Stained Glass and Dirty Fingernails

The ugly parts of ourselves aren’t always the ones we think they are. Take my stained glass windows. I almost tore them out when we started to renovate our new house. Yet something stopped me, I just could not bear to take a sledgehammer to the intricate lead and artisanal glass that someone had so carefully constructed. Conversely, I had no problem at all tearing out the faux circa 1984 plastic brick inlays that lined too many walls in our new home, my gut instinctively revulsed by their inauthenticity. Maybe that contrast was what initially saved the windows- their authenticity. The glass was not pretending to be anything other than it was, proudly carrying the colors and design with a hard to assault integrity that held my attention. Still the windows were a bit of a question mark - do they stay or do they go? I had constructed design boards in a brown and grey color vignette with a boho feel and my linear brain could not see a way forward integrating the jewel tones in the glass. Church like, I thought. Instead of a quick fix with the windows , I chose to play a game of wait and see which required me to be two things that are challenging for me; patient and present.

I decided to allow the next chapter to unfold by listening rather than telling, admitting to myself that there was no immediate right answer. I lived watching the windows and spent the book ends of my day noticing that the glass picked up different hues based on the angle of the earth. The morning rays gifted the room with a lavender bloom while evenings saluted the setting sun, accentuating the deep golds. Snowy March days turned the glass into a meditation on warmth and respite as the reflection of my fire danced red hot between the panes and the snow. Magic was happening. The impact and interaction of the windows on and with the room changed dramatically when the plastic brick and extraneous walls were torn down and those that remained were painted white. The negative space unleashed the power of natural sunlight upon the the glass and colors danced in bold inviting patterns across my floor and walls. It was as if the whole room got out of it’s own way and let the combination of light and color do what it is that pure light and color were meant to do, add life, dimension and in this case architectural interest. Suddenly everything began to make sense, triangles in the glass picked up a geometric motif in my boho carpet donated to us by my in-laws. The gold dots inspired similar pops of color in pillows and props. My windows became like a wildflower in a wheat field. I think sometimes this is the way with the soul and with our wounds. The parts of us that are most colorful and of interest are also the parts that may at first seem disposable, not in keeping with our minds plan for what our life should be. I think we often need better context, more sources of pure light and less head clouds passing by. What if to be soul seen in a way that sustains life we need to knock down oppressive and insubstantial walls, little dictators that keep the light at bay, dim us. I wonder what would happen to our true colors if we removed some of our faux psychological inlays and inauthentic relationships and allowed the colors within to begin to tell their own story, to take up space in a room. The systems and culture that we live and work within can contextualize our essence in the same way that faux brick and bad (mustard yellow) paint choices worked against my stained glass windows. Context has the capacity to alter our perception about what is beautiful, intrinsically valuable, and artisan about ourselves, warping what - in paraphrasing the words of Toni Morrison, is “our own best thing”. It turns out the work I was doing on my home was not so much renovating as restoring. Bringing the house to an original and intended prior state of beauty and grace by removing the fake and dimming forces such that sunlight could find a path through glass in the way art intended. The same process can be true of our soul’s path with the world. Might we need to experience a cleaner white room within our lives so that our truths, our tribe, our work, our relationships and our play call forth natural light to shine through us such that we live out our soul story as the thing of beauty we could not originally see as such.

So what of the dirty fingernails? Well cowgirls, neither tearing down walls nor working with horses is for the faint of heart and both get your finger nails blissfully dirty while washing your soul clean. Horses are natures best medicine when it comes to the white reflective space required for seeing through to the truth of our selves. It is damn hard to leave an encounter with a horse without a shiny glimpse of ones soul palate. I have struggled to find the words for the way in which equine facilitated transformation works until I came to the process of restoring my home and those darned stained glass windows. Horses, as prey animals have evolved to embody presence which gives them the capacity to feel truth and pivot, is it a predator or just wind? Horses bodies have evolved toward truth telling and connection with the herd and these profound capacities are accessible to the two legged where being more horselike for a time makes us more alive and authentic humans. Spending time the with the horses is akin to witnessing ours spirit and soul free of mustard yellow walls - so to speak. HORSES SHINE SUNLIGHT ON OUR AUTHENTIC ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS and when we spend time in a pasture, under saddle or in a round pen, we are tearing down walls of confining societal context and dusting off the cobwebs. The poet David White said, “ Poetry is language against which we have no defense”. Horses, in this sense are poets, disarming, reflective BEINGS that create the white and negative context for the stained glass windows of our souls home to do their thing. There are few places of deep integrity remaining in the world where one can be utterly vulnerable, utterly held and completely seen. When we are gifted the right context to be with the beauty of our soul we begin to enjoy our authenticity so much so that carrying those jewel tones into the world becomes a source of joy rather than a thorn of insecurity and fear. In partnership with the horses, we are able to embody the truest state of ourselves and demand that space and context in all arenas of life so that the living our soul story becomes our state rather than a passing trait. If you are reading this and interested in tearing down walls and getting your fingers dirty, find me for a soul session :)