Hello lovely,
I have created a recorded version of the following Missive so you may both listen as well as read.
Grab a cup of something warm and delicious if you like… and listen here.
It is difficult to speak when there simply are no words.
No vocable language to describe what is stirring, shifting, shaking deep within. When everything that is every-day is interrupted, uprooted, laid bare.
It is difficult to speak when the well known, well-worn rhythm of your Life is interrupted. Flounders, then falters.
When harmony gives way to dis-harmony and the inner world you have know, swum in, breathed deeply of, shifts irrevocably and mysteriously as a new unknown song, a new rhythm is faintly discerned.
It is difficult to speak when something new and completely unknown is demanding to be attended to. Gestated.
This is when you pull everything close and tend the Fire.
The Fire in the center of your inner council circle. The Fire that keeps you warm, tends your dreams, holds the embers of your passion.
The Fire that radiates light out into the darkness around you. That lights the way as you navigate the underworld of the Soul’s call.
Light that is precious. Otherworldly. Vital.
This is when you go to Water. Sit by her side. Gaze into her depths. Sing to the Sea. Immerse yourself in her substance. Listen for her instructions.
Soak in her secrets.
This is when you embrace her wisdom concerning ebb and flow, of permeability, gravity and going underground. With regards to tides, tidal surges, currents.
About the cycles of the Moon.
About the true character of darkness.
About the liquid nature of emotion.
This is when you walk the Land with feet bare.
Lie with your head upon the Earth’s lap and feel her nurturing embrace hold you. Caress you. Rock you.
Feel the vast aliveness of her breast welcome your own racing heart.
This is when you sing into the Wind. Ask her to carry you home to yourself. To show you the way. You get still enough, quiet enough to feel the sacred caress of her breath on your tear dampened cheeks. You share your deepest secrets with her and beseech her to bring you the answers you are longing for. To show you the way…
Forward.
This is when you pull everything close. So very, very close.
You allow the outside world to fall farther and farther away.
Time stretches and turns in on itself. Days turn into weeks, turn into months and still….
There are no words to share.
It is not that you do not hear the calls of those who want, expect your attention and the benefit of your overflowing…the ones who have always relied on you to tend and support, to give out of your self. But when the tide is completely out…
When your dreams and inner journeys show you in no uncertain terms that is time – past time to STOP. To pull back. To let go and drop deep. To tend to what is calling you inside. To tend to your own death… and rebirth.
When you know that it is truly a matter of life and death – this vast and deep turning that you are in the midst of. This deep and sacred re-membering.
You answer in the only way you can.
With obedience.
With humility.
With a petitioner’s openness.
As the tide pulls you farther out to Sea… You surrender.
Again.
And again.
And again.
You sit and quietly turn toward Resistance.
Open to the Uncomfortable Truths that are revealed. The Ancient Wounds that require tending. Many you thought had been tended, resolved, laid to rest – and yet here they once are again petitioning for a deeper integration, a newer level of coherence, a more tender embrace before the next clear path will open out before you.
Each guest who arrives is finally, though sometimes not without struggle, fully met. No matter how ugly, how ragged, how stinking.
Each emotion felt. Each painfully sticky place is patiently welcomed. Opened to. What is arising is demanding to be heard – to tell her story, share the gifts, the riches she holds in her strong, worn and grimy hands.
The knots unravel. The inner tension starts to unwind – tension that has been held for as far back as memory will carry you.
The road becomes smoother, the birds sing, the heart lightens, rainbows dance and then the forest grows dark once again. The brambles pluck at your skirts as you navigate your way forward with the luminous light of your Soul shinning a circle of light – just far out enough in front. One bare foot in front of the other. Looking for signs. Feeling your way.
Forward.
Sometimes the Buddha comes to mind – deep, dark in the forest with the demons, the ghosts surrounding him, yammering away in his face as he dropped deeper. Patiently rested more firmly into the Stillness. Into Himself.
And you take strength from this. You call on the Devas of Courage, Fortitude and Rest. You align to the Core of you. The Timeless One. The Wildish, Ancient One.
This is what you do when there are no words.
You speak little.
Stay in silence.
Listen deeply.
Pay attention.
Notice what you notice.
You become the hermit hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world.
To everyone else it may look as though you are fallow. Declining.
Yet deep beneath the surface, like the deciduous trees in Winter you can feel a different kind of nourishment being provided by the rich, damp Earth.
In the dark, deep underground you feel your roots begin to spread. Grow. Reach out. Laying the foundation for a new season, a new emergence of growth.
You wait for the return of the Light.
I can feel it now, that first glimmer – as the words begin to arrive. Potent. Pungent. Fecund.
I trust in this.
In the process – this re-membering. In the mysterious hands that guide the enormous tidal shift we are ALL in the midst of.
I trust in Love. In Beauty. In Life.
I trust this steadfast unwinding. The simultaneous spiral dance of death and rebirth, of separation and union. The unfathomable unfolding of Soul.
I remember that this odyssey – the ebb, the flow – the expansion and contraction IS the very essence, the underlying nature of the Heroine’s journey – our collective journey, no matter our gender identification.
So I weave. I make rattles. I paint. Make medicine.
I listen. I sing. I lay on the lap of the Mother and pray.
I call in, open, surrender. I let go.
From one Heroine to another – with infinite love and tenderness from the road…
