Dreams of Cracking Open: New Year, New Truth

I want to tell you about a dream I had last night.

I’m at a women’s weekend gathering, and we’re each supposed to make a dish for a potluck. I decide I’m going to steam some crabs for the group, and I go out and buy four of them, which I carry in a small plastic bag.

I sit down on a bench near the ocean. Next to me, on my right, is an older man, and I ask him, “Do you know how to steam crabs?” He’s annoyed, but he helps me crack open the shells of two of the crabs and asks me which parts I want to use. As I crack them open, there’s a lot of meat, but also other things - a dark red organ of some kind, and a silver metal orb. I feel sick as we’re doing this, but I put the meat aside in a bowl and turn to the other two crabs in the bag.

Megan LeathermanJanuary 3, 2018Comment

Celebrating the Darkness of Winter Solstice

Today is the shortest day and the longest night of the year for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, and it was a day of tremendous importance to our more Earth-based ancestors.

Megan LeathermanDecember 21, 2017Comment

Coming to Terms With My Quitting Habit

It’s a hot morning in mid-August, and I’m asking myself “why, why, WHY?!” I agreed to be here. It’s the beginning of twice-daily practices for the girls’ soccer team at my high school, and my friends roped me into joining the team our senior year. “Just for fun!,” they said. “It’ll be great!,” they said.

Megan LeathermanDecember 6, 2017 Comments

The Ecological Renewal of the Soul

What brought me to this moment was, at first, a haunting. A rotten, gnawing Emptiness inside of me that came to the surface anytime my life felt difficult. The Emptiness pushed me to leave job after job and city after city until I became resilient enough to turn around and look at its ghostly face. There I saw a deep sadness. A spirit with no home, cast out because its host didn’t know how to honor its presence.

Megan LeathermanNovember 22, 2017Comment

Reclaiming Authority Over Our Own Lives

I saw a naturopath recently, and she told me she thinks I’m walking on the edge of postpartum depression. “You could go either way,” she said. She suggested I take St. John’s Wort to alleviate my depressive symptoms.

WellnessMegan LeathermanNovember 12, 2017mental health, self care, authorityComment

Why We Often Go Mute Before a Big Change

When shifts are underway, we often become language-less for a time. The words we used to use to describe ourselves no longer fit, but it takes time and experience to find the ones that do.

This mute, formless, and nuanced space is an uncomfortable place to be in for people who want to know and be able to describe what’s going on inside of them.

I am one of those people, and I’m without a language right now.

Megan LeathermanOctober 27, 2017 Comments