I started writing this on the 1st April with the full intention of completing it in one sitting, posting immediately and then continuing along this very sensible track of weekly blog posts. APRIL FOOLS! Apparently, life had other ideas and here we are several weeks later, and I am yet to post anything. Oh well, ç’est la vie!
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I don’t know what has happened to me in recent months, but I feel a HUGE change within that goes beyond the seasonal procession, as if my roots, choking on a dry riverbed for so long, are finally drinking in large, satisfying gulps from a flooded stream. My leaves unfurl to the promise of the warm rays of the sun, while flowers bud and bloom along my strengthening limbs. The air is full of promise of a good season to come and every part of me smiles, responding to the beauty around me, like a bee to nectar.
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I walk quietly, picking my way around brambles and roots into a sea of wood anemones whose purple offerings glint in the scattered sunlight. I can hear the gentle chatter of falling water under the chorus of birds heralding new life. Moss covered rocks shape the small stream as it twists its way through the earth to lower ground, seeking larger bodies of water. High up on the bank across the stream, water finds its way out of the rockface, falling gently for a couple of meters before bouncing its way past fresh green ferns and darker ivy.
This is my destination. I settle down on the opposite bank from where the waterfall enters the stream and smile at the anemones bobbing their heads at me as if to say welcome, and I breathe.
I breathe in the sound of water.
I breathe in the soft, wet leaves as they move from one state, to something quite other.
I breathe in the moment and hold it all in my being.
What is the moment telling me?
A peace moves through me as steady and deep moving as a calm ocean and I realise the heaviness I have carried for so long has gone. In its place is a certainty that wonderful things are coming into my experience. I can feel them on the periphery of my field of awareness moving swiftly in my direction, drawn to me as if a magnetic force pulls us inescapably together.
The thought crosses my mind that I need to know what is coming so I can make appropriate plans and not do the wrong things with these gifts. I hear what sounds like a giggle to my right and a small creature, part leaf, part light, hovers in and out of my field of vision.
“We want you to be happy. We don’t want these gifts to be stressful and overwhelming. We want you to be able to do what you want when you want.”
I turn that over in my mind. And I see that part of me that feels I must prove myself to be deserving, that the gifts will be taken away if I don’t perform well. I examine that idea with interest and wonder where it came from.
The creature laughs again.
“You have always been deserving. There is nothing special you need to do, no program to play, you must simply be you. That is enough, quite simply enough.”
“The time has come for you to thrive” said the voice of another, “for you have walked long enough in the shadows and yet you kept your light intact, that is an achievement.”
I feel humbled and snuggle into the goodness residing within. I drink in the feeling of freedom and open my hands to the sky. My palms ignite, a pulsing force pushing through them as I welcome in the gifts, swept up in a wave of light.
…
More time has passed. Am I ever going to finish this piece of writing?
I suppose I will one day, and one day is as good as the next. After all everything has its timing, the right moment to be received and my inner knowing can see that moment far better than I can. Just be present, step by step, moment to moment and so you dance the great story of life.
I am reminded of a story from my time in Brazil.
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We had for some weeks been performing almost daily ceremonies on our land along with a group visiting from South Africa. One of the group, called Nixiwaka, had taken it upon himself to become the fire keeper for the ceremonies. He had learnt the ways of the sweat lodge and fire from the Lakota and was very keen to implement this knowledge with us during ceremony.
This began to cause tension within the group because I, for one, regularly felt called by the fire at some point in ceremony to gently tend to it (as I know others did too). This, however, was forbidden, according to the rules Nixiwaka took great pains to repeatedly explain to us. Only the fire keeper should touch the fire in ceremony, for the fire keeper has performed all the appropriate rituals along the way to give thanks to the earth, trees and fire for its blessing.
I understood from an intellectual level what he was saying but it still didn’t feel right to me. I loved those moments with the fire in ceremony, they felt so intimate, and I was sure the fire appreciated them as much as I did.
