I listened my friend Ange Arbuckle’s vibration today via her BLOG talking about the EDGE. I was immediately inspired to write about my own experience of the EDGE. This fire is too hot to ignore.
I have lived on the EDGE for most of my life. On the EDGE, on the verge, on the outside of the “norm”, on the outskirts of another’s’ reality, on the fringe of what is “socially acceptable” and beyond the boundaries of appropriate. I have always felt like a foreigner in my own world. I never fit into anyone else’s idea of what a “woman, mother, sister, daughter, niece, worker or co-worker, wife, neighbour” SHOULD be. I spent the majority of my life trying to get that nagging little detail to make sense or reconcile itself. It wasn’t until I began a journey to discover and try on that….I AM WHOLE and exactly how and who I AM is completely who I AM or should BE, That there is ONLY one Mandy on this planet and that I do it the BEST. I fit every space and place inside my own world and I create the rules about any and all boundaries, fringes, norms and beyond.
This leads me to the EDGE. When I consider EDGE, I consider that territory which I have been marooned on for most of my life. It felt like a completely abandoned and misunderstood place. The EDGE of my life was always where I waited for the shoe to drop or things to Happen “to me”. The EDGE is where I backed into when all else was falling apart and I retreated there. The EDGE did NOT feel like a choice but rather a consequence to not fitting the mould or going with the flow. The EDGE has typically been a place that I have NOT known myself as WHOLE. Quite the opposite is true. Alone and misunderstood and chastised and left out, I sat on the EDGE of another’s reality. Sure, I found ways to blend in and make nice. Sure, I found ways to change my clothes, hair and interests so that I spoke the language of the native population. Sure, I found ways to shut myself off to the immense feeling that this was WRONG!
BUT…here I am. Today. Whole, unique and essential to my world.
The reason why I am here is because I LEPT! I lept into small choices that felt really really big. I chose myself time and time again despite what another thought about it. I took a breath and relaxed into a situation that I would normally run from or confront. I stood on that EDGE and recognized it as the illusion that it was. A fake line of finality that only existed if I shut down and closed in on myself. The EDGE is Not a place to be marooned but a place where I get my life back, a place where I stand in the truth of my own experience and express it (fully and unapologetically) , a place where, even though there is nothing that feels familiar, that I still feel safe to jump anyways, and a place of expansion. The EDGE is FREEDOM! I am an EDGE worker, a visionary, and a fringe specialist. I realized today after reading my friends BLOG that, somehow, I have come to feel comfortable or at the very least, TRUST the EDGE. I know all of the best and most important diversity of any eco system exists at the EDGE of that landscape or society. The most brilliant and life giving resources exist at the EDGE. No wonder I have spent such a great deal of time at the EDGE! There wasn’t anything wrong with me, I was indeed WHOLE the entire time.
My life these past weeks has felt completely and utterly turned upside down. Not just upside down, but inside out and flipped sideways. Unrecognizable, in terms of how it feels to me. My experience of life is totally foreign, Uncertain and insurmountably……uncomfortable. I mindfully, LEPT from the EDGE of my life wanting to let go. I LEPT into a fog of uncertainty that left no indicator of outcome. I have no indicators, signs or maps of where I am headed. I am literally in the “dark” of the experience of my own life.
Sound scary…..Yup…. in moments when I forget to breath and I collapse in on myself. It has been Scary when I turn inward and begin to run old stories and behaviours. BUT when I remember my greater intention and WHO I AM, it is exhilarating! I feel inside of a free fall in which I cannot see the landing pad. I have an instinct inside of me that says, “we have you”. These words come from all those EDGE workers, visionaries, witches, mothers, shamans, healers, women, midwives, priestess’s and queens that came before me. I hear them and I feel them right here beside me. The EDGE it laced with ancient wisdom and framework for the NEW world. The EDGE is where all the EDGE workers, visionaries, witches, mothers, shamans, healers, women, midwives, priestess’s, queens and other gifted women are called to in this time and history of the world. The EDGE is the whisper that you hear when you are trying to go to bed, or “get through” another day of insane life. The EDGE is the in the ? Question mark of your life when you are asking, “ is this it?” The EDGE is where the dance of the old and new meet. The EDGE is where deep connection to Self, consciousness and community is heard and felt the greatest. The EDGE provides an eagle eye view of your life and world.
A dear friend of mine, Naomi Irons, asked this question one day and it has always stuck with me. “ What lives beyond this…when I let go?”
Well, what is there?
EDGES are Not linear…They are gradual and contain all kinds of possibility. Quite often, plants, animals, fungi, ideas, seeds and experiences that seem impossible, live and thrive on the EDGE. Because the EDGE bridges one world to another, there is a rich and flourishing fertility that exists; Often, More so than anywhere else. The EDGE of an eco system also contains THE most amount of chaos and change. It is often a place that scares us or makes us extremely uncomfortable with no mile markers to follow. My level of safety has always come from a place of, stable, linear, predictable, structure, control, organized and punctual. This is NOT what the EDGE looks like. The EDGE is just that …. EDGY, unpredictable, disorganized (at best), chaotic and most certainly….never stable!
Where I am headed, beyond this EDGE, is a place that is unknown to me any further than a slight sensation inside of my body. It is a place that I cannot even begin to calibrate or plan or prepare for. Where I am headed, has not been discovered until the moment I arrive and this is the mystery of the EDGE. What is beyond that calls me? Why do I feel it so loud inside of my SOUL. The beat and sound that draws me closer to the EDGE is the sound of my own potential and consciousness. It is waiting for me on the other side of today.
So, I am so thankful for my friends words because it has allowed this flow of thought for me today. It has invited me to explore what the EDGE has been and what it is today for me. I choose to stand on the EDGE of my own potential and LEAP into the uncomfortable, uncertain and unknown framework of my own RISE!
Mahalo Mandy
