Emerging from Chrysalides: Surrendering to Power (Offering 8.3)
Strength found in the last place I could imagine.
The unexpected power born from surrender and allowing what wanted to move though me.
(If you’re new to Eclosion: An Artist’s Path to Power and Peace, start at the beginning. Or visit my Memoir Hub for a full table of contents with links.)
Surrendering to Power
“I Believed in solid ground
’til I saw the earth in motion
In the winds of steady change
In the ever-rolling Ocean”
~Blessed Motion by Annie Zylstra
I was one year sober when I found my self-worth.
As I stepped into a new chapter—leaving my job with Thurston County to pursue art full-time—Shon was making a bold choice too, closing his construction business to take a position at The Evergreen State College. To mark these life-changing transitions, we left behind the familiar and embraced the unknown, returning to Mexico, the site of our second date—a two-month adventure and a story for another time!
On this adventure, we stayed in a tiny beach town in southern Oaxaca, Mexico, eating fresh papaya soaked in lime, hiking, drawing by the beach, practicing our Spanish, and reveling in the sheer pleasure of playing in the ocean together. We body surfed the waves in, got up, and ran back to the sea, diving into the next wave. Laughing in delight, the waves pushed us back toward shore. We did this again and again, celebrating the changes in our lives and the excitement of what lay ahead.
So much had shifted in the past year that I could hardly recognize this new version of myself. I was playful and adventurous, ready to live my life as an artist—something I didn’t even know was possible when I was a kid.
Together, Shon and I jumped and played like children in the surf. The waves pushed us to shore, and we ran back into them, diving into the water, expecting the same force to throw us back out.
But then, everything changed.
The power that felt playful moments before grabs hold of us—yanks us into deeper water. The shift is immediate and intense. Panic seizes my chest in a crushing grip, severing my connection to the flow of the universe. In an instant, the rhythm of life that carried me vanishes, leaving only the harsh, isolating reality of fear. The Pacific Ocean is pure power, and for a moment, I forgot to give her the respect she deserved.
Even though I love the water, as a daughter of the prairie this was completely outside of my realm of experience. North Dakota is the farthest you can get from any ocean in North America and the rushing sea is nothing like the aridness of the Great Plains.
The ocean has its hold on us and isn’t letting go. I feel the vastness and power of El Mar. We are so close to the beach—at times the ocean floor is just inches below our feet—but try as we might, we’re stuck. As I am pulled outward, I struggle harder to swim to shore, Shon struggling by my side. The saltwater stings my throat, my nostrils, as I slip under the surface. Swallowing water, I come up gasping for air. Shon pulls me, pushes me, trying to get me out of the riptide, but he is no match for that incredible power. On his own, I think he could make it. I try to yell between burning gasps of air and water in my lungs,“Go! I can’t make it! Leave me! Go!” But he can’t. He will not leave me. My arrogance is about to get us both killed.
Our eyes lock in an endless moment. Our souls connect. I see his love for me, his need to stay with me. I see what my death would do to him. But I am so tired—exhausted to the very core of my being. I can’t fight any longer, so I stop.
I surrender.
I begin to slide into the sea.
As my body relaxes, the current shifts, and a gentle wave lifts me from behind, carrying me toward the shore. Our feet hit sand, and we struggle further. Clutching each other, gasping and shuddering, we make it to the beach and collapse. I can’t catch my breath. I look at my hands—they are the darkest, dark purple and blue. My arms and ribs ache from the exertion.
But we are safe.
This is a reoccurring theme of my life. Time and again, I fight against what I don’t want. I fight and fight, only to slide backward until finally—usually when the pain is too great—I find acceptance and let go. And when I let go, it’s as if something inside of me opens—like the ocean yielding its grip, allowing space for something new to emerge. Only after I accept the reality of my situation does anything change.
In the days that followed, I grappled with my powerlessness in the face of the ocean—with my smallness. As I came to terms with my limitations—ain’t no way I’ll ever beat the ocean—I found a new strength, a new power.
We sat by the ocean for days talking and drawing. Using watercolors, pastels, and ink, I drew a radiant, powerful woman painted in the stars; her full belly ready to birth the cosmos. I drew a woman emerging from an ocean of stars in triumph, heart lifted and open. I drew a woman wrapped in her lover’s embrace and standing in her own magnitude, connected to the universe with all of her being. I realized that just as the ocean had released me, I was releasing my old self, making way for the Artist inside to surface.
Shon and I walked on the beach one evening, sun setting over the Pacific, brown pelicans catching fish in the waves. I love brown pelicans. Shon stopped, pulled me close, and said, “I love you.” Three simple words he had said many times before. This time, I heard them differently. Finally, I had begun to love myself and could believe, without reservation, that he loved me.
Finally, I understood. I am worthy of love.
Ok dear reader, here’s a book question for you: I’d originally planned to have this chapter open the book as a prologue. Do you think it should stay here, or be the prologue in the print version of this book?
I vote for keeping it here! Although I echo Colette's enjoyment of taking a piece from later in the story and letting us see it in the prologue as a glimmer of what's to come.
Dearest writer, I am answering your question about making this chapter the prologue. :) I really like the idea of taking something significant from the middle of the story and offering it at the beginning. It whispers that life's most significant times are more like quilt pieces yet to be sown together than the chronological sequence they happened in. That said, I am unsure if this chapter gives too much or not. You are the artist and I know it will be beautiful either way. :)