Begin Being
Dear Starlight,
This past week I’ve been sitting with the word: trying.
I’m trying to write. I’m trying to be an artist. I’m trying to feel happy.
Noticing the gap that word creates. The space between I and the thing desired. What happens when you remove it entirely?
I’m writing. I’m an artist. I’m feeling happy.
“Trying” inserts a judgment — an invisible obstacle, a hedge. And the question worth asking is: is the obstacle real, or is the word itself constructing a difference between where we actually already are and where we think we are?
This led me to a different word: begin.
We sometimes use “try” as a substitute for “begin” — try art instead of begin art — but these are not the same gesture. Try is a sample. Begin is a start. One is passive. One moves.
Begin is ancient Germanic, rooted in the word ginnan — to open, to open up to. Over time it grew to mean: take a first step. Leap. Jump. If you read Tarot, you already know this energy. The Fool stands at the edge of the cliff, eyes lifted to the sky rather than the drop below, holding hope like a little flower in his hand. That’s begin in a body.
Then words did their funny little two step dance before my eyes.
Look at these two words side by side:
BEGIN. BEING.
Same letters. Different order.
I wondered: Is there a shared root or meaning between these words?
Nope.
Being has its own remarkable roots. It comes from the Proto-Indo-European bheu — a word used to describe the growth of small new plants. To grow. To become. To exist.
Begin and being don’t share etymology. But they share something else: their letters, which are themselves symbols.
Each letter in our alphabet is an illustration, a compressed image, a symbol, carrying meaning that predates the sounds we’ve assigned to them. Think of each letter like a gene, and a word like a strand of DNA. Put the genes together and you get a story.
Here’s what BEGIN and BEING are made of:
B — A house E — A person with arms raised, shouting hey! G — A foot, walking somewhere I — The hand of God; divine power N — A cobra; eternal flow, protection, renewal
So read together: A house. Someone shouting hey. A foot walking. The hand of God. Dine protection and renewal.
That’s not a word. That’s an origin story. A home you leave, a self that announces itself, a step taken, power behind you, the eternal current beneath your feet.
And there’s more, (I couldn’t stop my word wonder):
In Latin, to be is esse. Its past tense is wes (was) — which originally meant to live, to dwell, to remain in place.
(Insert: dramatic pensive pause)
So: To be stuck is to be grammatically past tense. To be fully alive is to be in motion, in becoming, always beginning again.
This cuts against everything we’ve been taught about security. Stay in one place. Stay one profession. Stay one identity. Staying, we’re told, is how you become solid, respectable, and known.
But our oldest words remember something different.
They remember that to be is to grow, like a small plant, arms stretching up toward light. They remember that being and beginning are made of the same matter.
A gentle invitation for us is:
Remove try from the space between ourselves and our desires.
Don’t try to write. Don’t try to be an artist. Don’t try to feel joy.
Begin. Be.
Right now we are moving out from a house, sharing our voice and waving our hand, taking a step, protected by the hand of god as we move ahead.
This is what both being and beginning are. This is the most foundational story of transformation. The story of life.
In four days, on April 1s (April fools day!) we have a full moon in Libra, the sign of balance, asking us where we are ready to stop trying and instead begin.
Last week I mentioned a lesson I was creating in self-identification rooted in the practices of dendrology and phenology — this week I’m sharing it with all paid subscribers, along with a tarot pull to support the King of Cups medicine of emotional stability amidst change and turbulence. I said I would send mid-week but the timing feels right with this week’s full moon in Libra being an invitation for balance, emergence, and renewal — a perfect moment for both the pull and beginning a new practice of seeing yourself more clearly.
I’ve been walking in the woods, moved by the bare trees which inspired the study guide I am sharing. And as I walked this week, something else arrived: the desire to move through the woods together observing the trees and learning to look for what we might need to observe about our own posture.
Writing the study guide I realized there is so much more to share and examine together. Such as considering the shapes of trauma informed bodies. Ida Rolphe, the founder of Rolphing said: First comes emotion, then gesture, then posture, then structured foundation.
We can bring our consciousness to our structure so we can begin to learn why we have the forms we have, and possibly begin learning new postural patterns informed by how we want to grow. Unlike many traditional PTSD somatic practices that aim for removal of the “stuck” pain of the past, we could consider that trees don’t put their energy into healing wounds this way–they seal the wound, change their shape informed by the wound, and lift their arms up to the sky. They move their energy into what grows new.
We can also consider that many of us live in bodies that are formed by complex PTSD, which means living in continuous infliction of trauma because of operating systems of constant oppression–this means we have to learn to both grow good while being under threat…gosh…
Inspired by the opportunity to be together; learning to recognize our forms with the trees, I’m hosting a one-day in-person Creativity & Courage retreat here in the Hudson Valley — when we can be outside, observe new growth, and see ourselves forming new beginnings too.
Please mark your calendar’s now, for Friday May 1st (May Day + Flower Full Moon + half-way mark of Spring to Summer) This is a pre-invitation with more information following in next weeks newsletter.
Now, this upcoming full moon, Wednesday April 1st, is April fools day, what are you ready to begin?
Remember: the Fool doesn’t try to jump. He jumps. He opens himself to the sky with a flower in hand!
With love,
