As we wander along the way, we will inevitably be asked to
re-imagine and breathe new life into concepts that have become second-hand and
lost their meaning. Words like “healing” and "awakening" must be
seeded with new vision and brought alive again in the fire of direct
experience.
For many, these ideas have become deadened, new tools of
self-abandonment cloaked in spiritual clothing, fear disguised as
transcendence, and detachment dressed up as dissociation, as we attempt to
end run our vulnerability and the reality that the beloved can appear at any
moment and remove the rug from underneath even our most evolved beliefs and
identities.
For the alchemists, the first phase of the journey requires
a confrontation of the dark, shadowy, nether regions of the psyche: the
abandoned feelings, beliefs, and ideas about what is happening here. In this
process, the reference points around which we have organized are dismantled.
Even our deepest realizations are converted to dust, as we descend into the
tender womb of Now.
While the temptation is to spin into resolution, to find
answers to questions, and to shortcut the death-rebirth journey, the invitation
is into the creativity of the dark, and to provide sanctuary in which the rich,
pregnant unknown can unfold within you. Open as you are re-introduced to the
full-spectrum nature of what it means to be a raw, open, sensitive human being,
with a heart that is sometimes whole and sometimes in pieces.
Yes, all that you were so clear about even a few days ago
can fall away: who you thought you were, how you would spend your time, the
relationships you were sure would always be there. The body that was never
going to hold up, the kids that were never going to heal your unlived life for
you, the partner that was never going to make everything okay. But this
dissolution is sacred, and erupts revealing wholeness.
Descend with the breath out of the swirling thoughts and
into the wisdom of the body, into the safety and grounding of the earth, and
provide safe passage for the reorganization to work through you. There is
guidance all around and inside: in your fellow journeyers, the sun, the moon,
the animals, and the stars, and buried inside the core of the broken, the raw,
the achy, and the uncertainty.
You are being asked to re-enchant and re-imagine your
world, and to see with new vision.
Art credit: in the liminal, carving by an unknown artist by
way of Flammarion’s L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire
My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available
