Posts Tagged ‘spirituality’

cells

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” -Albert Camus

 

Why am I always asking the question “Why?”

 

I have done that since I was very young, apparently.  The impression that I received from my mother is that I was constantly asking the question “Why?”, but that if the tables were turned and I was asked a question, that my response was frequently, “I don’t know.”  In my 44 years of searching for the meaning of life and why I am here, I have come to realize that the latter is the most truthful thing I can sometimes say.

 

Having it all figured out is an illusion, that much seems clear.  We can play with spiritual concepts and try them on, and sometimes they make sense to our fragile egoic minds.  Certainly there are a myriad of religions and traditions out there to choose from that claim to have the corner on reality.  But sometimes those spiritual concepts don’t seem to hold up, or they seem to be so harsh when considering what humans can do to each other.  Living through the experience of being powerless to someone else’s violence is something that will test every bit of faith and spirituality you have.

 

I came across the above quote this morning while considering the plight of people who are victimized by violence.  The desire of my contemplation was to find meaning in why these things happen.  I can consider that we choose to be in a certain place at a certain time, and that by some interesting combination of choices a man can rape a woman, and forever alter both their lives.   But going down that path seems to be akin to going down the rabbit hole….there is madness at the center of the illusion that we can know why things happen all of the time.  Perhaps the search for meaning comes out of our desire to control what cannot be controlled.

 

Life is a great mystery….it’s way bigger than can be conceived of by the human mind; I think it’s safe to assert that.  Yet we continue to search for the answers to our existence in a relentless pursuit of some shred of knowing.  When we find an answer, any answer that makes sense in the moment, it makes us feel better for a little while, more in control.  But what does it cost us to be in this constant chase?  If we are always asking questions, does that mean we are not BEING in our life?  Is the meaning of life just to live it?  And does looking for the meaning of life prevent us from doing that?

Quoted directly with permission from http://tothevillagesquare.org/blog

In the book, Abraham by Bruce Feiler, he tells the story of an American who after winning fourteen thousand dollars on Wheel of Fortune, decided to come to Israel for a year. Fifteen years later he hadn’t left. He tells a story to answer why:

“Two brothers live on either side of a hill. One is wealthy and has no family; the other has a large family but limited wealth. The rich brother decides one night that he is blessed with goods and, taking a sack of grain from his silo, carries it to the silo of his brother. The other brother decides that he is blessed with many children, and since his brother should at least have wealth, he takes a sack of grain from his silo and carries it to that of his brother. Each night they go through this process, and every morning each brother is astounded that he has the same amount of grain as the day before. Finally one night they meet at the top of the hill and realize what’s been happening. They embrace and kiss each other.

And at that moment a heavenly voice declares, “This is the place where I can build my house on earth.”

“That story is shared by all three religions,” David said. “And our tradition says that this is that hill, long before the Temple, long before Abraham. And the point of the story is that this degree of brotherly love is necessary before God can be manifest in the world.”

…This is not only the Spot where it is possible to connect with God, it’s the spot where you can connect with God only if you understand what it means to connect with one another.

“The relationship between a person and another human being is what creates and allows for a relationship with God. If you’re not capable of living with each other and getting along with each other, than you’re not capable of having a relationhip with God.” He gestured up at the Wall, the Dome, the churches.

Then he turned back to me. “So the question is not whether God can bring peace into the world. The question is: Can we?”

 

 

For someone who is known for her “spiritual” work, I sure have spent a lot of time preaching to folks about embracing their humanity.  “Divine Human” is a phrase I have used many times over the years that I have been privileged to assist others in experiencing their personal divinity.  But it has been a long process for me of embracing my own humanity.

 

When I was very, very little, I got the message early that the world was not a safe place, but instead one of pain and confusion.  What is normally natural wonderment with the marvel of the physical world in most children became wondering what the hell I was doing here.  I remember looking up at the sky and asking “why me?”… Fully expecting an answer, and hoping to be called back up to the safety of my angelic family.  I did try to leave several times over my life, but apparently I am supposed to stick around.  Due to what I was experiencing in my life, it was not an option to stay psychically open and at ease.  Out of necessity, I left my body.

 

When I started recovery work at age 23, cognitive and group therapies as well as some body work were the next logical choices.  In 2 years of therapy twice per week, I learned the names for what was done to me and that the problem was with them, not me…which was a huge awakening because I had always been held responsible for the dysfunction of my family.  I look back now on those years as coming to a mental understanding, which was a good place to start for someone who could not access her body or emotions or spirit any more. 

