In Uncertain Times

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I don’t care for uncertainty. I want to know everything is going to be okay. But living as a human on planet Earth is full of uncertainty. Impermanence is also a part of this existence. And that’s the good news because this confusing and troubling time will pass.

Though there is comfort in impermanence, there is also sadness. We have lost loved ones, pets, jobs and intangible things like trust. Impermanence also clears the way for new things to come into our lives as well as the passing of these trying times. And maybe it’s in the midst of these trying times something new can be born because in these moments of uncertainty, possibility lives.

What is possible in this particular moment when we can’t pretend to know what will happen? I don’t like the way it feels, but that’s only because I want certainty. What happens if I let go of wanting things to turn out a certain way? I would have to try it to find out. The thing is I don’t  I can. But if I don’t let go of this moment, how can I live the next one? I see how people can get stuck.

There have been times when I’ve stepped out onto the path that wasn’t there. I’ve walked into the darkness and trusted. But this time feels different. This time I feel the ending more than I feel the possibility. This time I feel the next step is into grief and not the next adventure. And maybe that’s exactly where I need to be. Maybe it’s where we all need to be.

I’m not saying there is no joy to be found in this place, but we need to feel the pain of endings in order to also feel the joy of possibility that will lead us to what is next. Perhaps grief is the path.

And I’m not saying this is the end of everything, but there are many endings right now on this planet and we’ve tried to ignore them. We’ve been unsuccessful in doing so if our general malaise is any indication…if this virus is any indication. A friend said something about this. Perhaps we’re getting sick because we are already sick…sick and tired, exhausted by all that is going on and by the uncertainty of it all.

I don’t like uncertainty. But what is certain is the impermanence of everything on this physical plane and probably beyond until you get to the very ground of being that sustains all. She is the womb of possibility. Within Her, uncertainty lives. She gives birth to the light that becomes everything and is ever changing. She is always there. In the changing seasons, in the changing times, in the changing relationships, in the changing we realize what is real.

All is changing now and has always been. Some changes feel scary, but that’s because we don’t like the uncertainty. If we can learn to let go and flow with Her, maybe we’ll find ourselves finally in the calm center that was always in our beating hearts. Not easy to do sometimes, especially in moments like these. When you’re afraid, you feel as though you can’t breathe. Let’s take a collective breath and know Her love is the air we breathe with the wings of this gift called life.

Bless the Past

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I’ve been delving into the past more lately. The memories rise up as I work on the memoir. My friend Crow shows up at the beginning and end of the story. I’m exploring the time between the five years before my father died and the time I left Nova Scotia to come here to California to be with my soon-to-be husband.

So much would unfold in those years. Those growing years rushed by until they didn’t. Stagnation set in after my father died. It took me a long time to emerge from the confusion and even now, I find myself drifting along though the book will end with my realization of self-agency.

I bless the past even with all its challenges and sorrows. It couldn’t have unfolded any other way. We all reacted and responded in the only way we could at the time. To see it in retrospect allows you to realize this if you let it.

Too often we kick ourselves for not having done something else. But if we had done something else, there is so much that would have never been. As I let that settle into my bones, I realize we can let retrospection be the pathway to forgiveness. We can open our hearts and accept what was and finally bless the past for it brought us to this moment.

And in this moment the sun is shining and the birds and bees are zooming by my window in a place I love. In this moment all is renewed. Spring is stirring in the wind and in my heart. I can look back now and see all the blessings that will carry me forward.

Forgiveness Is In the Cards

My husband and I did a tarot reading for the U.S. for 2020. We do one every year, and it’s always interesting. This year was no different. There were a lot of great insights, but the biggest takeaway for me was our collective difficulty with forgiveness. We’ve become a culture of revenge. Forgiveness is seen as being weak. The thing is it takes a great deal of strength and courage to truly forgive.

To forgive is to let go and that was the overall sense of the reading. We must let go, of everything and let what is waiting to be born come through. But we can’t seem let go. We can’t forgive even ourselves because of fear. We are caught in a trap of our own making.

And it’s not just about forgiving our enemies. It’s about forgiving ourselves for the perception of so many fellow Americans as the enemy. We’re stuck in “us against them thinking.” It’s become the lens through which we view everything. Everywhere we turn, there is someone out to get us, take away our freedoms, tell us what to do…and on and on.

I’m not talking about letting go of all boundaries we set to live healthy, productive lives. I’m talking about emptying out and letting go of all our concepts and expectations. It’s the only way the new can emerge. From this place we can make true boundaries that give us and others the space to be who we really are.

And we don’t have to forget to forgive. To let go is not about forgetting. It’s being able to let the past into our heart and let it be what it was. To wish it were some other way is to be stuck in a time that didn’t exist, a limbo, a kind of purgatory where nothing moves forward and so cannot transform.

