The Becoming that was... that is Summer

After Vision Quest Camp I was clear about the path I needed to walk this summer…it was to be a season of quiet solitude. Closing the circle around my heart; keeping it small and quiet. I made minimal plans, focusing on my little family, my marriage and my Self.

 

Going into Vision Quest I heard the whispering calling to me to follow this road less traveled.

I am a social girl, always have been. But as I grow, as I transform, as I become again and again and again, it would seem that my social ways are shifting to a more select way of living. No longer am I seeking out friends and friendships as much as I desire sisters and sisterhood.

So within this choice many things came my way.

It was like the space I created by making my heart world small actually made the world around me expand.

Possibilities thrived and dreams grew.

Remnants of my being, those small pieces of my once broken psyche had a chance to reluctantly come to the surface. Small but fierce where these pieces of me. Long over due to be taken into the sacred garden of my heart and be loved on by my higher-self. One in particular made me smile…a feisty little thing. Birthed during a time of adolescent angst when I made the declaration that I did not care anymore…I was around 15, frustrated and disconnected. She got me through with that feist, only now, in this season of my life, the fear from which she was birthed needed to be healed.

I know, deep within the marrow of my bones, she would never have surfaced if I had not given space to her healing, and my continued becoming…

Even when one does the deepest healing work, some residue clings for dear life, afraid of the change that the healing might bring…what will it mean? who will I be without the fight, the struggle, the suffering… will I matter? will I just fade away? will I no longer be? and if I do come our of this, who will I be?

She struggled with the love at first, she made me laugh…not in a mocking way, but because she was a child, a child unable to see beyond her childish sight and I joyfully gave her the vision of how things are now…without the fear. You see I want her feisty nature, I can still use it…I still want it…just not the fear…no thanks to the fear.

In the quiet it was revealed to me that I was not here to “make things happen”… I was told directly to Try Less and Trust More… I was guided to give to my self all that I have given to others the last couple years….sounds easy enough right? Honestly, it took me almost 3 weeks to find a steady rhythm within this sacred medicine.

Medicine Bag custom made by Susan Ferguson of WindRock Studios

The last two years have been big for me… big beyond words and there were pieces of me still trying to catch up and integrate, while other parts of me are wondering why  and what’s up with all the “rearranging of the furniture!!!!” Transformation takes time, integration 

sometimes even longer…

it is the process and everything is process.

She said to me “You have the strength of the Oak Tree….may you also have the flexibility of The Willow. Do not go back to your all or nothing ways, stay in the mud, do not put back on the comfortable clothing. This newness can be a whole new landscape, where it is not either or…no bargaining, no sacrifice…more fluid, while standing on an equal foundation.”

And so I let the winds of change breeze right on by as I stood strongly rooted in the sacred space that was me, and yet I was flexible, allowing the transformation to take shape within and around me…I was gently returning to Self and I prayed that Mother Earth would continue to keep me grounded in the gentle ways of deer-travelling lightly thru the forest as I returned. And I prayed that Father Sky would gently release me with grace 

as I pulled my wings close to land.

And then there was the marriage…a marriage that was strong in foundation and spirit…yet even within that truth needed attention. Many things looked over lacking the attention they needed as we grew a boy into a young man through the darkness of his mind…a marriage that needed tending acknowledgment. Old habits needed to be laid to rest and language needed to die…

time to re-birth this union into something new.

Who were we at this season of our union?

Who did we want to be?

For these answers and more I embarked on a journey into Chapter 5 of  Women Who Run with The Wolves…”Hunted-When the Heart is a Lonely Hunter”

“In wise stories, love is seldom a romantic tryst between two lovers. For instance, some stories from the circumpolar regions describe love as a union of two beings whose strength together enable one or both enter into communication with the soul world and to participate in gate as a dance with life and death.”

“…love does not mean a flirtation or a pursuit for simple ego-pleasure, but a visible bond composed of the psychic sinew of endurance, a union which prevails through bounty and austerity, through the most complicated and most simple days and nights. The union of two beings is seen as “angakok” magic in itself, as a relationship through which “the powers that be” become known to both individuals.”

In an ever ebbing and flowing relationship death must have her share….we cannot Love without our illusions of love dying…we cannot Love without our superficial expectations dying…in Love, psychically, 

everything becomes picked apart.

Illusion

Expectation

Greed

Beauty….must die.

“When one commits to love, one also commits to the revivification of the essence of Skeleton Woman and all her teachings….”

Thus I found myself untangling…once again…the mystery of The Skeleton Woman…sitting in amongst her bones re-learning patience, observing the process, embracing the beauty of the unknown and learning, once again to love that which is not so beautiful.

In my own words, Skeleton Woman represents the deeper aspects of life…in this case Love. Can we…can I be willing to allow death and challenge to continually rub up against my Love relationships as a way of strengthening them as opposed to the depleting and damaging choice to always insist on everything being “happy ever after” – without the expectation of tranquility only??? If I allow transformation-which always includes death-I allow a deepening of the love…the commitment. Not allowing death will cause my Love to starve and not thrive to it’s full potential. The challenge is to turn around and face death and begin to move with her, as opposed to running against or away from her. Without death there can be no life. Love requires sacrifice, bravery and commitment. True, long-lasting Love asks of me to take courage, to go the distance, to enter into the deep waters….deep dark waters. And I was forced to ask myself can I do this? Yes is my answer again and again..for this I know..we are both strong individuals…both of us clear on who we are and how we want to live this life…we would be fine without one another, but we are better together. That is a truth I know and trust; and this Truth calls me to accept any fears that I do have and allow them to be what they need to be, to sit with them, love them, cry over them, breath into them and over time heal them.

Within this untangling and reassembling shifts have happened, those shift that you cannot put your figure on and yet you see then, feel them, know them. I said to a sister it was like our relationship is growing up…yes maturing, taking responsibility for itself and thriving

As my Self integrated my heart’s desire made its voice clear…

I don’t want to do what

I am told to do

I want to do what

I am meant to do

I don’t want to do what is

polite or politically correct

I want to do what is

honest and real

I don’t want to live

to fit in

I want to live

to be uncommon

I don’t want to live

to make others happy

I want to live in a way

that causes my heart

to burst with Joy

My heart was not the only one to speak to me this summer…many a visit from many a guide…loud whispers, clear voices, sometimes just showing up with no words, just presence…Bear came and told me, “Move slowly with Intention. Be willing to be lead. Be willing to follow…be still.” Owl called to me from the forest by a lake and said “Trust. Spread your wings wide and Allow. Be Open to what is coming…be still.”

Through all of it…through this process of becoming I hear these words…

I create harmony in my life through 

Love and Acceptance

The journey continues…becoming is never ending…

Life is a wonderful mystery as is The Creator and all that lives in the heavens and on the earth below.

I am a mystery…as are you…

What a wonderful thing to be…

If you are still with me, share with me the mystery that is you…

What is the mystery, within your Self?

Love and Light Lovelies

“The wound is the place where the light enters you” - Rumi