 

The body work I did was with a gentle soul of a massage therapist, Judy, who saw my fragility and brokenness, and treated me with such care.  Her work was one of coaxing me back into my body, a little bit at a time, with soft and nourishing caresses rather than deep tissue work.  I found her after going to a sports massage therapist, who tried to beat my muscles into submission by digging ever harder with her manly hands; I was not yet in a place to tell her to stop, so endured it and just never went back.  Finding solace and safety with Judy was a major beginning in finding my way back to my body.

 

I went in to therapy for “tune ups” periodically over my life when I felt there was something that I needed objective assistance with; but as I birthed children, I felt my spirit crack open the shell I had put around my heart, and I began reclaiming my spiritual connection in earnest.  So, the mental component of awareness now joined with the spiritual awakening that was occurring in my life.  I studied several types of healing modalities, read some esoteric material, studied world religions, and started to re-build my communication and cultivate the relationship with my larger self, guides and teachers, and my angelic family that had sustained me during childhood.

 

In 1998, I met a woman who would become my spiritual teacher for 7 years.  Over that time, she helped me learn to meditate, sit still, listen for inner guidance…she gave me names of things I had experienced but didn’t know what to call.  Specifically, she was able to tell me the words for all that I had understood about the world of subtle energy and the way energy moves.  This was more mental/spiritual understanding and development.  Her teachings were to transcend human egoic life and emotion, to reach higher and prepare for “ascension”.  The message was the same as all of the world patriarchal religions; earthly life is to be suffered through, and when we die we will get our reward.  You may not be surprised that this escape from my body and feeling feelings was a great fit for someone who did not fully inhabit her body.  I learned so much from her and don’t regret our time together; however, there did come a day when I realized I had grown past her in her willingness to be in human existence, and we parted ways.

 

Since that time, I have been on a determinedly physical/emotional/mental/spiritual (PEMS) learning curve.  I WANT to be a full human being, feeling the feelings, expressing my emotions, being present to the unique qualities of physical life, FULLY INHABIT MY BODY, all while developing and exploring my mental and spiritual conceptualizations of what it means to exist on an earthly plane.  I guess that is part of why I feel compelled to write about it…I am putting thoughts together to help me answer that question I asked myself when I was so young.  

 

Every time I go to that place of trying to explain away my life through high falutin’ spiritual concepts, or detach myself from my physical experience by analyzing myself through my acutely developed inner therapist (mental capacity), I am trying to remind myself that those aspects of me are only PART of me…that my animal body and my raw emotion also need expression time, because they are part of being human, too.  While those spiritual and mental concepts may very well but true, there is more to the story.

 

Don’t get me wrong…all of the time I have spent exploring my mental and spiritual aspects was important, and I won’t dishonor myself by dismissing those parts of myself.  In contrast, I will explore those aspects of myself in tandem with becoming more fully physical and expressing my emotion.  It is full ON.

 

Being a Divine Human means being HUMAN.  Fully, 100% claiming our human existence….feeling it, living in it, being present in physical life.  We ARE spirit, that is what we come from….it’s a given.  And we came all this way into physical to bring our spirit into this marvelous, complex, messy playground called physical life, not to escape from it. 

 

Sure, we can learn and play around with mental or spiritual concepts about how we got here and what goes on “at a soul level”…there is value in those awarenesses….as long as we don’t do it to the exclusion of our physical and emotional experience, ‘cause we came to experience those, too.  Otherwise we could have just stayed up there in the clouds playing non-physical bocce ball with our angelic friends (hmmm, wonder how you play ball with no ball?) 

 

We wanted to come here to experience what it felt like to be in a body.  IF we don’t allow for that in our lives, we might be missing the whole point.  This is an aspect of the journey I am on, and will continue to write about. 

 

I am currently doing “rage work” now (finally-it was suggested by therapists over the years, but I was too scared to allow myself to feel those awful feelings of powerlessness I had buried deep within my body memory). 

 

The things I am learning from my body as a result of this work are pure revelation.   I am learning that emotion is a message that must be heeded- it is energy in the body that is feedback from a physical experience, and it must be expressed or it will be trapped in the cells of the body and create havoc.  I am learning that it is never too late to express emotion, even if it has been trapped in your body for 40+ years.  I am learning that when I get brave and actually FEEL those feelings and scream or beat up pillows or yell at the top of my lungs, it frees up space inside of me to live more freely, to be more ME.  It feels like alignment, like things coming together that have been apart.  I am learning it takes energy to hold parts of myself apart…and that when I surrender, they will go back together. 

