“There is a time in our lives, usually at mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision- possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life – and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they've “had it” and “the last straw has broken the camel’s back” and they’re “pissed off and pooped out.” Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. They may be with broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ from Women Who Run With The Wolves
THE MEANING OF DESCANSOS:
During a solitary visit to the White Mountains I took the opportunity to work on a process recommended by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run with the Wolves. She calls this exercise descansos. Descansos are markers of the changes, the turning points, the deaths (literal and figurative) in one’s life. She says, “Descansos are symbols that mark a death. Right there, right on that spot, someone’s journey in life halted unexpectedly.There has been a car accident, or someone was walking along the road and died of heat exhaustion, or a fight took place there. Something happened there that altered that person’s life and the lives of other persons forever.” In Latin America they are the roadside shrines that mark the memory where an accident claimed a life. Metaphorically we can also view them as crossroads, choice points, places where you choose one road and might have taken another.
Conducting your own ‘descansos’ is a way to document, honor, and grieve those individual deaths along the way – and leave them where they are meant to be left – in the past, honored, acknowledged, and on a road already taken in your life. These deaths can be wrong turns, lost opportunities, broken hearts, trauma or disappointment that you've experienced on your journey.
HOW TO DO DESCANSOS :
Below are instructions from Clarissa
When you go to make your own ‘descansos’, it’s important to be prepared for the transformational process that will follow; you are making a choice to cleanse yourself of your past and mark the small and big deaths that make your life your own, and then release them to embrace the future that awaits you.
To get started, I recommend buying a few big pieces of white poster board and a black, thin-tip magic marker.
Then, find yourself some privacy, and begin to make a timeline of your life where you’re going to mark a cross on each point on the path starting with when you were really young, up until the present.
You’re marking down places and pieces of your life where you feel a part of you died. You will mark the roads you didn't take, the opportunities you feel you missed-out on, and the successes you believe should have been yours, but the failures you had to endure.
If this exercise sounds a little strange, I understand. Yet – I still strongly encourage you to do it – especially if you’re feeling an inner block, some unexplained anger, or just plain old resentment – where life feels like it should be easier or working more in your favor.
By taking the time to honor your life this way – and the pieces that may have been painful – but just as worthy – you are showing yourself how much you care, and how much you’re ready to move on, pay-off the debts, and claim your beautiful future.
When you have finished you can do a number of things. You can look to see if there is a pattern forming and consider how you have handled loss in the past and whether you can adopt a fresh approach now. Alternatively you may choose to write about some of the low times and remind yourself how you survived, how you grew. I prefer to have a ceremony where I release these old woundings to fire for transmutation. Do whatever you're called to do.