The Migrant Within
A migrant is usually defined as a person who moves from their home to a completely different location in order to find better living conditions.
Migrants who leave their homes because of danger or persecution are called refugees. The most famous refugee is probably Jesus whose family fled from Bethlehem to Egypt to escape King Herod’s order to kill the city’s baby boys.
The term migrant can also be applied to animals. My husband is a birder and he tells me he won’t be around much for the next month because the spring migration of birds is about to begin. Apparently the birds are looking for better feeding and breeding grounds to raise their new offspring.
Almost a year ago, Dissociative Writers migrated from one community platform to the one we’re using now, Heartbeat, looking for a better and more stable place to gather.
Even plants migrate when their seeds take root in new places that offer better soil and climate than the environment that birthed them.
All around the globe, living things are moving to new and better situations where they can thrive.
I have often felt like a migrant myself, both externally and internally. I’ve moved all around the southeast portion of the state of Pennsylvania, then to Connecticut, then to the Adirondacks in upstate New York, and most recently to the high desert in New Mexico. Each time, I thought I was moving to a location that would offer me a better living situation through a better job, a nicer home, proximity to family, retirement, and more.
One of the things I’ve learned about moving is that you take your inner life with you wherever you go. You can’t escape your “issues” and leave them behind. They travel well, even if you wish they didn’t. It doesn’t mean you can’t resolve your hardest challenge or heal your deepest pain. It just means you have to do it internally, not externally, you have to unlodge the thorns and move them around, you have to free your parts to find your true story, you have to walk through the pain to find your new path.
You have to become a migrant who moves away from chaos and confusion in order to find better emotional and relational living conditions. Regardless of geography, the inner journey takes you to a new location where you can be all you were meant to be. At least, this is true to my experience.
Last week, I attended a march and vigil on the southern border of the US that supported and upheld the migrants in our world. It touched me deeply and maybe that’s because I’m a migrant too. I sought a better life and, at the age of 77, I’m living it. It wasn’t an easy journey; it was as hard as hard can be. I walked into dangerous places, broke down barriers, and let my inner selves move as they needed. Yet I crossed the border and became who I was meant to be. I’m grateful for the journey and the destination which, for me, is a happy healthy life.
🕊️
Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.
~ Matthew 2: 16
Lyn