was in “exile”. Somehow, I’m not as invisible as I would prefer. But, I’m learning slowly to find my voice and share my personal “truths”. As you know, it’s not always easy.
I think the story that I can relate to most is The Hunchback of Notre Dame. My son and I watched that movie (animated Walt Disney version) many times over. Many lessons were learned by both of us.
Tracy
Tracy Todd´s last blog ..Just Feel
You remind me, again and again, how different stories bring radically different lenses to my own thoughts. I wonder, had I thought this post through uniquely from your perspective, if I would have said the same thing. Exile means something totally different for you, doesn’t it? For so many of us, it’s this internal place…not lived out-loud; which is what makes it painful. For you, however, it’s external, out-loud, sometimes screaming, I’d guess. I would think the shadows would bring you much-desired respite at times, yet hard to find. Further, the whole reality that your exile is not chosen? Like Quasimodo? Even more complex. So, so grateful for your voice here, Tracy. Thank you. I’ll be thinking much about your words throughout this day…and beyond.
Yes there is… It is called “Living a Lie…” I have been doing it for years.
Rebecca: My response to Tracy’s comment, at least in part, applies to you, as well: different stories bring radically different lenses to my own thoughts. I’ll be thinking much about your words throughout this day, and beyond. I’m grateful for your voice, your perspective, your presence.
Straddling the fence is not a comfortable place to be but if we are exiled and think we can stay, that is indeed what we are doing. It is like walking a tightrope and one slip up is a disaster. Much easier, in the end, to go and be exiled and live with the truth.
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I agree with you, Nicki. I have known much exile while staying…a different form, a different ache, and different learning. The exile of choice – when recognizing that staying is no longer an option casts a different shadow – and (eventually) offers a safety net when we slip reluctantly from the tightrope. The net is truth herself. No less scary, though.
Staying is agony and leaving feels like punishment… I lose either way. The choice is an ongoing loss or one that will hopefully have an end…
Exile’s a given, Rebecca – clearly. My hope would be that the companionship in those deserts offer water where there has been none…
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