A modern and Celtic coming of age
I’m feeling disappointed in my dreaming habits lately. I just got back six days ago from a 3-week trip to my hometown of Debrecen. I have never experienced my hometown with such flourishings of the soul as this trip.
Being back “home” in Central Texas is strange. I was born in Debrecen, my family moved when I was two, I’ve been back for a week at a time in 5th grade and sixth grade and one solo day trip back in late 2019. I went to Ireland in early 2019 too…their landscape took me in and swaddled me up in this dense earth that made me stay me. Later in 2019, when I was in Debrecen, I challenged Debrecen to make me feel the same way Ireland had. After all, I am Hungarian. But fate doesn’t work like that. And it fell flat.
Before my trip in July 2023, that landscape that had swaddled me up to keep me safe started to crackle and fall off. The skin underneath it was ready to change and come off too. Three levels of skin at this point: one outward protection, one inward protection and the true one beneath it all.
In April 2023, the shifting started to happen. I was in a relationship with this boy I had rose-colored glasses with, and we daydreamed about the life we would have in the not-so-distant future. I actually changed a lot of things from what I’ve always wanted to how it would fit into his world, my sister’s surprise to this was my first warning sign that got through.
The end of that relationship was so uncomfortable. The second layer of protection was peeling up from the new layer of skin but it also wasn’t peeling away quickly enough. I literally felt the old skin around my neck, around my back, around my right trap lift off to show fresh, sensitive, new skin underneath.
We had fights, I told him exactly about the skin thing, I tried to make it as painless as possible for him. Fell on deaf ears. So he was with me until I knew I had to call it off for real and face the real alone. Strangest breakup I have had so far. I said, “I don’t want to lose you / I want to lose this skin / and that’s why we can’t be together.”
He supported me as a loving boyfriend, but not one who knew the deep pains and growth of shadow work, of facing what’s underneath, of letting to transform.
I couldn’t act the way I was before—it doesn’t fit, that’s not me. And the new me wasn’t there yet either—it wasn’t set, still growing.
Until the second to last flight back from that trip did the gears of the inner-core-soul lock into place. And the first trial of initiation occurred once I landed, when I had to move on without the luggage of the past. ❤ such soft-hearted metaphors the universe plays on us
So how did I act with the breakup of my boyfriend? Or the changing of my mind of letting go of the life I thought I wanted?
It was a complete vice versa.
There’s Celtic explanations for changes like these; it’s the way of the female’s pilgrimage (If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie).
So, when it came to July 14, 2023, I embarked on my pilgrimage that fully locked my inside core into place so my skin could feel safe.
I found trees in Debrecen that stretched up almost as high as my heart could go. I found strong trunks jutting into the ground with mossy exteriors and power. I felt the atmosphere sync with the frequency of me—I found friends in the hearts of giants.
It is here where my soul would conversate so easily and incredibly freely that I long to find those feelings of peace, safety and virtue in Texas.
The land runes I felt pulled forward by in Ireland, I found out, are in Hungary!! Thinking to myself I went, “I don’t have to live in Ireland, I can live in Debrecen!! I can live where I all started, where my ancestors, who I know now, live.” An amazing ‘yes’ from the soul.
Who I am now is what I have been waiting for, for months.
Poem
Now with the new skin on
I have to find how it will fit in the world I have here
which is tricky. . . I like the social world I am in, it’s comfortable, people like me, they know how to talk to me, and I don’t freak them out.
Change how I’m expecting to change and I fear isolation, relationships changing. But like good people told me in Hungary, it’s not your core beliefs that are different, it’s your opinions. And if they are good enough friends, they will see you for that and be willing to let us be different ❤