 

This is a good thing-my creative self is coming out to play, I have more energy available to get things done, my focus is getting sharper, I feel as though I am coming into the life I was meant to live….but the big payoff is that I am joining the human race.  My further embracing of my humanity is changing who I am in the world…and I think, for the better.

January 9, 2009

 

Notes as we are changing….

 

Peter comments this morning that he feels himself remembering what he has always known…that he is a part of the All That Is.  I see him feeling and looking similar to when I first met him…soft, open, and connected.  It is thrilling to see this!

 

We are talking about how we have chosen to do the awakening process; we are reading the Dan Millman books (Way of the Peaceful Warrior) and I am turned off by the completely upside down-ness of his life as he learns to be different.  It is like the years spent running off to find oneself and people being left hurt in its wake.  We elected to do it differently.

 

Many folks do the inner work after they have had their children…we are doing it before and DURING raising our children.  We have elected to live a fully 3-D life while doing our spiritual work.  This makes us somewhat different than a lot of people.

 

The fact that we are mixed up mashed up with our kids and that there are so many demands in our 3-D life is part of the sacred juggling act that all of us face.  If we are here in 3-d, it is because we are meant to be here….and to bring all parts of ourselves into the grounding of physical life.  I am not suggesting that everyone tackle inner spiritual work while having babies and jobs and PTO presidencies and such as we did; but I do think it is important to share this model so others can examine whether it is something they are waiting for permission to do in their own lives. 

 

This might be the reason to write the book about our family journey.

 

It started when I spoke up.  I disagreed when they said the phrase “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle” is untrue. 

 

My reference point for this is my spiritual understanding, built over many years of inner work and conversations with higher consciousness, as well as my experience.  What I feel to be true is that everything is just experience, and whether it is random or planned out before incarnation doesn’t really matter…what does matter in our human life is what we do with our experience.  We can either be in pain about it or not, suffer from it or not.  We can use it as the compost to grow from or we can let it be the shit that continues to pile up on our hapless, helpless selves.  I have chosen to grow from my experiences, and to use the wisdom that I have garnered as I have walked through the darkness, calling broken shards of myself back to me, to help other people.

 

Some have not awakened the tools within themselves to be able to walk through the darkness, through their own choices.  Some have so much pain in their life that they choose to exit the earthly plane.  But is it because their life was more than they could handle?  Were they unable to reach inside, grit their teeth, and tie a knot and hold on?  Did they not have the same capacity for joy and purpose and potential that I have?  Do they not possess the innate connection to their ever-present and ever-knowing soul and spirit and divinity that I do?  What is the difference between folks who can handle what’s given to them and those who can’t?

 

I don’t believe there is an essential difference.  When viewed from a very large perspective, even suicide is just another choice, just another experience.  From that perspective, anything we encounter, whether we judge it as painful or not, is still just experience.

 

But from a very human perspective, one that lives in this world and is invested in things going well, suicide seems such a horrid waste of life.  It is so sad to think about a fellow human being in so much anguish….my compassion wants to reach out and hold them in my arms, and make it all better.  “Don’t you know how precious you are?  Don’t you know what a gift it is to be alive?”  Having flirted with the edge of death myself a few times, I can say that what drives a person to consider taking their own life is definitely feeling there is too much pain to deal with.  It is a seeking of peace, I think.

 

But I didn’t take my own life.  What was it in me that made that choice, in comparison to others that DO go that final step to end their physical existence?  I certainly was given plenty of awful stuff to deal with.  Enough to make any sensible person want to make a hasty exit.  Apparently, I even tried to die as a baby, getting a serious infection a few days after birth at the site of my connection to my mother.  But the universe wasn’t having it; I stuck around. 

 

But I am not special or different….I am just another human being like the rest of us.  Why am I here, when others are not?

 

Is it fate when someone successfully commits suicide in response to their pain?  Was there something larger than me that prevented me from dying when I could have several times, and then prevented me from taking action later to end my life by my own hand?  Or was it something in me that won’t let go of fighting…..won’t let go of surviving whatever gets thrown at me….is determined to make the most of this brief sojourn on earth, no matter how painful it might get? 

 

In the moments after something painful inevitably occurs in our lives, why do some of us choose to look for the lessons and grow from it, while others experience it as yet another wave that takes them further from shore?  In that moment of choice to live or to die, what is it that makes the difference?  And are we ever “given more than we can handle”?

