“you have survived the unsurvivable more than once.”
There are many kinds of journeys, countless unique stories.
The Bible, for example, holds examples of these stories.
Your body is a story too.
I believe that good stories begin with a descent.
Maybe, just maybe, they are the real God stories.
After my own journey of going down story, I’m beginning to believe experientially that the most challenging part of the beginning the path of descent, search and return is faced when you come back from where ever you have been.
In our culture, knowledge gained through traditional and accepted methods is most valued. This includes following societal norms, getting an education, and achieving milestones in the expected and familiar manner.
But the stories that I respect the most seems to only come to those who have fallen down a well, or been swallowed by a whale, struck by lightening, kidnapped by a god or demon, or carried off by a whirlwind.
Formal education and training are valuable, providing necessary tools and credentials but maybe there is more.
Sometimes, the most valuable things you have to serve and bless the world with are because you have traveled to hell and back, and usually more than once.
And each time you had to face new foes and trials, and fight your way back to the earth’s surface.
When you fall down the rabbit hole others might not even notice you are gone, except for those who love you most deeply with the bravest hearts.
You'll find yourself struggling, starving and foraging for survival in this otherworldly place, unknowingly letting it become a part of you forever.: fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, a tiny bottle labeled “drink me”, a tin of Turkish Delight, an apple hurled at you by an angry talking tree.
You won’t know as you take, eat and swallow it down that unknowingly you are letting it become a part of your story forever.
You just wanted to be refreshed for a moment by something that might have quenched or comforted you from your familiar life above ground.
You will be too busy trying to find your way back, searching for the the way home, checking knobs on tiny doors, searching your way toward a lamp post that you wandered off from a lifetime ago to even think of this small morsel until much later.
The trials you face are harrowing, consuming, exhausting.
And transforming.
The challenges you encounter are intense and life-changing.
You'll battle, lose companions, and witness terrible things.
With some luck, effort and maybe Divine intervention you will return home, but you'll feel that no one knows what you've been through.
They won't believe your experiences because they haven't seen and experienced them for themselves.
At least not yet.
You will mourn companions, allies and pieces of of yourself you let go of forever.
With luck, labor, grit and grace you might even make it back home.
But once you've gotten your hands in the dirt, stood up, and brushed yourself clean, you'll find that the hole, door, or portal has vanished behind you.
And the big problem with that is that no human above ground will even know you were gone.
People will not understand or acknowledge your experiences.
They haven't faced the same dangers and won't realize the extent of your journey.
You won’t have a medal for courage pinned to your chest.
No School of Hard Knocks diploma to wave in their face.
You won’t be given credit for anything you saw or experienced.
They will believe a wardrobe is just a wardrobe, and a white rabbit is just a rabbit and a piece of fruit is an ingredient they can buy in season at any grocery store.
But you will have been planted new eyes.
Eyes that have a different way of seeing.
You will look exactly like everyone else and you will be simultaneously over- and under-estimated for the rest of your days by people who have never battled an evil warlock, awakened from a coma induced by a poison flower, faced a gruesome monster, or left pieces of themselves behind in an invisible, distant land.
No matter how many times you've been through these trials, you won't be seen as an authority.
Society only recognizes achievements that are visible and conventional.
Legitimacy is only given for works performed above ground, in the day light, where others can see what you are doing.
Returning from such a journey, you are discovering yourself transformed.
In a way that others can't see.
They might even think you're behind them.
You just came back to where you started.
Completely transformed but no further ahead in anyway that is recognizable to others.
They may even decide you have fallen behind.
They don’t care where you were or why.
Sometimes you will be tempted to explain how you know what you know.
Tell stories of the wonders and horrors you have seen and experienced.
The nice’r people will pretend to be shocked or sympathetic or impressed.
However, mostly, they won’t really listen and they will have forgotten it entirely by the next time you encounter them.
A few might remember enough to pacify or teach you as to how things are done on the surface. It’s the logical way after all. Even if they don’t say it, you sense it.
They will not see you as someone who has slain a dragon or been blown over a deadly desert in an unfettered balloon.
They won’t be particularly interested that you were almost beheaded or turned into stone by a cold-blooded queen, or that you rescued a sibling who disappeared into thin air one strange, windy night.
There will be no celebration upon your return.
No anniversaries or memorials.
No ritual.
Mostly, it will be the exact opposite.
No mark on your forehead to signify that you have seen some truly wild shit go down and have lived to tell the tale.
