My housemates and I watched Bohemian Rhapsody the other night. It’s a beautiful film, portraying the rock band Queen. It culminates in their participation in the Live Aid concert in 1985, and I sobbed through a good chunk of the final scene.

I was crying for all the young gay men who courageously came out and got struck down so virulently by the AIDS virus. I was crying for an era that seems long gone, when global events of this magnitude took place to end carnages like world hunger. And I was crying for my 30-year-old who lost her mother that same month, and the fact that I had pretty much missed Live Aid itself due to a dullness that had settled over me during a period of trying to be ‘the perfect’ stepmother to two amazing little humans.

This emotional maelstrom shook loose some stuck stuff and I was reminded of my declaration that 2019 be my ‘Year of the Child’. I’ve left so many ‘young Amys’ behind; parked her longings so deeply away that I’m lucky if I get even a whiff of what brought joy and aliveness to her world.

Some months ago I attended a Being Held gathering with my friend Paul, hosted by friends Tricia and Michael. They live outside Duncan on a beautiful acreage they call Sankta Amo, with a yurt that I fell in love with instantly. Structures like these remind me of grown up blanket houses, my favourite thing to create as a child, and this one was extra special with a wood burning stove –my second all time favourite thing.

The day was gentle yet quite profound. We stayed on for a visit afterwards and sat around the fire outside. I felt something in me begin to relax, as if every cell was drinking in sustenance available only from this time and place. The 16-year-old I was when I left home had returned to the Island she knew. That part of me wanted to move ‘home’ as quick as she possibly could. I went so far as to speak the desire to the little cohort that remained, but even as the words were leaving my mouth I mourned the likely resurgence of ‘reality’ that the light of dawn would bring.

I came across this beautiful piece on the Sounds True blog called The Mystery of Holding by Matt Licata. He speaks to the importance of holding and the many forms it takes. The more I explore the need for holding environments the more I see them as absolutely essential. If we can’t relax enough to catch our own breath, to be in touch with our own essential nature, then we are at risk of leaving this planet having never really arrived.

I’ve come to reluctantly acknowledge that this is not work we can do alone. There is a lot we need to do alone, but we can’t do it in a vacuum of loneliness.

In my heart of hearts I’m back on Vancouver Island, living in community that supports each of us to gather the disenfranchised parts of ourselves back home again, to do what we’re good at, and to be provided for in return. A holding environment that we can live and die in…

Can you imagine what holding environments might support your own unique unfoldment? Let me know, I’d love to hear!