survival shearing

I met up with my mentor before our shearing job. We have a ritual before jobs, we have fallen into a comfortable routine which I enjoy. I am always nervous before shearing because I am not yet confident in my abilities and that is mostly due to not having much practice as well as trying to mirror the pattern so I can work with my dominant hand again.

It’s a whole mess on this particular job, which I have come to expect as we have returned to this farm several times now. I now know the dynamics and characters. Tom(mentor) tells me he's just going to let me shear as many or as few as I like but he's just going to let me find my way and he will be shearing alongside me at his pace. This makes me nervous but I know it’s the only way I can learn and I have had continuous conversations with myself about learning, allowing myself to be bad at the thing so I can one day be good at it.

The perfectionism engrained in my psyche from both my upbringing and almost 20 years of ballet training makes these inner dialogues difficult and tedious. I tell myself it’s ok to make mistakes. Tom has worked tirelessly to make me feel safe and worthy to be there, because it’s clear I need a fuck load of reassurance. It's wild that I can both be the most confident and embodied I have ever been in my life, but also, the most vulnerable, exposed, fearful of judgement and rejection as shearing does.

I want to succeed, I want to represent Tom’s work well. I respect him, the work and the animals so very much that I create a massive amount of tension and pressure on myself and my performance. In short, I psyche myself the fuck out, and am in a constant state of negotiating with my inner mean girl to basically shut up and leave me be.

After some hiccups we are ready to shear and fortunately one of the hired farmhands is good with livestock and very helpful. He gets me a sheep and I get to shearing. I am now using my left hand, which feels so much better and easier. The challenge is, that since I learned right handed I have a hard time reversing the pattern so that the body mechanics work. So after the belly was done, I pretty much was off script and was just trying to get the wool off the sheep which meant improvising, awkward positions and struggle. I kept going.

Tom looked over at me, he had sheared 3 sheep while I was on my first one still. He said “you’re survival shearing” and I said “looks like it” and that phrase has stuck with me ever since. Ever since I started on this shearing journey it has felt as important as oxygen to me. This work has eliminated 20 years of chronic, debilitating lower back pain. When I do a day of shearing I feel my absolute best and the most embodied. I feel connected to earth, magick, source. I feel more alive than ever, now that I have been shearing.

Baaaaaaaad haircuts

So yes. Survival shearing. Learning. Being a student, a beginner. Sucking at it. Feeling shame and embarrassment over the baaaaaad (see what I did there?)haircuts some of these sheep ended up with by my hand. My inner mean girl kept telling me to give up, questioned my reasoning and my commitment nonstop. It’s tiring fighting with this hatin’ ass bitch! I am surviving everything because i’m shearing. Who was I even before? I don’t know her. She was half alive-tamed-domesticated and docile. I am wild, wandering and mystical. I choose to wrangle sheep in literal shit and hay for fun, to relax and decompress from the daily stressors of my life.

It feels like a double life. And finding the intersection of the self that is a homemaker. A homemaker that serves and serves and cares and cares and does everything, remembers everything and of course makes sure every single day every single human in my home gets 3 nutritious meals a day, laundry is done and dammit everyone is bathed and groomed regularly. And then there’s this other self, who is free, covered in lanolin, sweat and sheep shit, who can grab a sheep with confidence now. Who can get the wool off despite it looking like shit.

I love to look at my wounds and bruises. I have a prominent scar on my left hand from shearing school. I love it. And it's a reminder to stay the course. Keep going. Trust trust. I got kicked in the arm by a ram and I also had a ram step on my foot in the barn. I observe the change in color, size and swelling in both. I seize any and every opportunity to talk about my work and love of shearing and I often feel like a freak when I get to talking about it even though it’s all I want to talk about.

I love the smell, the feeling, the challenge, I love the physical exertion and the wave of calm that washes over me after I complete a shear. On this particular day I sheared 2 ½ sheep unassisted. A milestone for me. I feel the most myself when doing this work. This and weaving. The wool and the creatures call to me. I can't explain it but i’m leaning into a trust so deep, I feel it encoded in my DNA. And I don’t care if I sound crazy. Perhaps I am. If this is what crazy feels like I certainly will take it over sanity.

Post shearing glow

Being 41, having had 3 children and entering perimenopause sometimes I ask myself “is this a midlife crisis?” No. No. It is an awakening. It is coming home to myself. It’s survival. I don’t intend to remain in survival shearing mode, but I do intend to stay the course wherever it takes me.

I don’t knew where it will all take me. I have some ideas but I have also learned that Divine Timing happens when we are in aligned action or surrendered receptivity so I am attuning to oscillating between both.

I flipped my notebook to this Terrence McKenna quote I jotted down

I get joy from watching my bruises change and develop. I feel pride in how I can use my body and overcome major physical obstacles that one would never guess I could handle by looking at me. Survival shearing, yes I do need this to survive. I was half living before I met this work and the sheep.

Battle wounds

Now i’m a walking duality living in two worlds. I understand I am meant to break convention. And to create new ways whilst existing within current ways and I find it frustrating sometimes because I am eager for the new. I want to skip the work of what it takes to get to the new way. We all know it doesn't work that way so i’m doing my best not to fight it and to find my way being in two worlds at once.

I fantasize of another life. It’s too tender to share, so precious I will hold it dear and near. And I understand the fantasy can be real but there is work to be done and Saturn doesn’t allow shortcuts. But Jupiter is expansion and gifts and abundance and so I know that despite the polarity there, I am made for that polarity. I work in the light AND the shadows. I thrive in both and I am embracing that now.

I am in deep gratitude to have found a new passion that pairs with my art, it was my art that brought me here. I am glad to be a person that gets to have multiple passions and dreams and to get to live out multiple life paths. Not everyone gets a calling, and I have had more than one and I will stay the course and stay blessed and in reverence to the work and the Universe that brought me this far. Also grateful to be able to be on this discovery path. Not all have that privilege and I won’t squander it.

Survival shearing to thrive. Survival shearing to learn and integrate. Survival shearing to stay the course and not give up, even when it doesn't look pretty and perfect. Even when i’m covered in blood, sweat and sheep shit.