...and start all over again!
Returning to the blogging world. I signed up for an online
painting course called Visual Quest- an online shamanic painting exploration
led by Pixie Campbell. I found her work through another e-course I’m set to
participate in called New Moon Goddess Mystery School led by Stephanie Ladd.
Now I don’t know either of these fine Goddesses, and I found them in that
haphazard way Spirit uses technology to answer our prayers…I wasn’t looking at
all, but it feels like it’s just the reset button I need to get myself back in
the game and open up a steady stream of creativity that has been barely a drip-droppy
trickle. I’ve been running on empty, sourcing my life for the past couple years
on the energy reserves of younger days and the kindness of dear Sisters who’ve
carried me, perhaps more than they realize (I realize it with a bottomless
grateful heart).
Beginning around Summer Solstice last year I started heading into a downward spiral, caught in an eddy that had been swirling for a while. I was hurt deeper than made sense to me by people whose behavior I really shouldn't have been surprised by, but the wound is where the wisdom is and it sent me on my way, down, down, down.
Traveling through sacred Scotland for three weeks in the fall with my Beloved and my Institute of Modern Wisdom family led me on the shamanic faerie tale journey of a lifetime. I am still processing the deeply transformational work activated there, particularly within the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis.
It takes a toll on the body and the mind to speak to, let alone allow, the infinite and awesome power of the Goddess to flow through you, at Callanish I consciously offered my life and my body to be a channel for healing; an offer not made lightly and not refused. Afterwards, the part of me that cracked open felt as fragile and translucent as a poppy petal. From then on I truly felt like I was "phoning it in" from some faraway place, disconnected and wondering if a bit of me splintered off somewhere.
But it wasn't just me...all the world has been in this frenzy of change, resist, surrender, persist...awaken...Even at the magickal Faeriecon I felt eclipsed by loneliness. If it weren't for the relentless love and guidance from sister Priestesses and the ancient-modern wisdom of yoga, cleansing foods, music, meditation, breathwork, prayer and ALOT of sage, I would have, I think fallen too deeply into the void to ever come out.
It was a tough but quiet winter, as I suppose Winter should be. That time of resting in the dreamtime. But again, you don't converse with the Goddess without bringing a bit of the shine back, and Her eyes...my eyes, were able to look both ways at so many sides of everything that I couldn't keep track. I knew loss and the lesson of non-attachment was about to turn up a notch and I was afraid. I knew change was knocking on our door and would be the artist in residence for quite some time.
After my sweet dog, Twyla Fey died last month my spiritual 401K has been all but depleted. She was and always will be my heart and soul angel and I felt like a lifeline, tenuous and brittle as it had become, snapped and my heart broke into a thousand sharded pieces and the sound of grief kept echoing, echoing in that empty place.
Last week my back gave out. "For no reason" (ha!). I was simply standing up eating some lunch. It I believe, energetically broke under the weight of whatever I'd been carrying there. For 6 days I could barely move, excruciating pain that felt like I was in both a vice and being electrocuted over and over. Kundalini energy for sure. Release, most definitely. On the Summer Solstice, still in a back brace but able to move (thanks largely to prayers, sister time and some bad-ass chiropractic work) I followed some dream guidance from Twyla into a local shelter and found a new sweet addition to our family, Miana Star. She "told" me that an angel-dog came to her when she was scared and alone in the shelter and told her that a new mommy and daddy were on their way. At least that's our story.
Things are shifting now and I can feel the promise of a renewed life force beckoning to me, this relentless energy which has brought me to here. I am reconnecting. The sky is an ombre shading of perriwinkle to rose gold right now and it's time to go. I know this is long blog (blame it on Mercury Retrograding in Cancer), and prob'ly this is too long for anyone to really read, but maybe there's something here for someone else. Without reflection we can't get to acceptance or ultimately to the gift hidden in the dark places.
I am so grateful, so grateful- even with some still tender spots, I am immersed in gratitude for it all. So, I'm ready to return from the cave of the heart, old person, new person same person, hopefully wiser and truer than before.
All Love, Sweet Ones.
