I have used much metaphorical and analogous imagery to describe my healing journey and my various inner processes since that journey began nearly six years ago.  Navigating a ship.  Tending a garden.  Restoring a house.  Crossing a river.  Each of these visualizations was like a recurring waking dream waiting to be analyzed for its truths.

Lately, following the recent work I did using Internal Family Systems, I’ve seen a resurgence of another familiar set of imagery I’ve relied on periodically: that of an archaeological or geological dig.  The rows in the spreadsheet of my psyche’s parts resembled geological layers to me, especially when it was sorted by the age each part was born, putting the oldest layers/youngest ages at the bottom.

In the past, I would see myself internally on occasion as an inner archaeologist, digging away at the layers of my psyche to find what was hidden, carefully sorting the psychological dirt for even the smallest clues.  I was driven by the search itself, which became something of an obsession, as well as by a marrow-deep knowledge that I would eventually dig down far enough to find something amazing.  Like a dinosaur hunter certain there’s a skeleton under the rocks.

This vision of an inner archaeologist blended with my vision of having an inner Gardener, one whose sole job it was to tend a very important Garden that lived in a Dark Forest representing the more shadowy parts of my psyche.  In the center of this Garden stood a Tree, which itself represented the living core of my psyche, and it had been ill.  Poisoned, and I as the Gardener had been attempting to heal it.

This has required the excavations of the Archaeologist, who seems to have finally dug down to a crucial layer, enabling the Gardener to do her healing work on the Tree.  This corresponds in real life to my creation of the spreadsheet of inner psyche parts, which is the visual representation of all of the inner psychic excavation I have done for the last five years.  It is all, or most, of the clues I have found while digging in my psyche’s dirt.

I feel like the Archaeologist has been hammering away at a very rocky layer, but very carefully because it’s surrounded by the roots of the Tree.  The creation of the spreadsheet of parts and the subsequent ability to see myself in a new and truthful, compassionate way was like finally breaking through that rocky layer, enough to break it up into manageable pieces and get it out of the way so that the Tree can be healed.

Breaking through that metaphorical layer of rock came with a literal cracking sensation in my chest, one I didn’t understand for days, not until after remembering some words from the book Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine.  The exact words I do not remember, but I do remember the sentiment: that healing from grief necessarily involves the breaking of one’s heart.  Much of the pain of grief comes not from the broken heart of loss, but from not allowing it to break.

Useful and necessary things had been locked away inside my Icebound Heart, and with its cracking, they were set free whether I wanted them to be or not.  I found the self-loathing which I had been clinging to so vociferously was tenderly yet firmly swept away from my grasp, and I let it go without resistance.  The cracking showed itself in yet another vision, one of myself within a clear dome of ice.  Prior to the cracking, it was whole and completely frozen, rendering the inside of the dome incredibly cold.  Now it is warmer inside the dome, the ice is dripping water, and there is a large crack running from one side to the other across the top of the dome.  An opening is forming in the side in the crack.

I’ve learned to trust my visions over the last six years, regardless of how ‘crazy’ they may seem to others.  I know this means good things, that my years of digging in the dirt and excavating my soul have been worth the effort.  I don’t just know there’s a dinosaur skeleton under the rocks, now I can see it.  Furthermore, I can feel it in my body.  I felt that cracking sensation in my heart area and could feel the flood of warmth in my chest that came with it.  Like being hit by a wave you weren’t expecting.

This corresponded with a surge of healthy energy through the Tree, as though a great source of the toxins that had been poisoning it had been removed from its roots.  The roots themselves are still in need of healing before they will be able to once again properly nourish the Tree, but at least they can do so now.  Before, they were crushed by a layer of rock named Fear, Pain, and Grief, strangled by their poisons and endangering the life of the Tree, and therefore Me.

Now that the archaeologist has finally reached these layers of my psyche, the ones it knew existed but just had to keep digging for, and now that the Icebound Heart is cracked and melting, the Gardener can do her work on healing the Tree. There is still poison in the roots and the soil surrounding them and it must be neutralized.  It appears in my vision of the Tree’s roots as fuzzy white growths and globs of something black and sticky, which I believe represents Hatred, Rage, or a combination of the two.

