What parts of yourself have been neglected, maybe even for decades?
Is there a young reader, writer, artist, dreamer, musician, hiker, swimmer, athlete, creator, explorer, activist, scientist, or inventor somewhere within you who is aching to be seen, heard, felt and nurtured?
Is that neglected part of yourself showing up as a blockage or resistance in your life?
I’d like to introduce you to “Little Ann.” She is a part of me. The very young part of me that loved to read fiction. I read voraciously to escape reality- my mother’s severe depression, our many moves that made me always the new and shy kid in the classroom, mid-school year.
I would read my way through novels in a matter of hours or a day. I was that kid who had a book in front of my face while walking single file through the hallways of the various elementary schools I attended.
I always grabbed a novel as soon as I’d completed whatever assignment we were working on in class, so I could disappear.
One day I really did disappear from my third grade classroom in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I was reading “Where the Red Fern Grows” and I became the boy, Billy. I wasn’t in a classroom anymore, I was in the woods of the Ozark Mountains with Big Dan and Little Ann, Billy’s Redbone Coonhounds.
I remember being incredibly disoriented when it was time for me to tap back into whatever was going on in the classroom. Being Billy, the mountains, the trees, the dogs, it was all just so real!
As life progressed, as being a good student and succeeding in the ways laid out before me by capitalist culture meant reading more and more non-fiction, my reading of fiction almost entirely dropped away. If I tried to read a novel, I found it was all I wanted to do, and I would stay up super late, unable to put the book down until I’d finished it. So mostly, I’d not allow myself the luxury of fiction.
Recently, after many years of also setting my writing aside, (motherhood, “failing” at my big dreams, doing a 180 and embarking on a healing path, etc) when I began wanting and needing to write once again, I found myself facing an enormous amount of resistance to just sitting down and doing it.
So, I went on a Shamanic Journey to ask my Spirit Guides to help me work through the resistance.
They showed me this very young part of myself that I had been severely neglecting for many, many years- the young me that loved (and still loves) to read fiction. I was told that I need to honor her need to read, and if I did that, she would help me write!
I wasn’t given a name for this young part of me during the Journey, but afterwards I felt a strong urge to pull my old, ragged copy of “Where the Red Fern Grows” off the shelf to remind myself of the name of the female Coonhound.
When I saw her name- Little Ann- I knew this is what I would call the part of me that disappeared into that, and so many other novels as a kid, because my own middle name is Ann.
So, as I have a tendency to do, I wrote a reminder of this healing journey on a note card: “I see you, Little Ann. I honor your need to read, and I am grateful that you will help me write!”
And I stuck it on the wall next to my bedside table and lamp. Then I borrowed a stack of thin middle grade novels from my youngest son, a series (aptly for me) called “Spirit Animals.”
I have been honoring Little Ann’s need to read, though still she is voracious and does not like to read a mere page or two, or even a chapter or two at a time. I try to be gentle and understanding with her- her needs went unmet for decades!
And gentle with myself when I find I’m up at 2 a.m. nearing the end of a book, knowing my day will be thrown off by tiredness…
And Little Ann is helping me write. She helped me write this. And together we are going to write a book that is brewing within me…
So, what part of YOU wants to be dredged up from your depths, dusted off, and allowed to dream and do again? Let me know if I can help!
Betti Rooted Lionheart (she/her) is passionate about working with Queer People, Teens, Healers, Activists, Change Makers, and anyone who feels despair for the Earth and Humanity. She is a Shamanic Healer, a Spiritual Empowerment Activist, a Fire Priestess, a READER and a Writer, a Facilitator of the Work That Reconnects, a Minister of the Church of Earth Healing, the Mother of two Sons, Queer, and the founder of Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary in Trumansburg, NY. Betti offers powerfully transformative one-to-one Shamanic Healing Sessions (in-person and on-line) and loves to teach people to Shamanic Journey. She is also a facilitator of Circles for despair, rage, and wailing work.
Visit Website: https://sacraltransformations.com/