When I was a senior in high school, I put on a bonnet and heavy black Victorian gown and took the stage as Ebenezer Scrooge.
It was 1996. Our school auditorium was under construction, so the drama club took over the empty Woolworth’s store, assembled a stage, and put on a show. Looking back, it was all a little ragtag (in later productions at the new theater our wizard of a director had the ghosts of A Christmas Carol flying through the air!), but I don’t think it occurred to us to feel deprived. Instead, we were caught up in the wildness of putting on two shows a night for most of December and the privilege of taking up residence at the Cape Cod Mall.
It was certainly a wild time for me. I remember vividly when my mother tracked me down near the food court between performances, waving a big thick envelope and unable to contain her jubilation: I’d gotten into Boston College on early decision. At points, it was hard to be in the moment and embody one of Christmas’s most iconic characters when I was so busy imagining myself walking across my dream campus on an autumn afternoon.
And then, on closing night, a former drama club guy, now a sophomore in college, came to the show. We were dating by mid-January and I spent the next couple of years losing myself in crazy love.
Here we are in the present.
I’m telling you a story from my past and inviting you to wonder with me about a collection of moments that created the future.
At Boston College, I’d pursue my dreams of Irish literature, spend my junior year in Galway, and eventually win a BC fellowship that would enable me to get my MA at University College Dublin. Though I would set aside those passions and allow them to become a mere hobby for the first act of adulthood, you might say that writing and publishing The Sovereignty Knot was the beginning of my second act. Now, I am reviving and deepening those dreams with the KnotWork Podcast and planning my future accordingly.
As for the love story, I wouldn’t end up marrying that first real boyfriend (though that was the plan for a while), but I still hope my girls have “a practice relationship” with someone who shares their interests and passions the way I did. I lost a great degree of my wild princess sovereignty for the sake of romance, but then, sovereignty is something that you have, and lose, and find again, at least a dozen times over in life. I don’t think I could change a line of that story and be who I am now.
Every personal story has these elements of past-present-future time magic
The personal history stories we tell are crafted based on the preoccupations and passions of the present. And, when those stories make it out of the daydream or the journal and into conversation or onto the public page, there’s a chance to shape the future in a new way.
As you read these words, learning a little about me and my origin story, it may shift the way we relate to one another next time we meet, online or in person.
Even more importantly, it may shift the way you relate to the stories of your own past. Maybe you’ll retrieve a memory of your almost-an-adult self. Maybe you have a Christmas play memory of your own. Maybe you’re having a flashback to your teenage days at the mall!
What we learn about story, healing, and the way we weave time from Scrooge’s Christmas Eve journey
Enough about me. This is actually a story about your story and about one of literature’s most beloved curmudgeons. (Damn, was it liberating to be seventeen and to have permission to look and sound as unbeautiful as possible!)
With this past-present-future “this is your life” morality story, Dickens invites us to explore our own lives through that fogged glass of the holidays. The nostalgia, the grief, the denial, the fear, the joy, and the regeneration. Throughout our lives, and throughout every December, these emotions permeate the air, looping back to the past, entwining through the present, and swirling on into the future.
Peering, Gently, Into the Past
You know the basic plot of A Christmas Carol, right? The old miser Scrooge is visited by the ghost of their business partner, Jacob Marley, and is told to expect visits from three spirits over the course of Christmas Eve.
(We used the feminine pronouns on “girl nights” and the masculine on “boy nights” as the two casts of our high school play were basically divided according to gender. I love that the use of neutral pronouns and our evolving understanding of gender makes this casting choice make even more sense than it did in the 90s. And seeing as years of theater history have shown us that Ebenezer is not defined by masculinity, I am adopting “they/them” throughout this piece to refer to the character.)
Though we didn’t all work for “Old Fezziwig, bless his heart,” we can all look back to past holidays (and any moment from adolescence) and either get caught up in the good old days or utterly overcome with regret for past mistakes and sorrow over past hurts. Either option can make looking back feel fraught, as we tend to be wracked with longing for what we believe was lost or we spiral into blame or self-recrimination.