“Re: CRAZY-I think I allow myself to go into my darkness more than most other people do. I think true craziness happens when we try to keep ourselves up above the surface of our own darkness and eventually it claims us because it is PART of us and therefore must be claimed.

In my moments of doubt, I hear my parents’ critical voices calling me a liar, or that I’m making things up….and other extended family voices, who reject me or call me crazy in subtle, socially acceptable ways.

That fear is there because I DO feel crazy sometimes, and I define that as when I feel so much inside that things don’t make sense.

When I am NOT in doubt, in the grip of my ego, I know that sometimes things don’t make sense to our MINDS, but they make sense to our Soul and Spirit and Body and the larger Whole. So, when that uncomfortable feeling comes up, I try to trust that it is temporary and that there is some larger purpose going on that leads to wholeness and awareness. And self love.”

 

I have been ruminating on marriage and commitment to a Beloved Other recently since I celebrated my 23^rd anniversary with my sweetie, Peter.  I know there are many opinions about marriage as an “institution”, and I’m not here to argue with anyone or convince anyone about marriage being a desired state to live in.  I just want to talk about mine.

 

Growing up with my parents, I saw marriage at its best as unreliable and unstable, and at its worst, as a torture chamber.  My mother and father eloped when they were quite young, and my mother had me when she was a mere 18 years of age.  She went directly from her father’s house to her husband’s arms, and chose not to have time in her life to prove to herself that she could make it on her own.  Neither my mother nor my father had the benefit of time and experience to grow and mature in themselves before commitment to one another; therefore, they had by default to do that with one another and with their children. 

 

Their marriage was shaky from the beginning; they were quite infatuated with one another, so that held them together for some years.  But their lack of emotionally maturity caused them to fight with one another; their alcoholism caused them to unconsciously play out mean games, my father the angry dominator, and my mother the crying victim.  Their lack of boundaries emotionally and sexually drove them to have many sexual affairs by the time they divorced after 20 years of marriage.  Their union did not feel holy to me, their concept and modeling of love did not feel divine.  In fact, it felt like the opposite; the environment and climate that their marriage created felt unsafe, chaotic, frightening, even dangerous.  I was relieved that they separated; I wondered why they hadn’t done it sooner.

 

As I came into the age of wanting to be with another, I was fortunate to be drawn to a young man in my senior year who was still innocent in his own love experience, as I was.  We were able to be gentle and shy in our explorations of what love meant with one another.  It was an ideal first love, I think.  His respect and kindness with me were the complete opposite of the roaring rage of my predator father, who took what he wanted from my mother with a set of his massive jaw, and when she was not available, passed out from drunkenness, or hiding from him, he took it from me.

 

Later, after the blurry university years where I played out my internalized parental modeling in endless and repetitive fashion, I met my Beloved Peter while applying for a job as a server at a popular Atlanta restaurant.  I was at the end of my rope, completely hopeless in the love relationship department, jaded and burned out.  I had given up; interestingly, it was this surrender that opened the path for Peter and I to SEE one another.

 

We both tell the story similarly…we saw each other across the room, and there was a sense of recognition.  A feeling of “Oh, THERE you are!”  The feeling I had was of being drawn in to something much larger than myself.  Sure, I could have walked away, but I was curious.  This feeling was different than anything I’d experienced.

 

It didn’t take very long to understand that we were meant to be together.  On our first date, we walked Piedmont Park together, sharing spiritual philosophies and favorite ice cream flavors.  In the midst of my answering the latest round of “what’s your favorite___”, he said, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”  I just kept talking…to his credit, he bravely said, “Didn’t you hear what I said?  I think I’m falling in love with you!”  This stopped me in my tracks; how could I ignore it now?  This was my clue that this man, this relationship, this love was going to be different.

 

Oh, the pain of failed love relationships that I carried in my heart!  The sad example of years of mutual hurting that my parents provided, along with my attempts to find love by compromising my body, mind and spirit, had created a defensive and jaded wall around my heart.  This complete honesty from Peter, this innocence and confession of his heart, totally disarmed me.  Both of us threw away the game playing that seems to prevalent in the dating scene, and spoke deep truths to one another.  It was a great relief. 

 

Some data was still buried deep in my knowing that his honesty awoke.  Once the rusty door to my innermost center was sprung open by his simple offering to love me, an old song came faintly from inside; a clear stream came trickling through until it became a rumble and all but washed away the debris lodged there by my previous messy attempts to create relationship.  Peter was the reminder and personification of my childhood concept of love.  I remember skipping around the dining room table at age 4, pretending my love and best friend was playing with me. I saw him clearly; he had dark hair and eyes, and pale skin.  He loved me utterly; I was the apple of his eye, and he would never knowingly hurt me.  I could trust him completely; he was absolutely safe.  I now saw him in Peter, as if I had known as a little girl that I would find him someday.  Peter was a doorway to my most precious and innocent self, and that old knowing had been rushed to the surface by the purity of his love. 

