for this tale) I was at last able to find my way out of these newer entanglements. I went eagerly again into the open spaciousness of not-knowing.

At first there was enormous relief. The not-knowing space felt comforting, welcoming, peaceful. I began to deconstruct the troublesome habits, to uncover some of the woundedness out of which they were again being born. But, fairly shortly, everything shifted. Feelings of uneasiness, worry and fearfulness began to swirl in me. I worried that I would never again be fit for anything but a life adrift in "not-knowing." That I would be able to hold myself centered in my new ways of being only when I was alone and unconnected to work of any sort. The prospect was at the time very frightening and overwhelming to contemplate. Yet, I had no clues, no direction, no vision. No clear messages from Spirit/my deep self.

In my discomfort and anxiety with the not-knowing, I began trying to "figure things out." My mind convinced me that the "truth" was that no new direction could or would emerge until I had used up all of the money stash that had been my "stake" for this new life! There was over $11,000 (a LOT of money in late1976) still left after three years. I chose to split the stash with my sister who, at that time was making a huge career change, going back to school for a new degree.

It was certainly rather odd to be acting on a decision that came from my head, from thinking/figuring after having felt so completely (and so willingly) led by Spirit/intuition/deep self for so long. Not surprisingly (at least in retrospect) that decision, in very short order, hurled me into more rather than less anxiety, confusion and struggle. I felt desperate, disoriented. In and out of feeling frantic, up against the wire. In all the fearfulness, I suddenly became totally preoccupied with making the now-smaller-stash of money last as long as possible!

I began taking odd (in both senses of that word) jobs. I joined a woman I knew in her housecleaning business. At least there was no danger of becoming enmeshed in over-achieving there! Then I worked weekend evenings as the doorperson-cum-bouncer at a local women’s bar. Most of the Santa Barbara women in the then new wave of feminists-coming-out-as-lesbians went there regularly to hang out and dance. It was more like a community house than a bar-bar. And, many of these delightfully juicy women were my close friends. The job turned out to offer me a way to be there and be (comfortably) a little removed at the same time.

In the middle of all this uneasiness, I also became involved in a relationship that deeply challenged every bit of the self I thought I was at the time. My partner’s workaholism (80+ hours a week) underscored and exaggerated the discomfort and worry by which I was so beset. Rather than staying with my agitation and going deeper with it, I became more and more busily, co-dependently enmeshed in taking up the slack left by my partner’s overworking. From the moment my "figuring-it-out" self had taken the reins, my slide into chaos and despair kept accelerating.

And then, as is its wont, magic found a way to happen despite all that I was doing to "get in the way of the process!" Those were the early days of "non-monogamy as the path of political correctness" in the Southern California lesbian community. (The 1970’s version of what has currently resurfaced re-incarnated as "polyamory.") Several women in the Santa Barbara community had begun exploring this path. A few were getting painfully tangled in the emotional messes it could easily provoke. My past life as both a feminist psychotherapist and a woman who had lived bisexually in an open marriage was fairly well known in the community. Several weekends in a row, some of the distressed women and their caring friends came over to me as I sat at the door of the bar reading and being the "bouncer." In many variations, they asked and implored and cajoled me to consider doing some counseling/psychotherapy again. They all felt I would be the "perfect person" to be a resource to our community in the middle of this upheaval.

I felt sympathy and concern for the women involved. I remembered what intense, deep and hard work it had been to stay sane, compassionate and honest in the midst of the open relationship I had lived through. Still, at first, I couldn’t even begin to fathom putting on the therapist hat again. The whole idea made me feel vaguely nauseated and queasy. Yet, the women persisted and pressed. Someone (I no longer remember who it was) asked me to think about under what circumstances I might possibly be open to doing the work, even just for a brief while.

And so, one day as on hands and knees I scrubbed someone’s tiled kitchen floor, I actually began to think about what I would need to do to make it possible to do therapy again, for a little while at least. I thought about all the things that had made me need to stop doing the work.

I remembered the vaguely claustrophobic feeling of being confined for so many hours to an office. No matter that it was beautiful and comfortable and in my own home. I remembered how it had felt: clients came brought, worked on and left their pains in the air and walls of that room. By the time I stopped seeing people there, it had felt as though the layers of pain absorbed into those walls were incredibly thick and suffocating.