Some who have fallen down their own holes will find you.
They will recognize you, and you them by the wild knowing look in their eyes.
They will tell others that they find along the way to look you up, and together you will create a strange kind of underground community in and around the usual one.
They will come and find you not because of any title, or letters after your name, but because you have survived the unsurvivable more than once, but only by the hairs of your chinny chin chin.
And as terrorizing as it was at least you were engaged, you were alive, and felt effective in the throes of the underworld conflict.
Daily life on the surface is its own exhausting trial that makes everything transformative that has ever happened to you completely
invisible
unfortunate
unimportant and you’ll have to find ways to set tables and introduce it, like an amuse bouche, and serve and bless it and assert its value to others over and over without appearing mad, or a liar, or like you think you are special or better than anyone else.
You aren’t better than anyone else.
You know you weren’t better or braver than the comrades who were buried in the underworld, only luckier.
Maybe, it’s more than luck.
Maybe, it’s because you want to taste and see and experience life with every pore of your body!
Maybe you see life lived within the life and someone sense and feel there is another way.
And you risk everything to discover it for yourself.
You don’t for a minute imagine that the person in front of you - enjoying all the delicious fruits of normalcy - would do any worse or better than you did surviving after eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
For all you know they might have managed the whole wild adventure far better than you ever could.
But it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve never been there, at least not yet, and they don’t even believe in sentient devouring black holes, witches good or bad, or irritable kings who sentence others to dark and treacherous spaces on a whim.
Your true value is undoubtedly rooted not in official documents or met deadlines, but in the profound experiences with your own life force, your most authentic self, and the life force present in others and the world.
You might forever tread in life with a courageous and curious heart, boldly exploring realms others dare not, always seeking the magic hidden in the corners of the world, much like a traveler in a land as mystical as Narnia.
HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS.
This is a series of questions I’ve been sitting with as I set Misfit Table: A Fresh Start on April 13, 2024.
*( we: i have a couple friends who are helping fight my vision to the ground )
I will share Misfit Table details February 1, 2024. Keep your eyes open.
These questions, for me, have been worth contemplating and are helping me understand what kind of group I need to create.
· Where does your isolation sit?
· Are you negotiating a visible or obvious difference from those around you – such as race or ethnicity or a visible disability? Or are your isolations invisible to strangers and acquaintances, internal, private, unnoticeable?
· What kind of support do you want to offer and receive, that isn’t readily available to you?
· What are the conversations or interactions you yearn to be able to have that seem to be experienced as impolite, disruptive, too-much-information, or boring to people in general social settings?
· Where do you feel stifled?
· What part of yourself do you wish you could just share freely with others who could “just get you?”
· What are the stories about your life that are hard to tell, that seem to require too much explanation too often, or that start to feel burdensome to share with others? Are there parts of your story or your interests that are actively ignored by others, or maybe even by yourself?
· Are there stories that are never or rarely given words or somehow deleted, or never even seem possible to bring into conversation because they just don’t fit in with the dominant story? How do you feel about the parts of your story that just don’t fit in?
· What kind of audience do you hate explaining yourself to the most? Who do you imagine could hear what you have to say most easily?
· Do you sometimes change or edit your story to protect yourself from being misunderstood, to save energy, or to guard your privacy? Or in order to make other people feel more comfortable?
· Can you think of times when it felt relieving to share a challenging experience or specific interest with someone who had been through something similar? Or, if not, can you try to imagine what that would be like?
· When does telling your story make you feel closer or more connected to other people or groups? When does it make you feel more alone?
· When do you want to fight for your story to be heard accurately? When do you want to save your energies and choose your battles?
· How do you feel about teaching and explaining? When does it feel like a good use of your time and energy? When does it feel draining or discouraging?
· What kind stories do others share that you receive the most from or identify with?
· What is your favorite way to tell your story? Who in your life - or if there isn’t anyone currently, who in your past, or in your imagination - can most readily appreciate, accept, and support the parts of your story you most want to share?
I genuinely would love to hear how any of these questions land on you.
I welcome your emails and comments.
side by side,
T
I feel this deeply.
So many thought provoking questions? I have some deep thinking to do in order to answer some of them. I really feel in my soul sometimes I am a bridge for those that are trying to get across the other side. All really great questions Tiff excited to see where you (we) are headed!🔥🙏🏻🩷🕊️🫶🏻