 

On an ego level, I fought this for awhile; my skepticism about love and marriage certainly caused me to insist that we live together for two years before we married, and my poor Beloved has had to endure all manner of tests that I unconsciously laid at his feet, opportunities to prove his chivalry and the true mettle of his deep feelings for me.  Much to my great happiness and relief, he has always passed.  

 

It’s not that we haven’t had our human problems, one of which was my angst very early in our relationship about surrendering my protective ego to the purifying flames of greater love.  “Who will I be if I’m not Licia?” I would ask him with worried brow.  I did not trust Peter’s utter loyalty to me for many years, and still I have attacks of outdated, dark concern that seem to emanate from my dustiest inner file cabinet, memories of the ways my parents hurt each other. 

 

I feel that we agreed to come together at some level, perhaps the soul, for the purpose of healing one another.  We have had some very hard times; there have been periods in our 23 years together that felt like slogging through deep mud, when the spark and inspiration of our original meeting was all that we could muster to remember why we were together.  But we held on through those times, and it enabled us to grow in our mutual respect and knowing of the magic and integrity of our desire to love more deeply, to bring more of our Spirit to this earthly life.

 

I have come to see the love relationship, and certainly mine, as a Temple of Initiation, an alchemical cauldron in which we have the daily and moment to moment mirroring of our own self in the Beloved Other’s eyes.  If we seek true growth, if we crave spiritual learning and submission to a Greater Teacher, what better Master than our love relationship?  In the coming together of the two, a third is created; it is the classic Trinity, the union of the polarities, the positive and the negative, the yin and the yang, the Great Father and the Great Mother, or the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine.  Call it what you will.  Our mutual awareness of a Third Presence of Holiness created by our coming together, of a larger energy field created by our union has invited, inspired and invoked the best of each of us.  In moments of awareness of this Holiness, neither of us wants to lie or be less than pure with one another because that would be desecrating the union.  

 

The innocence of this ideal is something I can still feel today….the cockles of my heart know this innocence is real.  It is the divine, pure quality of real love.  It is high in vibration, it flies and dances on wings of rainbow colored light, it lifts and inspires, makes me closer to God/dess, yet causes me to weep in celebration of my earthly body which receives Him and holds Him in my arms.  It is a recognition that my True Love, and yes, that I, are physical representations of the Creator, the Divine Masculine and Feminine, the two poles that unite as one to create the All That Is.

 

Some people do not believe that there is such a thing as true love, in which both partners come together for the purpose of healing, consciousness, and lifting one another up to their highest potential, but here at our celebration of 23 years together, I am blessed to know better. 

 

Copyright Licia Berry, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wrote this journal entry in 2003, right before my family’s life changed drastically.  It felt appropriate to share it here and now.

 

Form Follows Function

A journal entry by Licia Berry

www.liciaberry.com

8-03

Who am I?  God, please tell me.  No, I mean, who am I REALLY.  I have allowed myself to be defined by others for much of my life.  Now I need to find the truth within myself.  I need to know what I am supposed to be doing with my life.  I need to narrow it down because I have signed on for too much that doesn’t feel like the right fit!

Since I was a little kid, I saw myself living in an old white farmhouse on a quiet farm or land, growing my family’s food, home schooling my children, creating a family business, and married to my one Beloved.  Leading a simple life together as a family. We would have all that we needed because we were together.  My picture of this was so solid as a little girl.  It brought me solace when I felt how chaotic and off-balance my actual childhood home was.  This picture felt so peaceful, so heart-centered, like the priorities were straight.   It gave me comfort that someday I would create this picture.

What happened?  I left home, graduated from university with honors and became a sought-after art teacher in the Atlanta school system.  It was joyous to witness children in their process of creative discovery.  I taught for almost 5 years and loved it, but became disillusioned with “the system” and the politics involved in being what I considered to be a responsible educator.  I began the long process of recovery for incest.  My husband and I moved to Tucson, Arizona to change our lives.  There I was a teacher to developmentally disabled children and adults.  It was somewhat satisfying, but a step removed from my beloved creative process.  I had naturally ruled out teaching school because I was burned out by my experience in Atlanta.  After a couple of years, I was promoted to evaluate adult trainers of the same population I had worked with.  Another two steps removed from my early love, this time from children, and from teaching.  I became a dry expert on how to do a job well.  I couldn’t stand myself.  When I moved to Asheville I wanted to start all over again and go back to my initial vision.  My then 3 year old son and I spent delightful time together awaiting the birth of my second son.  After being in Asheville for one year, tragedy struck and I jumped into working in the non-profit sector.  How many steps removed from my heart was I now?  I’ve lost count.