Not only do we wish the past was different, we also have a tendency to hold onto the idea that the way it is is the way it will always be. We lock ourselves into a life that doesn’t have to exist. It’s time to let everything go. Even the idea that this is what we must do.

Let us collectively take this next breath, this next step off the proverbial cliff together. The sacred feminine has been nudging us for years to do this. She has spiraled through our bodies, our minds and our lives reminding us of who we are individually and collectively. She is the dark mother who has pulled the veil over us and brought the darkness that is full of potential.

We are being giving the chance to be reborn. It is in the dark we grow. Like an embryo or seed. We need the dark, the messy. In the unknown something else can be born.

It seems dark right now in the negative sense because so many are afraid of her healing womb of uncertainty. Many are reacting badly to this and have been for a very long time. We’ve gone in and out of dark times and always they are filled with potential. They can be times of healing and transformation if we let them be.

We can rend the veil when we finally let go of the world we have created. It needs to die. It no longer is working for most and in the end for no one...I don’t think it ever did. We created something in our hubris, thinking we were the masters of the Universe. And we won’t know how truly powerful we are until we let go of this false sense of power.

Our power lies in the dark deep within us. It is She who is the dark energy that spirals and spins and forms the dark matter, the foundation of all that exists. She gives birth to the light emanating in all directions from this dark center of being. We are that light, and we are the dark from which it comes.

We are and we are becoming…always. The dance never ends. She never stops giving birth and transforming and no matter what we choose (the reading we did ends with a card about restriction) She will transform it all anyway. We may not be ready to do the work of truly letting go just yet, and that will have its consequences.

But She is infinite potential and that lives within us. Therein lies our hope. Death throes aren’t the end of the story. The death of one thing is the birth of another.

Forgiveness is the key to our freedom. The word forgive means to give up the desire to punish. We’ve lived in a space of vengeance and hate for too long. To forgive in the greatest sense is to allow, to become open, to become free. Freedom was the desire of our ancestors in this country. Let us be rid of the sense that we need to punish, get rid of others in order to experience freedom. She is giving us the opportunity to open up and experience true freedom. We need only become the fool our reading began with and take a chance, step out into the unknown and begin again.

What If We Truly Loved the World?

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For we so loved the word we gave it our attention and in tending it we flourished.

The irises are blooming. The hills are greening. The mocking birds are singing. The caterpillars are eating and eating. All is flourishing as we near Imbolc, the time of the first inklings of spring.

I know there are many places that are buried under snow for the next couple of months, but even there as the sun is rising ever higher in the sky; even there life is stirring beneath the frozen ground.

Life is stirring within us, too. We can’t help but feel the primal force of life moving in our veins and rousing our souls.

But sometimes we block this force and look past all the beauty rising and ever becoming on this planet. Can we come back down to Earth and pour our attention over the land as it is about to be rebirthed? Through giving our attention we receive the beauty. In tending to the land, to the little bit of Earth upon which we live, it is love that will flourish. Love for each form Life takes and for the whole planet. And in feeling that love we too flourish.

We live in a world shadowed by our inattention. It is dark, but so is the womb. May we take this dark night of the World Soul and use it to rest, bring ourselves back to ourselves and the Earth. We need the darkness in order to bring the light.

May we plant our feet on ground made hallowed by our attention and tending. Our consciousness is the sun rising ever higher in the sky, warming all it touches. When we truly love the world, it will flourish again as we unfurl our being and bring our light of becoming. We live inside a holy moment. All we need do is notice it.

The Wisdom of the Witch

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Wisdom is knowledge and experience woven into our being. A witch is both weaver and unraveler. She knows when to embody something and when to release it. She catches the sun in her web and becomes the moon. Her light is a torch unto others.

This vision of the witch is mine. It is my intention to gather all the parts of myself and weave and unravel as needed in 2020. This year is the one in which I move along my path with great intention and awareness. For the first time I feel as though I am truly claiming my life and taking full responsibility for the past, present and future. I finally offer this gift to myself.

Now if I drift, I do so with the intention to feel my way through. If I find myself cowering, I do so knowing I can take a moment to find courage. If I find myself worrying, I walk with it allowing it to teach me what I need.

There is no going back. The path is as clear as I make it, and mystery will still walk alongside me. Mystery is the shadow that dances in the light. It is the space between breaths and moments. The witch watches and waits. She wears silence like a cloak. The cloak sometimes smothers sometimes covers like a starlit sky. Either way, silence is both doorway and container. The witch knows when to gestate and when to open up and enter the bottomless well. She knows how to fall because she knows there is no ground. It is in the ground of her being she finds support.

Let us all fall into 2020 with intention. Let our intentions become wings and may these wings support not only ourselves, but one another.

Welcome 2020!