The Passing Storm

Reflection from the Trenches

This circumstance of having a trans-IDed daughter and what mothering her has demanded of me has brought with it a new spirituality and Life philosophy that I’m incredibly grateful for (and hope to write more about soon.)

For the past 20ish years, I’ve worked to improve my relationship with my one precious body, recognizing that it is my best source of information. I got better at paying attention to my body’s signals and started exploring what it would be like to trust my intuition. (If you know my story, you know how destabilized I was by the news that my daughter had concluded she was somehow a boy and the implications of this confusion. It took me some time to find stable ground again–but I have to say it’s now more solid than ever.) One way I do this is to “get still” when something is eating at me rather than taking frantic action. If I slow down rather than speed up, I find the right course usually presents itself.

Another way that our bodies communicate to us is through our dreams. I always thought my dreams were mostly nonsense but I wanted to believe the Jungian resources I discovered while researching ways to keep my daughter’s body and my family whole. So recently I started recording my dreams and looking up the symbolism of the events, objects, people, etc that visited me in my sleep. It was soon clear to me that there is much to be gained by this exercise. 

Last night I dreamed of a storm...