Adopted Family • Five Degrees of Joy Mirroring (Soul-knowing)

It was so hot in Souther Spain you could fry an egg on my crown chakra. So I spent that summer in South Africa. My host’s mom checked me in and at the kitchen bar, we just got on, chattin’ our life stories away. “My daughter, she’ll looove you! You two will get on grand.” Mama Bear proclaimed.

She was right. Kindness, courage, exploration, growth, we were kindred spirits driven by the same type of life force. The Kirkland family poured, and poured, and poured, and poured generosity and embrace and warmth onto me. The insta-wolf packed me in. [blue] I had always belonged to them, to their family. And I always would, they deemed it so.

Beats me why… I’m just a wad of crumpled paper nobody.

They even invited me to stay at their family farm. Unlike the roof I fled from, this was an actual home, filled with love, piano keys, laughter, babies, nourishing food, helpers, song, spaciousness, resources, safety and togetherness. No legal adoption papers could beat this open hearted invitation. 

Every morning, when I emerged from my room, Mama Bear was there. I don’t know how she did it. Bat ears? But she was always right there, arms open for bear hugs. Her eyes gleamed with a chime whenever I approached her. She always pulled me in tight, "There's my sunshine!"

My head always tilted with a brow furrow, “Methinks this lady is whack.” She clearly doesn’t know about my Everest of shame and grief autopsy that I am.

Those were the sweetest days of my life. Sister Bear and I would go for drives, watch sunsets, indulge at cafes, pour our hearts out, and stop anywhere that had anything shiny. With sunshades and one arm out the car window, she looked at me with the same eye twinkle as her mama, “You feel like… I don’t know… golden.”

I’d looked over my shoulder and behind me, “Me? You talkin' to me?” Hmm, maybe Sister Bear is whack too. Maybe it’s a genetic X chromosome thing?

A few days later, Brother Bear drove in from the city. At the dinner table, he looked at me with bright eyes and asked, “Are you this happy, all the time?” Mmm, maybe it’s also a Y chromosome thing? Brother Bear seems whack too. Can he not hear the dog pound of Wounded Child Archetypes that I am.

The following week, everyone was busy so they handed me to Sis-in-law Bear. But I’m just garbage, you can toss me by the side of the rode. What’s with this precious cargo handover? We drove around, laughing, running errands, having heart-to-hearts, eating. One night as we helped clear the table, I overheard her say to Mama Bear, “I see what you mean. She’s so…” while gesturing sparkling fireworks.

The week after, Sis-in-law Bear sooooo generously invited me to join her old pals from uni for merriment, memory lane, laughter and taste bud treats. It felt like as if I had gone to uni with them too!

When we hopped into our respective taxis to head home, one of them squeezed me so tight. “You were right!” she chin glanced at Sis-in-law Bear and gangster rapper pointed at me, “I LOOOVE HER!!” She mimicked sunflower petals and hoped in the car.

Was the entire town whack? What’s in the drinking water?

Next morning, Mama Bear greeted me with beaming squinty eyes, "You. You are a...” I could tell she wanted to pinch my cheeks, but held back given I was near 40. “Bringer. Of. Joy.” she concluded.

Ostrich sized goosebumps raced up the myeline of my dorsal vagal nerve. I un-suction cupped from Mama Bear’s hug and ran to my room. Fountain cry, “I… am whack. I am the whacked one.” This is what Joni said Rumi meant by “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” <mic drop> [link: Fundamentals planted the seeds]

Me? Joy? Me = joy? I… am joy? Never have I ever…

And that’s how the veil lifted off the devastation of invisibility. I didn’t know I was invisible. You can’t plug the jugular if you don’t know it was slit.

I was tattered seagull poo feather. But Mama Bear saw me as a magical plume. She picked me up with a child’s delight, and pinned me to her favorite hat. She took me everywhere as her treasured find, no matter how I hung. In her eyes, I was the most special. One of a kind. Cherished. Forever. I had no idea such a feeling even existed, no less be the recipient. This is what Maya Angelou meant by “people remember how you made them feel.” How searing that I could never, past, present or future, say the same for my biological mother.

What’s harder? To never have felt familial belonging? Or to feel it once plus drown in the sour spilled milk of 4 decades of non-belonging?

Never once did I feel embraced by FoO. Of course not.

The Difference Between Happiness and Joy

I wanted to start with The 4 Types of Knowing for joy, because we are midway through a global pandemic that has set us back, grounded us, and/or prevented us from moving forward. We all need hope, laughter and reminders to tune into joy, even if like me you never even heard of such a thing called "joy".

Having reclaimed a full set of The 4 Types of Knowing for joy, I now know-know-know-know joy, am joy, do joy, and have joy. Who knew!?!

I also discerned the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is outside in and comes from doing or having something / someone. So if the object of our happiness is taken away, our happiness plummets. Joy is inside out and comes from our being, who we are. It can't be taken away, it was always there to begin with.

I've lost and/or was denied every freedom listed in The 10 Types of Freedom. Yet, I have a feeling that the most joyful people on planet Earth are the ones who have known the deepest suffering. They somehow alchemized that suffering into service, meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and joy.

Live fierce and free,