I have made some strides back towards my heart-centered picture of childhood, especially since the wake-up call of 9-11.  I have a healing practice that allows me to connect with and teach others as well as work on my own healing.  I write, make art and play and compose music.  I have maintained a stubborn conviction to buy and grow organic food.  I’ve canned my crops, made candles and soap, sewn clothes, dowsed earth energies and been trained for years in my early healing interests.

I continue to be informed by my childhood picture, with compromises.  I actually do live in an old white farmhouse on a couple of acres, but it is in city limits on a busy road.  I work with my creativity in my healing practice and my writing, but apart from my family.  I grow organic vegetables and fruit, but haven’t had time lately to devote proper attention to the garden.  I send my children to the best public school in Asheville, but I still feel a gnawing in my belly when I drop them off for the day.  I love my husband dearly, but we don’t have much time or energy for each other at the end of each day.  My heart hurts.  Something is wrong.

I have wondered in the past year as I have felt a growing anxiety what was wrong with me.  I have such a blessed life!   Who am I to complain or to feel that something is missing?   As the summer began, I wondered if I was on the edge of nervous breakdown, or perhaps my midlife crisis (a little early, I hope?)  The vague sense of unease that has been growing in me for years has gotten to the point that I can’t ignore it.  I went on a 7500 miles month-long odyssey in July to the southwest and California with my children in hopes that the change of environment would give me a little perspective.  We saw many places and people and had many adventures.  SO what did the solo-pioneering mom and her two fabulous sons find out on this epic journey?   That the problem is I’m living someone else’s life.

Whose life am I living?  Ask the media.  There is an assumption made on the part of the media/corporate machine that we will trust what is being told to us.  We are fed images and messages of what the perfect family, mother, child, and parent looks like many times a day.  We must be involved in our child’s school to positively affect their learning, we must take our child to a multitude of life enriching classes and activities per week, we must make quality time for our children (in between all those afternoon classes).  We must have a pet, music lessons, and devote time to homework each night.  As a mother, I must be fully available for my children, yet seek time for my own inner balance.  Yoga classes, smoothies, a low-carb diet, and facials will help me regain my inner peace.  But I am also to be fulfilled in my work, fully attentive to my husband and home, keep a cheery attitude and look great while doing it ALL.   How am I supposed to balance all that needs to be balanced?  I think it feels impossible because it is.  I have to make some decisions about what is most important.

If it is true that I am the architect of my life, then where did my design go wrong?  Why the hell did I build this hectic life I’m living?  How often have I said “yes” to something that was not really in the interest of my highest good?  How often have I just gone along with something because other folks wanted me to?  Because I didn’t want to create an inconvenience?  Because I wanted to please others?  How often I have ignored my own inner guidance because it is too risky, too much work to change circumstances, or someone might be unhappy with me?  When it comes to hearing the quiet, wise voice of my inner wisdom when presented with a choice, what’s the difference between “yeah, okay” and “YES, I must ABSOLUTELY do this!”

Sometimes I think I am going crazy; I feel a tension inside as the gulf is widening between the part that I am playing and my inner Self who wants something else from me. Why am I so attached to this part?  Perhaps because there are consequences for relinquishing it.  I was guided last year to step out of my role as PTO President at my children’s school; that in fact it was costing me spiritually.  But did I do it?  Nope, all I could think about was how unhappy folks would be with me if I quit.  I sensed that this guidance was accurate, and felt how miserable I was playing the role, but that wasn’t enough to change my mind.  I would be seen as a quitter; I would make people mad at me; I would be letting folks down.  When I see this, it makes me think that a 3 year old is making these decisions in my life.  An actualized, empowered adult would not worry much about disapproval from others if she were making a decision that felt right to her.  Am I mothering my inner 3 year old?

On a macro scale, we are coming into the Aquarian era.  With this shift, there is huge transformation in the way we fundamentally think about and do things.  It seems that culturally and politically, more and more people are feeling inner stirrings that things just aren’t right as they are.