I’ve had this sense the entire time I’ve been engaged in therapy for the last five years that there’s a reward at the end of all this work.  At least, that’s what the therapists tell you to keep you going and to entice people to go to therapy in the first place.  I kept the promise of this reward close to my heart as I toiled away on my inner journey, and there were times it was the only thing that kept me toiling at a seemingly neverending task.

I sense this reward is very close at hand, that I have reached the final stage of excavation and can begin sorting through everything I found along the way and analyzing it for its importance.  The process of analysis itself also represents a final stage of sorts, a task I must attend to before truly reaping that reward.  In terms of the Gardener and the Tree, this is represented by the need to heal the roots before putting all the dirt back in and finally fertilizing the Tree, which cannot be done until it is healthy enough to take in the nutrients.

The nutrients, in this case, are represented by the column of “needs” in my spreadsheet of psyche parts.  The things all of the different parts of me have always needed, but been denied for one reason or another.  As an actual gardener, I know what happens when a plant is denied food, which is what fertilizer is to a plant.  It may live with water and sunlight alone, but it will not thrive and will be prone to weakness and disease before dying much sooner than it should have, and if it bears fruit it will be sickly and small.  The same thing happens to people who are denied what the psyche, the spirit, and the soul need in order to thrive, and you can see the results by looking at the World today.

I am very much looking forward to fertilizing my Tree.  It has always been a beautiful Tree, with multi-colored leaves that leave a lovely carpet on the floor of The Garden.  It has responded well to the healing efforts I have applied to it these last few years, at times exploding with a glow that filled The Garden with light.  And yet it remained sickly in ways, shedding leaves when it shouldn’t have, and has never borne fruit in my visions.

The Tree of Life, Winter 2019

Yet as I write, I realize that the fertilizer is the medicine, and it’s already being applied.  What poisons the Tree can be neutralized by what will feed it: Understanding, Compassion, Love, Acknowledgement, Forgiveness, Respect, and a few other good things that things like Rage and Hatred are powerless against.  These were components of the wave of warmth I felt when my heart cracked open, and the cause of the surge of healthy energy in the Tree.

Now I can ‘bandage’ its roots by putting all the dirt back in now that I have reached the source of its damage and addressed it.  This corresponds to the sensation I had following the cracking open of my heart of tending a wound that had been open and infected for a very long time.  It was a relief to apply the equivalent of antibiotics and gently clean it out, even though it was painful, then bandage it.  Putting the dirt back over the Tree’s roots is a similar relief, as that is a part of the Tree that is not supposed to be exposed.

It was necessary, though.  The Tree was dying, and the Tree is Me.  Now that it has been healed and stabilized, it must be fed, watered, and allowed to bask in the Sun.  Which means this Dark Forest within which the Tree’s Garden resides must become a Forest of Light.  There are parts of my psyche that have dwelt in the Shadows for far too long, so long that they actually cringe from the Light because it hurts their eyes and burns their skin.  Yet they long for it.  They have a memory of the Light within them, but no longer any memory of how to access it, or the way is blocked.

That must be where my next task lies, in finding and addressing what blocks me from being in the Light, and exploring what I find so comforting about living in Shadow.  I already know from analyzing the ‘needs’ column in my spreadsheet that there are several parts of myself that have the same needs, and so by addressing them, I will be addressing at least a dozen different inner parts of myself.  In doing so, I hope those parts that are hidden in Shadow will slowly reveal themselves as they feel safer, because that’s why they hide: they don’t feel safe.

Not yet, though.  It’s time to let the Archaeologist and the Gardener, and therefore the Tree and Me, to rest and heal.  Time to let wounds close, roots grow, and nutrients flow so my heart can keep thawing.  I will not be surprised if the Gardener finds flowers on the Tree the next time she checks on it, and who knows what sorts of fruits those flowers might bring.