I’m a little late to the party, bur obviously my inner ancestral
time keeper is not. I just realized today that we have reached the summer
solstice of 2020, the “Ring of Fire” solar eclipse and Father’s Day.
I said that about my ancestral timekeeper because I woke up
this morning to a pretty big “aha moment”, and despite not being aware of the solar
events, these moments have continued
bursting through all day. Something is
birthing, or maybe I should say, re-birthing.
I feel new ideas coming down the pipeline, recent revelations are
gelling, and at the same time, this all feels very old, ancient even.
I have felt stuck in
a passage without a key for about a year and a half.
There were several months during which I had
a recurring vision of a door that was unlocked but could not be opened.
I had some glimmers of hope and light through
the keyhole, but right about that time, the corona virus appeared.
I would imagine that the whole world has felt
this way to some extent during this time; closed doors, health and financial
uncertainty, fear of how things are being handled, etc…
At the same time, we have had to sit with
ourselves, peer into our fears, and contemplate our illusions of
certainty.
We have had to decide to
stand up for what is humanitarian (or not), we have been forced to say, “NO
MORE”, and we have had to slow way down in every way.
 |
| Two Shamans Drumming for Health |
 |
| Social Distance Hiking |
 |
| Not So Social Distance Hiking With Jude |
 |
| Queer Pandemic Cowboy (Ben Allen) |
This idea of fear has been a constant subject in my Nightwalker’s
Journey posts. I have been
trying to conquer fear for about 5 years now, but I had an eye opening
conversation with my Dad today who helped me a great deal with some things. He
said that we never conquer fear. Fear
will always be with us because we are human.
If, however, we can recognize fear, allow it and look it in the face, we
can learn to embrace it with compassion and tenderness as we would a small,
vulnerable child. If we can just love
that fearful side of us enough, we can walk as a companion, side by side,
through the passages of life with key in hand.
We only need a little bit more love than fear in order to set the static
state of anxiety into loving action.
I am seeing my patterns more clearly these last few weeks, and I
see that when I am able to comfort my
fears and love myself in spite of them, I find meaning in the day to day doings
of life. When I don’t do this, I find myself
running away from anything and everything in hopes of “finding” myself. In understanding this, I find huge
relief. It is this kind of living that I
want to commit to; recognize that waking up to the larger cosmos of life
means I have to love myself through my fear.
I have no illusion that this is easy, nor is it immediate. But it is absolutely imperative if I want to
live a fulfilling and rich life each and every day. In doing this work, we help to light up those
around us, and we bring energy to the room.
Through our passions and our love, we can create a little magic that can
not only transform our lives, but inspire those around us to transform their
unlived lives into days filled with meaning,
creativity, and joy. This doesn’t mean that
we will be happy all the time. It simply
means we peer into the looking glass of our hearts and minds to see each moment
of the day as an opportunity to experience the ceremony of life. We can break through our mindless schedules
and see both routine activities and serendipitous happenings as little miracles
one by one. We start living the way our
souls need to live, not how everyone around us needs us to live.
I recently heard a podcast with Tami Simon (founder of
Sounds True) and James Hollis (author and Jungian psychologist). Hollis said, “Home IS the journey”. It is in the passages where we feel tight and
uncomfortable and we must search for the key so we can continue on our way. And if we do it right, we will keep on with
this journey until we can journey no more.
I want to move into making life a daily ceremony of
creative living and sacred being. I have
a long way to go, but I am not starting from the beginning. I turn fifty-eight next week, and I have been
working on this for as long as I have been alive. I just sometimes couldn’t find the key to
open the next door, but now I see this as a mystery, a curiosity, and as a
sacred puzzle. Being stuck means it is
time to grow. This discomfort motivates
us to love ourselves enough to go into action.
This also has been a theme in my blog posts, and it is usually then that
I feel compelled to write.
I have written many times about how I feel that my passions
will help me to one day serve others.
Today that vision became a bit clearer, and with that, I feel excitement,
and therefore, more meaning. On days
that I choose fear over love, meaning gets buried deep within me. Nothing seems clear and nothing seems
meaningful. When I follow love instead
of fear, my spirit and passions are allowed to blossom, and when these are
gifted energy, even the simplest routines of my day can be sacred.
I am not naïve here folks.
This is some of the hardest work we can do.
But I want life to be a ceremony, and I feel
in my core that it can be.
I don’t know how long we will be under the
thumb of this virus or the thumb of political unrest.
but even when that ends, it will be something
else.
There is always something else
whether it be personal or in the larger community.
There is a way that I, you, and us can look
deep into this mysterious life and pull from it the most gorgeous bouquet of magic.
That is now my journey.
 |
| Tree Spirit Mask (Chez Moi) |
 |
| Tree Spirit Mask (Chez Jude) |
 |
| Full Moon Rising |
 |
| Tree Spirit |
This truly is my last blog post on Nightwalker’s Journey. I will be starting a new blog for this next
phase called One Sacred Star. It has
not been created yet, but I will be creating it this summer. I feel very confident that the “aha moments” I’ve had today, during
this auspicious weekend, will be taking me on some wonderful new paths. I know many of you are on similar paths, so
we will crisscross at times, and we will walk arm in arm at times.
So now, I turn the key
and open the door
to peer into the ceremony of living.