When you go back to past events because you want to share the story with others, you must look at the glittering and the shadowed, the perceived perfection and the sources of trauma. This honest look at the past is a vital part of Story Healing, and it’s what I help folks do in my Healing for Heroines sessions.
Ultimately, we review our own history not just to replay the old tapes, but to make sense of those old stories in order to create meaning moving forward. We seek out what’s true then and look for how that truth can help construct a grounded, empowered present and future.
Acknowledging the Present
Next, of course, Ebenezer meets the Ghost of Christmas Present and watches the tiny feast at the Cratchit house. Seeing the world as it is, Ebenezer has a chance to reckon with both the delusions and the hypocrisy that lurk within.
Few of us are as misanthropic as Scrooge, but we all feel the burn when Ebenezer, shocked to learn Tiny Tim will not live another year, must endure the pain of their own past words, “If he is likely to die, then let him die, and decrease the surplus population!”
We know how it hurts to have our own limited, ignorant opinions reflected back to us. It’s what keeps us from looking unflinchingly into the past. To live and tell a story of transformation, we need to be honest about the darkness of what was so the light of what is can shine bright and true.
When we can anchor into what is really happening around us, refusing to let the narratives be warped by our own fears, or twisted by conspiracy theories and what Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls “the overculture,” then we can move beyond delusion and hypocrisy into awakening and recognition.
Peering Into the Future
For Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was the most terrifying because there was nowhere to go but down after a life so limited and devoid of compassion.
Telling a cautionary tale, Mr. Dickens surely assumed his readers would be called to pause and evaluate their own lack of charity and compassion. Repentance counted for something then. Surely self-examination and a dedication to constructive change haven’t totally gone out of style in the 21st century.
Even for Ebenezer, who gets to look beyond the veil of time, the future is all unknown and unwritten. All we can really do is set the groundwork for growth and connection by looking to the past with clear eyes and dedicating ourselves to seeing and speaking to the present with a radical dose of fierce, loving clarity.
Weaving Time, Healing Stories
Clinging to what you wish were true or what you think ought to be true and then trying to force that story into the world simply doesn’t work. Not if you’re really interested in bringing more beauty, healing, and truth into your own life and into the collective. You risk feeling and sounding as cruel and hollow as Scrooge—woefully, willfully ignorant of the reality of suffering (and the simple joy) that permeates the everyday.
And so, you’re invited to compassionately begin to weave time, calling on the strength and wisdom that are available to us from our past, present, and future selves.
When we seek out a story, when we sit with a story, and when, perhaps we tell and share a story…
We stand consciously in the present to reach back to the past.
We weave together what was with what is.
If we share this story on the page, we touch someone in an unknown future moment.
We knot time together (not in a tangle, but in a sacred pattern).
We weave our stories. We strengthen ourselves, build relationships, and create a legacy.
We weave time and heal our stories to do our part to make this world more beautiful, more honest, more whole.
Want to Put this Past-Present-Future Work into Action?
Join me for the half-day end of year retreat I'm offering on December 29, A Sovereign Way. We’ll anchor ourselves in the present, look back on the year that was, and use these insights to imagine a new year full of presence, beauty, and healing.
Hear, Heal, and Craft the Stories that Connect Us
In the KnotWork Podcast, we’ll share stories from ancient mythology and folklore, particularly from the Celtic world, and explore why they still have resonance for us today. The show debuts on 2.2.22, but you can get a preview of what’s to come.
Are you feeling the tug of your own past stories? A Healing for Heroines session can help you access your past experiences and give you a fresh perspective. Whether you want to craft a story or are on the path of self-discovery, when you see yourself as heroine of your own story, you can transform the next chapter of life.
Excited to begin writing your own stories? The Sovereign Writers’ Knot will welcome new writers for our next 13-week session on March 2, 2022! Registration will open soon, but you can get learn more and get on the interest list so you’re the first to know when applications are open.