I remembered the 50-minute hour that I–with much professional chagrin–had so much trouble sticking to. How frustrating it had always been for me to interrupt people in the middle of their process because "it was time for today." That meaning only that there was someone else in the waiting room ready for their own appointment with me.

I remembered how much I was left hanging–feeling just as much unfinished as my clients were once they were interrupted by the clock. I remembered how that lack of real closure or completion left me mulling over and over what had gone on in each client’s life. I remembered how, because of this lack of closure, I often it felt as though I were engaged in living not only my own but seventeen other lives simultaneously.

I remembered how locked into the work I felt. How, once I began working with someone, I was committed to go the distance with them. A distance that I would have little say about despite its impact on my life.

And, I remembered all the paperwork and billing and keeping track of accounts receivable that ate up so much of my non-client time.

As I remembered, I thought about the blessings of my California life. The healing nourishment of hours spent at the beaches, in the mountains, in green and open spaces. The joys of timelessness, of being more off the clock than on it. Of the specialness of a life that allowed me to hang out with a friend until we were organically ready to end a conversation-not having tight schedules aborting our time together. The blessedness of having room and freedom to move anytime in any direction that Spirit/my deep self led me toward.

Out of that hands-and-knees reverie, came a seedling of possibility. If I could meet the people I might work with outdoors or in THEIR own spaces. If we could meet each time as if it were just this once we were going to work together. If we could sit or walk and work together in that meeting just as long as was needed for the person to come to some closure about the issues we were addressing. If I could as a one-time consultant to each person, help them–as part of their coming to closure–design a plan of how to go forward on their own working with the problem(s) they’d brought to our time together. If people could complete the time by paying for it as we finished. Then, I could make the space inside of me to try doing the work of a therapist again. If it didn’t work for me, if I needed to stop, I wouldn’t have made commitments I couldn’t keep.

From that seedling grew the idea of "Catalyst." A practice that worked in exactly those ways. A practice that began with serving the women who had entreated me to come back to doing counseling/therapy. And one that then lasted many more years in the one-time-at-a-time form. (Even though people could always call back the very next week if they needed/wanted another "one-time.")

This utterly new (to me at least) way of doing therapy/consultation was Spirit’s gift to me. Born out of the willingness (all the trying-to-figure-it-out notwithstanding) to live in the middle of a long season of not-knowing. A willingness to see not-knowing as a part of the growing cycle in which much can be germinating in the knowing-of-self. As a kind of "neutral" or "idling" mode through which we often must pass as we prepare for a major shifting of our inner/outer gears.

Over the years the shape of my practice/work has continued to transform as I’ve transformed. It’s refashioned itself into some amalgam of "Catalyst" and my willingness to be committed to an openly acknowledged ongoing availability to the people who use me as their consultant. Having learned to use sage and prayer to cleanse my space, I feel freer to see people in my own space. Still, I often do house calls or outdoor sessions when people would prefer that. And, of course, I now do a lot of my work by phone with people who live at some distance from Ojai.

These two huge cycles of not-knowing have taught me and deepened my trust, patience and conscious commitment to keeping my "figuring-it-out" hands off the "controls" when other (often now much less major) cycles of not-knowing arrive. I practice talking compassionately, lovingly and reassuringly to the still sometimes disquieted or nudgy parts of me who may feel upset or challenged with the not-knowing. It usually works quite well! And, I’m always amazed at what come into being on the far sides of even the most interminable seeming seasons of not-knowing.

In our crazy out-of-balance culture, we often feel compelled to rush ourselves to come up with answers before we’ve let ourselves live into the questions. We feel pushed to make ANY decision rather than risk the criticism we fear for just waiting for a direction to emerge organically from our deeps. Here think of the assaultive demeaning salvos like "passive," "not being proactive," "wishy-washy," "indecisive."

Claiming not-knowing times as honorable, empowering seasons of germinating and inner preparing seems essential to living more compassionately with ourselves and other beings!

Consider talking lovingly, gently and reassuringly to the parts of you who are fearful of not-knowing times, of the not-having-all-the-answers-right-now,

P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world!

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The card on this page is part of a set of 64 handcolored bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside.

If you'd like a deck of your very own to support you in your journey, click here to download Order Form.

Please feel free to e-mail me at rposin@hotmail.com. to share your reflections and responses to any or all of what you find here . I'd really like to hear what touches and nourishes you!