Ending at the Beginning

    

     I thought this might be my last blog post on Nightwalker’s Journey,  but  I have changed my mind.  I think instead, that it is the last blog post for this part of my journey.  Something has shifted in my heart and my life.  I have spent the last two to three years meditating, contemplating, learning to listen and allow, and connecting with a spiritual realm that I never thought available to me. These things will never stop, but I am now a beginner at everything in my life, and I am so very excited to be in this new role.  A year ago, not knowing what was next, terrified me to the point of pain and emotional angst.  Now, I know what I must do and how I must work.  I am, as of today, making a commitment to take action and not turn back.  I don’t want to miss the best part of this journey.  Fear can make us do that, you know.  I didn’t go to sleep until 3 AM the other night because my mind started telling stories and saying that all that I am about to do is scary and I am not worthy, and I will end up being alone and without financial security.  Today, I am saying, “I see you FEAR, and I know that if ever I had an enemy, you are it!”

     I’ve known for three years that I have been headed toward a path of service and becoming a healer in some capacity . Not being a religious person,  It did not really make sense, but it is unfolding each and every day.   Now I have so many opportunities in my life that I can and will embrace.  I am very excited to have just been accepted to a two year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification which will start next January.  My friend, Jude, and I have joined the most wonderful Insight Meditation Center in Albuquerque, I am learning about Native American medicine from a Navaho friend, and I am becoming spiritually connected in my own heart and the natural world around me.  I am looking into the other side of where I am needed and I am committing myself to this life in every way. 

Outside my meditation center

A gift from Sheila-Claw-Starr

  
  I am continuing to focus on my drums and art because I know that this is an important part of who I am.  I need my music and art for my own personal healing and I also know that it will become a part of my work of helping and healing.  I will let that unfold naturally, however, and just start practicing and creating for now.

Learning new firing techniques

    I am on the cusp of buying some land in western New Mexico.  It is wild country, but  as my builder said to me when we were walking the land a week ago, “The spirits are calling.”  I knew the minute I went there that I would be heading that way. I am learning that we don’t always need to know why.  I will be moving my camper out there as soon as a road is put in and the water pump is up and working. 

my new land

     In the meantime, I have recently moved into an Albuquerque casita with my friend Jude.  We are each rebuilding our lives individually and together and realizing that the best commitments to being with another person are to love yourself and embrace all of who you are, make a commitment to being the best person you can be to each other, never stop growing, and put your spiritual aspirations above everything else.  Everything else will take care of itself.

Me and Jude hiking and scavenging

     In this culture, we want to know everything,  including the future.  We want to control the outcome of everything.  But really, we only know what we know at this given moment, and we can only take steps for our own lives and not try to control the paths of those around us (yes, even our children!)  Each of us has a beautiful path in front of us that is ours alone.  I am thinking about so many times that I had everyone else’s life figured out for them if only they would ask me my opinion.  And even then, I usually didn’t wait to be asked before I shared my thoughts.  Yet, I didn’t know jack about what my own path really was about.  This time, I don’t want to miss one minute of this path, and I certainly don’t want to jump the gun and do things before it’s time.  All things must happen in their own time.  I was talking about this with my Dad yesterday, and he immediately started quoting Ecclesiastes 3…

     “ For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

      a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

     a time to kill and a time to heal;

      a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

      a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

      a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away;

     a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silent, and a time to speak;

     a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

     What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  He has made everything beautiful in it’s time.  Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to the end.  I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;  also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil-this is God’s gift to man.”

   This is truth, and truth and love are what life is about.  That is the next part of this journey.  We are in some difficult times in our country.  Truth and love are missing completely in our world leaders and their followers. We are truly feeling a void of soul that is palpable. It is time to wake up to what we are really here to do and be.  I am making a commitment to do my part and to lend a helping hand to anyone along the way. We are all interconnected and we are stronger together. 

     I am so grateful to so many people who have held out their hands so that I might learn these things.  They have accepted me, listened to my story, let me cry on their shoulder, and said “keep going, the best is yet to come.”  If I listed everyone who lifted me up, I would certainly leave people out because there have been so many. Some were passing angels who were simply there when I needed them, some are walking parallel with me, and some will be with me until I die.  Yet, they are all in my heart.  I do want to thank a few very special people who have supported me in countless ways.  I could not have done this without them. 

     First, I want to thank my ex-husband, Jamie, for continuing to love me and have a willingness to reinvent our relationship despite the difficulties we endured.  I want to thank my Dad for his unwavering love and support.  I want to thank my children, Chris and Austin, and my brother, Greg, and his wife, Kristina,  for accepting me and loving me for who I am and not judging. I want to thank Ranee for walking through it with me and seeing who I could become when I could not see it myself.  I want to thank Ariane and Juliet for being my friends for decades and never once judging me.  I want to thank Jude for growing with me, loving me, and having patience with me when I have been crazy with fear.  I want to thank Teddy, who is lying next to me as I write and has been my constant companion through it all.  And I want to thank my Mom, who is still in my heart and who guides me to this day. 

     Life is wonderful, let’s not waste a moment.  It is time to Wake Up!