Embracing Bear

It is so very interesting how things come around again and again and again.  Almost exactly four years ago, around Mabon (Autumn Equinox), I began my first blog.  It was private and just for a select few to share, and was a tool for me to process the changes taking place in my life at the point.  Four months earlier than that I'd gone on a Vision Quest that was a huge turning point for me, and nothing has been the same since. 

Now again I find myself at Mabon in the midst of the biggest changes of my life; Changes that make the transitions I went through four years ago look like a cake walk.  Again I'm feeling drawn to "go up on the hill" in order to process and integrate the changes cascading through my life, to consult with my guides and ancestors and commune with the spirits of Nature, and to cry for a vision of my next steps toward  my  greatest possible future.  In fact, this coming weekend I plan on scouting out a suitable spot for another Vision Quest.  And again I feel a tug to look back on where I'd been and how far I've come, hence the reading of my original blog that I didn't realize had been started at this same time of year.  As I read the words I wrote back then, I could have written them today, only now they have a depth and richness that I missed the first time around.    

The timeliness of all this is amazing, as I share a journey I did on that Mabon that is as applicable to this Mabon we just celebrated:

I journeyed to the Lower World to meet my animal guide, Nathaniel, who is a reindeer. Nathaniel took me to a beach where the sun was perpetually setting. We sat on the smooth rounded rocks looking at the water as people walked and jogged unhurriedly by, the atmosphere very relaxed, punctuated by occasional laughter and snippets of cordial conversation. He told me it was time to breathe, to relax, and to let go. As everything around me glowed with the reflection of the orangey-red sun, he said to see the beauty of things in a new light. "Get comfortable with transistion. It's what keeps the extremes from crashing into each other. Balance -- That's your sign right? Libra?"

I complained that I couldn't enjoy it because I still felt tension from the past.

"Of course you still have tension from the past. You are in transition, carrying both past and future with you. But you are removed from the bustle of the past as we are removed from the city you can see on the horizon there."

With that we sat silently on the beach til it was time for me to return. I thanked him, kissed his big fuzzy nose, and came back to my body.

There are huge things a-foot in my life right now, and as the wheel turns to the dark half of the year I'm finding myself looking forward to the quiet, to the contemplation, to the stillness.  And I long for that dark womb-space of the Cosmic Mother.  I long to tumble and float through that night of infinite possibilities where, like the title of my initial blog, I'll be
Embracing Bear; Dreaming With Dark Mother.

Image Copyright Susan Seddon Boulet

Flame On!

Recently, feeling it's really time to finally manifest some of things my heart is desiring, I've been exploring the dating scene, having created profiles on a couple different internet dating sites.  It's been a mixed bag of experiences, and suffice it to say I haven't met "her" yet (that I know of), but that is a possible subject for a future post. I won't go into details, but it is my most recent lessons from my most recent excursion into this world that I wanted to write about here.

I found myself in an uncomfortable position where my heart was telling me something totally different from what this particular woman's heart was apparently telling her.  As much as I would have loved to fall into the same fairy tale visions she was having, I had to listen to my heart which told me something wasn't right and I did not belong in this match.

So after a couple failed attempts to back away gracefully, I had to finally break away completely.  Still, even in parting, and even with the full volume and clarity of my heart telling me I'd done the right thing, there was this tiny, little voice asking, "But what if she was right?  What if we really are meant to be together? What if I just made the biggest mistake of my life?"  What the heck?!

This had been the over-riding undercurrent (if there can be such a thing... ;) ) of the entire 2 weeks I'd known her.  That she knew we were meant to be together but it was my free will choice to do so or not, the understanding being that if I chose other than her it would be a mistake and my life would never be as great as it otherwise could be. In other words, it was my free will to chose, only there was a right choice and a wrong choice.  Even as I write that out, every particle of my being screams out in protest to that way of thinking, yet there I was thinking it.

Thankfully this incongruency finally got my attention and I was able to pull myself out of asking, "Why am I feeling/thinking like this?" enough to realize that I wasn't.  This was still her stuff! Holy crap! Final little tendrils that had found an opening in my own self-doubts to hook into, and mask themselves as my own thoughts.     

I had already been doing some cord cutting (see my post Cut a-CORD-ingly  for a more in-depth  explanation of that practice),  releasing whatever energetic ties she had with me in order to withdraw my personal power from her and the situation, and to move forward -- whole and in one piece.  This 'aha' moment, however, made me realize that there could still be tiny cords that were able to sneak under the radar and still be siphoning off small amounts of my energy and power, affecting how I thought and felt.

What came to me next was nothing short of revolutionary.  I stopped where I was, closed my eyes, and in my head (as to not totally freak out my coworkers) I screamed, "Flame on!" In an instant I visualized my entire body and being engulfed in flames.  It was the fires of my own inner light bursting forth, Phoenix-like from the ashes, and burning off everything that wasn't innately mine.  All cords and ties that didn't originate with me were seered off, leaving me totally and completely in my own power.

The thing is that these fires were pure Love.  There was no judgement, or anger, or blame.  There was no room for those things. Just pure, ecstatic Love.  Radiant.  Self-sustaining. In fact there was no room for anyone else because this was a full, unfiltered expression of me at my essence.

This all occurred on a Friday, and for the entire weekend after performing this radical new cord-cutting method, I was totally in my own power with nary a nudge from the other party.  "How cool is that? It really worked!" I thought, until that Monday when I received a couple emails averaging around 6 pages each.  Okay. I know sometimes these things need to be repeated until they take.  I had already, very clearly and precisely, ended things with her so I didn't want to engage in more conversation.  There was nothing to converse about seeing as there was nothing between us, and doing so would only create more energetic cords tying us together.

Besides cutting energetic cords, I cut practical ones as well, blocking her from my phone, email, and Facebook, but was beginning to get a little concerned.  I started feeling  protective of myself and even a little frightened, running 'what if' scenarios in my head about what to do if she showed up on my doorstep. I tried repeating my "Phoenix Flame" method from Friday, but the flames didn't seem as strong, nor did I as lingering doubts continued to hover and drain my sense of power.

Then this morning, on my way to work I realized why I was feeling that way. The initial 'Phoenix Flame' had been solely centered on myself, regaining my power and center. She didn't even enter into that equation.  But here I was focusing on her -- getting away from her, staying safe from her.  It wasn't working now because I was giving her the power to control and affect me. She was the center of my focus and you can't cut ties with something you're focused on! Not that there aren't practical, real world concerns, but I had to refocus on my life, my path, and again take her out of the equation.  As I had learned years ago, from an episode of Brother Cadfael, there is a huge world of difference between running from something and running toward something. I had to stop running from her and running toward myself.

So I reset my bearings toward my personal North Star (Second to the right and straight on til morning), following my guidance to the path of my fullest expression, where it doesn't matter what she, or anyone else does.  This is about me -- Taking the lessons I've learned from this experience and moving forward to embrace my wholeness and power, by which this holographic world and all around me heal.

By ferocious feathered Phoenix flame

Over the world I roar my name

And all I am I boldly claim

Forever me, never the same

Reborn by fires too wild to tame

FLAME ON!