I respect the traditions of people across the world, but I also recognise that a tradition begins because of someone’s personal connection with something that seems to demonstrate some form of power. Over time a practice grows from this, and others see and want to learn so that they too may have a chance to access the power they witness. And so a tradition is born but it always begins with someone and their personal relationship with something or someone else, implying that the personal relationship is the important point, the essence, not the following tradition.
I didn’t want to keep fighting with Nixiwaka but I also didn’t want to just accept his rules without deeper thought and further consultation, so I decided that during the next ceremony I would ask the fire directly.
We settled in for ceremony a couple of nights later. The forest was alive with the sound of frogs, crickets and who knows what else slithered and roamed around the jungle at night. After years living here, I had never known it to be quiet.
As Yawabane sang the ancient songs of his people, calling in the ancestors and spirits of the forest to aid in our healing work, I could feel the medicine spreading through me, touching every cell of my physical body and extending out further and further through the rest of me.
I settled into the feeling and brought my full attention to the fire that crackled and called before me. I held the questions that had been churning within, waiting for them to settle so that I could see them clearly and speak with clarity.
“I would like to understand Nixiwaka’s position better please” I asked the fire and it flared up, quick to respond.
It took me on a journey through an aeon where I saw a woman sleeping. As she slept shadows crept in and she seemed to be blocked from the light of remembering, or from the spirit world if that makes more sense to you. But, there remained small threads, points of connection all around her body, connecting her to spirit. These threads were so fine that they were hardly perceptible. We travelled along several of them, and fire showed me many things and I came to understand that in this long time of being asleep these small points of connection to spirit were kept open and protected by traditions, even against great persecution, they kept these portals alive and open.
I bowed my head in reverence and understanding. I could now appreciate how much these traditions were needed during this time of shadowed sleep, and I honoured them and all the keepers of traditions for their courage and perseverance.
I was deeply moved and felt I understood Nixiwaka better now.
“Thank you for showing me this and giving me this understanding. I have one more question.”
The fire flared and sparked again as if to say, ask.
“Is this for me, now in this moment? Do I need to follow these traditions with the fire?”
And this time the fire spoke directly to me, audibly, rising up in mighty spirit form before my very eyes.
“No! Absolutely not!”
The answer was so immediate and so strong it took me aback. After my previous visions I was prepared to accept the wisdom of the fire keeper and strive to learn from him, but this was clearly not what the fire wanted from me.
“That was for a time past but now things are different. This is a time of flow where you are all being asked to know who you are and be ever present in that awareness. Within the flow of life everything is in perfect alignment. If I want someone to feed me I will give them the nudge to do so and if they are in the flow they will hear it” the fire explained.
“But what if they aren’t in the flow and create chaos instead? That is what Nixiwaka has told me many times, that without the traditions and rules it becomes chaotic” I asked.
“Do not fear chaos. Within the flow there is only a perfect pattern, an order that might seem chaotic at times but is in fact perfectly part of the grand design. There is nothing to fear, there is only order within the flow – although it might not look like it from your perspective.”
The words from fire struck me deep within my being and I knew them to be true but still I turned everything over in my mind to make sure I was seeing all angles. If someone is not present in themselves and the flow of life, they might start putting more wood on the fire senselessly and I can see how that could become annoying.
“If it becomes annoying you must ask yourself, why is it annoying?” answered Fire, “and once you have examined the answer to that question you can ask yourself if you really need to do something about it or not?”
I bowed again in gratitude for this mighty lesson, so clearly given and I felt my kinship with fire deepen.
So, with that in mind I am letting go of the self-imposed pressure to write in a particular way about particular things. Also, I let go of the idea that I must post at precisely regular intervals, like everyone else does – ludicrous.
Tomorrow is the 1st June and I started this post on the 1st April and you know what, that’s ok. I have been busy these past two months and I have enjoyed all the things I have been doing, learning, creating, exploring, experiencing, loving and at the end of the day, that’s what matters.
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