Am I on the edge of this?  Am I feeling what many others are feeling right now?  We are taught that family and school looks like this, we are trying desperately maintain these dinosaur ways of being, and they don’t work.  We are trying to patch what really needs to be replaced.  Divorce, stress, major life unhappiness happens because folks are so anxious….we feel that something is wrong, but society doesn’t support us changing.

If I decide to follow the soft pointing-of-the-way that my guidance provides, how do I let go of the things I am attached to?  How much will I need to release to change my life?  Is the structure of my life congruent with the architecture principle of “form follows function?”  How might I restructure my life to that it follows my higher function?  For that matter, what is my higher function?  Might I get a clue from the secret whisperings of my heart?  My intention is to find out what my best use is on this planet right now…here it comes…..wait, I can ask the question, but am I really ready for the answer?

My experience tells me that sometimes I must let go of what seems so important so that I can open to the free flow of life energy that will carry me to where I need to go.  May the Highest Good be Served.

 

 

Having come through 2 of the hardest and most growthful years that I can remember, I am seeing things 20/20, of course.  All of the cycles we have been through are making sense.  Here at the wrap-up of the end of 3 seven-year cycles, a shorter 11 year cycle, and even shorter cycles within those larger ones, my animal relations are showing up to show their support, speak their messages and offer their medicine and teachings.

 

It started a few weeks ago when Peter was in California to pick up the RV we’d stored there in March (thinking we would be back).  I awoke early one morning to the sound of a female voice saying “Relations” insistently, and 3 knocks on the wall above my head (the wall is the same my pillows rest on and is an outer wall facing west).  I woke up immediately, knowing there was something special going on.  I wrapped up in my robe and walked outside to the area outside my bedroom.  From that vantage point, I looked to the north and saw 3 pronghorn antelopes clustered together around our well head.  They were all looking at me, as if they had been expecting me.  Now antelope are curious creatures, so they will study you for a bit before moving on (unless you scare them off).  But these three…there was something about the way they stood together there and watched me, as if there were a conversation going on.  I watched them and listened with my heart…there were no words at that point, but a feeling of having been “seen” and “received”.  They began to disperse, and I thanked them for their medicine.  Later, when I sat down in conversation with my inner guidance, I was told that the antelope medicine for me in particular was this:

 

-isolate yourself

-be thick skinned like the antelope-with a thick hide, you can survive in the harshest of conditions and tough times

-don’t be so easily influenced by outside forces

-your psychic awareness is increasing

 

I was interested in this guidance as it pertained easily with our situation here in Del Norte CO.  I set the intention to internalize this “medicine” from my Brothers the 3 bachelor antelope that woke me that morning.  They have subsequently visited many times, hanging around our 40 acres as if to make sure I am getting the message.

 

Then, the following week, early one morning I heard a “screeeeee!!!” outside and ran out to see 3 golden eagles circling over our land. I watched as one of them dive bombed another, screeching….but it all seemed in play, as they flew peacefully off to the north once I watched them for a few minutes, where it appeared that they were joined by a fourth eagle. It is unusual to see eagles flying together, so I took this to be another opportunity to listen for a message.  When I asked my inner guidance what my particular message was from the 3 eagles, I was told:

 

-that eagle is a symbol for divine masculine energy, the will and ability to get things done

-to call on eagle for strength, action, focus, determination and perseverance

-that the lack of energy and confidence I was experiencing would be remedied by the “masculine” energy of eagle

 

I chose to internalize this medicine as well, and found that I reached out and asked 40 women to pray for me for these qualities.  It worked!  My energy took off, and my ability to stay focused rather than confused and lethargic was remarkably different.  I also sought the counsel of a lovely Ute medicine man, who assisted me in bringing insight to an outstanding issue and balancing our land.  His piece of the puzzle proved to be very important.

 

By this time, I became intrigued with the consistent number THREE that was showing up.  I have always loved the number three, and according to numerologists, 3 is my “life path number”.  I did some research and found that the number 3 is associated with:

 

-the Trinity (interpreted in many ways-Body, Mind Spirit/Masculine, Feminine, Divine Union/beginning, middle, end/birth, life, death)

-3-D world, physical manifestation

-movement and ability to overcome duality

-creativity, growth, synthesis

-completion of a cycle

 

My youngest son wondered aloud what the next set of three would be…he intuited that there was a third chapter to the story.  And there was!  As I have been busy watching for the third set of 3, they were right under my nose the whole time.  

