I Am Afraid to Own a Body

I am afraid to own a Body –

I am afraid to own a Soul –

Profound– precarious Property –

Possession, not optional –

~ Emily Dickinson

Each episode of the Apple TV show, “Dickinson,” decodes a poem by the famous poet, in an irreverent blend of history and fantasy that actually gets a lot of history correct.

This episode touches me the most of any I’ve seen, for it hauntingly portrays the lack of choices women had until pretty late in the last century. In the U.S., women couldn’t possess credit cards in their own name without a man co-signing until 1974.

Yes, you read that correctly. 1974. Almost 10 years after I was born.

So, it’s not a stretch that I can feel the frustration, angst, and subtle hopelessness in my sister Emily Dickinson in 1848, as she realizes exactly what she’s up against in trying to live the life she believes she is meant to live — a sovereign one.

Nor, is it a stretch when I tell my client that her anxious attachment style is sourced in historical and genetic truth, for women WERE literally the property of men. Or when I tell my other client that his wound of being smothered by his mother is also sourced in the way we have treated women, including blaming mothers for perpetuating the very wounds that were perpetrated on them.

In this episode, a boy comes to ask for Emily’s hand in marriage. Previously her friend and partner in rebellion, he is implanted with a responsibility to protect her and take care of her, in his attempt to win her father’s approval. And even though there was truth in that responsibility for men at that time, Emily is devastated, as am I, to see that responsibility contorted into control. To see her soul wither by the betrayal of her dear friend. To see the innocence in both of them destroyed.

The cycle perpetuated.

We aren’t responsible for the wounding we’ve received. That doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible for healing it.

The cycle has to stop somewhere.

We can both feel the tragic circumstances, rail against them, as Emily tries to do, and take responsibility for releasing what came before, what was implanted within us without our consent in earlier times. As much as we can in the times we are born into, we can expand our capacity to live the lives we are meant to live, as agents of evolution for consciousness.

The times we live in dictate the specific limitations we face, it’s true. And we can still choose to be at the leading edge of consciousness, if we want to. To push the boundaries of fairness, justice, and freedom, like Emily. That’s why we can look back at things that made perfect sense in earlier times and despise them now. It’s also why trying to find the answers in the past won’t work. We can look to the past to heal it, and even learn from it. But the present moment, unobstructed by our wounds, is the only place our answers truly lie.