My work has continued to
keep me busy since I last wrote and this week I’ll raise you a house guest, my
hubby overseas and a milestone birthday celebration, so it is no wonder I
haven’t checked in for a while. As wonderful as these distractions have been,
in truth the real reason I have been absent is that I don’t have a great deal
going on that I can share. I’m actually really happy and very content and
without some sort of pain pushing me inward, I’m a little lost for material to
delve into.
Each morning I undertake a ritual
that draws my energy to the present moment so that I can be mindful
of my higher intent throughout the day. It always involves incense, a white
candle, white grandfather sage and one of my many oracles. As I smudged and
centred myself today, I didn’t even have a pressing concern to seek guidance on,
so I simply opened to receive “what I most needed to know”. There was not even
a hint of fear, trepidation, or even anticipation for that matter, just this
open hearted calmness. For a person who has often found herself immersed in spiritual tests
through ‘dark night of the soul’, transcending fear around anything spiritual is all very new to me. I drew
the card ‘Butterfly’ which signals transformation and change. It is completely
appropriate.
Nearly exactly one year ago I
entered a process of dramatic change. Initially I resisted it, looking for a
way out through spirit, grabbing at anything, my oracles, pendulum, healers and
more. I didn’t want to enter the
darkness; I didn’t understand its beauty, its power or its unassailable link to
the light. It was only the runes that were honest with me and
consistently reiterated that I had commenced a cycle of deep and dark initiation
that would take one whole year. I didn’t want to know and resisted what was occurring
until I found myself bound, gagged and completely on my knees.
The early stages of this
initiation were worse than I could ever have imagined and it only relented when I surrendered to the chrysalis form and became one with the dark rest. Such
death/rebirth sounds very romantic through the analogy of the caterpillar
becoming a butterfly, but don’t be fooled, it is a passage of travail. In
reality, the pain and limitation of the cocoon and the transformation that
occurs within it, is dark, unyielding and without even a hint of the beauty
that awaits in rebirth. For me, it was death on every level except physically,
and even then, there were occasions when I would have welcomed even that.
In my experience, that time
in isolation, where I lay in the darkness without foundation or hope opened me
to face and release everything that I could not willingly let go but that no longer served me. Ironically, it was my painful patterns that I clung to -all those situations
that still hurt me, that I couldn’t transcend, the torment and betrayal all
coalesced back to my very own heart where I had to own it. There was no ‘them’ who did ‘this’; there
was only the truth of my soul as creator of my experience. Without all the
outward projection and justification I was left simply in the moment of my life – as it was.
As I embraced it all in feeling, I responded in the moment and let go of what I no
longer wanted to hold in my heart, even though it had to be wrenched away at times.
I had no vision of what I was to become and so no grand beauty to hope for, hence I
had no road map to follow or idea of ‘right’ action. But I had my soul - it is
all each of us needs. I floundered in the dark - my dark - for a year, but I was always seeking the
light -my light. Within that intent my choices became clearer and my past came forward to be healed. I have been free of the
cocoon for a few months or so, but I am only now noticing my wings. I think they are
beautiful.
Everything has changed. With
the release of my old patterns I have also set free those I love from what I thought were their patterns. In seeing my-self so differently, my perception
of how others treat me has also radically altered. Conceptually, I have always
known that we see the world the way we see ourselves. Today though, I am not
merely contemplating that truth, but instead I am living it. It is utterly
liberating.
I am seeing all my relationships with new awareness and their
sweetness is both intoxicating and revealing. I understand life will continue to present
challenges to my newfound peace and contentment. But for the first time, I feel
as though I will be able to see them clearly from the balanced perspective
of soul rather than my old narrow focus of conditioned, wounded ego responses.
It is an interesting time of coming into conscious awareness of our greater
truth and I look forward to what I might be able to learn from it.
More than 30 years ago, I
was told by a spiritual reader that I had opted to get all my lessons over and
done with in the first half of my life. I can’t deny that it has felt that way,
with my journey being characterised by such deep unrelenting initiation and
pain. I do feel as though my life has indeed been divided into before and after
this year long initiation. Surprisingly, I have no attachment to the future,
but instead an all-encompassing passion for the present. I would never have
guessed that I could have transcended that…maybe I really have been reborn.
Namaste
Sally
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