 

We experienced owning a hot tub for the first time in our lives here at our home in CO.  Our favorite times to steep in the hot brew are in the dark of night, when the Milky Way is so intense it feels smothering, and the early morning with our tea, when it is a very active time for the birds. 

 

At the edge of the patio, about 30 feet from the hot tub, are two bluebird houses.  They are inhabited by the bluebirds in early spring, who raise their babies then move to the gutters of the house.  Then the summer tenants of swallows move in to raise their young.  We watch with interest as the transition takes place.  There is much squabbling and flitting about, but eventually there is coexistence.

 

But there was something special about it this year.  Perhaps it was because of the forced stillness of my ankle injury, perhaps because it was just the right time….but I noticed the birds behavior with more interest.  The bluebirds alit outside my kitchen window and, head cocked, peered in with a seeming purpose at me while I cooked or washed at the sink.  The swallows circled repeatedly over my head while in the hot tub with equal intentionality, as if they were trying to get my attention.  I noticed, but I was looking for something “more grand” or unusual for the last chapter of three.  Would it be a trio of elk, or a bobcat family, or elegant hawks? 

 

It finally dawned on me today as I walked toward the north on our property; three bluebirds, a mother, father and fledgling child came from behind me from their perch on my house and alit in an olive tree directly in front of me.  I stopped and watched them; I felt an invitation to expansion in my heart.  OH!  I can be a bit thick at times, such an introvert that I am wrapped, fascinated, in my inner thoughts, and will sometimes miss the obvious in the “outer world”.  Suddenly, I saw the 3 swallows that had been flying around my head for days in my mind, replayed the mornings of watching the swallows feed their babies in the houses and the first one emerge victorious, calling out as it flew for its first time, flying gloriously with its parents. 3 bluebirds, 3 swallows.

 

Helllllloooooo… it is these common, “every day” creatures that are the final message of grace for my ending of this cycle in my life.  I sat this morning with my inner guidance after pulling information about these sweet birds, and this is what I was told applied to me:

 

-swallows migrate for thousands of miles to always return home safely and are a symbol of constancy, faith and fidelity

-bluebirds are associated with happiness, rebirth, and prosperity and are a sign of goodness in the future

-bluebirds and swallows both have associations with home, hearth, and love and loyalty to the family

-bluebirds and swallows are both ancient symbols of spring, hope, resurrection and new life

 

And the REAL kicker:

 

-swallows and bluebirds are interchangeably associated as a frequent motif for tattoos on sailors.  It was said that after a journey of 5000 sea miles, a sailor earned a swallow or bluebird tattoo on one side of his chest, and another at the completion of another 5000 or more miles.  They were a harbinger of land being near, of a long journey coming to an end…

 

I am almost in tears as I write this.  The amount of support and love I am being given at this time of completion of this cycle in my life is almost overwhelming.  And it is also affirming of how connected we are if we but allow ourselves to be.  I am so grateful to All of Life, all of my relations, whether winged or two, four and no-legged, for their reflection that I am loved, and that all is well.

I have had the delight recently of being reminded of my connection to the All That Is through the visitations of several of the two and four legged family.  (Wow, when was the last time I said I was DELIGHTED about something?  It has been a long time!)  These visitations are nothing short of miraculous to me, and a wonderful 3-D reminder that I am part of the fabric of All Creation, and that that fabric supports me….all that falls to me is to pay attention.

 

I have been a devotee of symbolism ever since I learned in my AP English classes in high school that there was a name for “something having deeper meaning than what was apparent”.  I have been having conversation with the energy of …everything… ever since I can remember, and could feel that there was wisdom to be gained from listening and acknowledging universal intelligence in its many faces.  But it’s called symbolism?  Wow, what a lark that this was a recognized phenomenon!  I have subsequently studied symbolism for years, delighting (there’s that word again!) in Jungian psychology, mythology, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ works, and the medicine of animals, plants and all of nature.  I now see everything as a symbol, as a message from the All That Is, as a connection to a deeper meaning that can be interpreted particular to me and my situation.

 

It was with delight (okay I have said it 3 times) that I recently stumbled upon Avia Venefica, a woman after my own heart.  Fiercely devoted to symbolism and an accomplished writer, she publishes 3 lovely blogs that are practical and grounded yet deeply honoring of the spiritual and symbolic connections of All Creation.  Her presence in the world gives me joy and strength; a sister from across the pond, my world has grown and become more “right” because of her clear-eyed wisdom (dare I say she’s delightful?)  I have found some helpful answers lately in her work; I highly recommend her symbolism blog.

 

More to follow about the animals that have come to offer their messages to me in the last weeks.