What's Right Right Now #3

Alligator Wisdom: Finding Clarity Amid Chaos

What’s Right Right Now?

1) I have the voice and the heart to talk back to the lies and gaslighting of adoption,

2) and friends who listen, who lean in, who work at understanding,

3) and who speak up when I’m not there—in other words, who are allies

4) I pulled an alligator card from one of MJ Cullinane’s gorgeous tarot decks.

5) All of this—the alligator, being adopted, grounding against gaslighting, connecting with friends—offers wisdom for navigating the swirl of chaos that seems to have taken over our culture and our government at the moment.

Alligators

The first time I saw an alligator up close and not-in-captivity, it was basking on the manicured lawn in front of the condo in which my freshly-immigrated-from-Scotland-family and I were staying. In front of the beast was a canal and a golf course. Behind it was the row of condos and me.

It wasn’t a complete shock—we’d been warned about the possibility of alligators. Apparently, they had been removed from this South Carolina barrier island when it became a private development, but then had been brought back to help cull the deer population, which had been destroying the flora of the island and making general nuisances of themselves. It seemed a bit far-fetched to me that alligators would be less annoying than deer, but I was the new kid, so I didn’t question what I was told. Instead, I stood at what I thought was a safe distance on the deck of the condo, believing they couldn’t climb stairs, thinking how out of place the creature looked. For a variety of reasons—as an adopted person, an immigrant, and, at that time, a teen—I could relate. Throughout our time there, I checked on the gator, partly out of fascination at seeing an actual alligator—a wild animal, in the wild, or at least not in a zoo—and partly to make sure the creature hadn’t advanced towards the condo.

It would be over a decade before I’d encounter one in the actual wild, a couple of hours north and inland from the original sighting, paddling in the Little Wambaw Swamp Wilderness, a five-thousand-plus-acre section of the Francis Marion National Forest. I was struck by the difference in tone our guides used when discussing them. Where we’d been warned against the ones removed from their natural habitat and then brought back to learn to live in the sliver of it that was left and on the newly manicured space, our guides in the Wilderness reassured us. Obviously, they weren’t encouraging us to swim with them or even to get too close; rather, that we’d likely see them basking on logs and that they might slip silently into the water as we approached and that this was no reason for alarm. They wouldn’t be stalking or attacking us; they would be keeping themselves safe, submerging into the camouflage of the water with only their eyes, like small periscopes, above. The guides spoke of them with a kind of reverence, encouraging us to see their grace, rather than with the adversarial nature of the condominium leasing agent.

As we moved silently through the this ancient, watery landscape, navigating around the knees of huge bald cypress and water tupelo, some of which may have been there for a thousand years (part of this area is suspected to be virgin forest), I felt blanketed not just in the humidity of a late spring day, but also in grace and gratitude, and a sense of what I can only describe as sense of grounded rightness in this primeval place.

For the Ancients, alligators were symbols of the protection and knowledge and wisdom reaching back to our primal DNA. They represented how we might maintain a close relationship with Earth as well as how to navigate murky waters—the literal murky waters of a swamp or the metaphorical ones of our emotions or core Selves. They are patient creatures, able to survive without food for extended periods of time; they’re not easily fooled. They are able to hold seeming opposites at the same time: though they are apex predators, they are also nurturing of their young and they like to hang out in groups, called congregations; they can be submerged in water and see above it at the same time, in the same way that we can drop into our innermost Truth and still keep an eye on what’s headed our way.

Adoption—Grounding against Gaslighting

One of the many damaging aspects of adoption for adopted people is the relentless gaslighting that typically takes places within our adoptive families as well as in the culture at large. Put simply, we’ve been removed from our mothers, from our natural habitat, so to speak; we’ve been placed with strangers, often more than once. In the inner chaos that ensues, we are told that our sense of things is completely wrong. That this is good. That we should be grateful. That this is where we belong. (Often, we belong about as much as an alligator belongs on a golf course).

As a result of recovering from this gaslighting and learning the tools for diving down to my own inner Truth and from spending years (decades) peeling back the layers that covered over my core Self, it turns out that I have some skills—perhaps similar to alligators—for connecting with that calm, central Core even while keeping an eye on chaos.

In other words, I am able to ground in my own Truth.

I think it’s particularly important that we do that right now; aside from keeping us sane, it also helps guide us to right action and prevents us from inadvertently contributing to the chaos.

Friends

My congregation, if you will, is a group of women who not only hold my Truth and share it but for whom I can do the same. This practice of grounding and the sharing and holding bring me, however fleetingly, to the senses of peace and grace and deeply rooted rightness that I felt in that swamp.

The Wisdom (I hope)

Right now, there’s plenty of murky stuff we might be navigating and feeling, both externally and internally. Our political and economic landscape seems to be shifting more rapidly than we can keep up with. It’s hard to know who and what to believe with so much swirling around us.

The card, the friends, and the memories remind me that, like the alligators, we, too, can navigate murky waters, both internal and external; that we instinctively know when it’s time to submerge and when it’s time to return to shore to draw nourishment from being grounded, from connecting with whatever source of light fuels us (sun, goddess, spirit, faith) and from time with congregation.

Even—or especially—when we have the disconcerting sense that, overnight, someone has caused some seismic shift in our world (whether that’s taking your mother, sliding a stranger in in her place, and telling you to be grateful; covering your beloved swamp in highly manicured fescue; or attempting to utterly alter the landscape of government)—we still have the capacity to ground into our Truth, to submerge and find the calm of the inner Wisdom that lies at the core of our Selves, and to commune with our congregation.

If you need a little help with grounding and letting the chaos fall away so that you can connect with your Truth, here’s a meditation to guide you. It contains an optional writing prompt at the end, so if that calls to you, gather your pen or pencil and paper before you begin.