Animals and Nature, Awakening, courage, freedom, gratitude, grief, Joy, Mystery and Magic

This is what happened when I burned all my journals

Several years ago, as I was leaving my corporate job and dismantling my former life in ways both sweeping and subtle, I felt drawn to look through the many, many journals I had filled over the years, that were lined up in neat rows on my bookcase.

Some were coiled note books, others were bound in pretty covers with ribbon place markers.  There were dozens of them.

As I leafed through them, I was shocked at the level of anger, vitriol, desperation and sadness that I found on the pages.  In many cases, I couldn’t even remember what it was that I had been so upset about, what situation or person or personal belief had inspired so many pages of furious writing.  Now forgotten.

And then the light came on.

These journals were full of pain, full of self-doubt, self-loathing and anger, full of the story of me trying to control the uncontrollable, railing against the way things were, wanting my life to be different, wanting me or my boss or my husband to be different. I didn’t want to hold this pain anymore, or to make room for it on my bookshelves or in my home or in my life.

Why, I asked myself, are these journals still on my shelf?

And so, one October afternoon, following a spontaneous urge, I gathered all these notebooks up. I had several boxes of them.  I lugged them to the car.  I took a lighter with me.  Without being absolutely certain where I was going to go, I drove them to a nearby conservation area and found a picnic spot with a fire pit.  Needless to say, there wasn’t another soul around on this cold, dreary October day, I had the park to myself.

I admit that I was half expecting the Journal Police to stop me, to say “Hey, we know what you’re up to, you can’t burn those journals, who do you think you are?  Everyone knows journaling is so important, you’re going to have to keep them, forever. No one can escape their past, lady.”

So with this voice in my head, I felt like I was being furtive somehow, sneaking away, or (quite literally) breaking out of the jail of my past. I was determined that I was not bringing this past into my future, I would claw my way to freedom if I had to.

I piled a bunch of the notebooks into the fire pit and taking a deep breath, I lit them on fire.  They ignited quickly, and I felt an intense rush of emotion while they burned, something like grief, and at the same time also like joy, like liberation, and absolutely like a great weight was being lifted from me.

I felt that maybe I should pray, or dance around the fire pit singing, but I felt exposed, vulnerable and somehow lonely, so I did neither. I knew this was an offering, a sacred offering – and I cried.

In the moment when my grief abated and I could feel something like gratitude for the urge to burn these books rising up in me, as I stood there, feeding the fire with more and more notebooks, watching them burn and smoke, a single crow flew overhead.

It felt as though she was looking right at me. She saw the fire, she saw the notebooks burning.

This black crow was the only witness to my old life, my former way of being, going up in flames. 

The only one who saw what it meant for me to sacrifice the old so I could claim the future. I realized then that I wasn’t alone, that by her presence she implied that my offering was seen and received with love.

And because I saw the moment when the crow saw me, it was as though my higher self was acknowledging this liminal moment, when out of love and compassion for myself I burned away the old and chose to be reborn, to start anew and follow with hope the new life I saw glimmering on the horizon.

I sat for a while next to the smoldering ashes of my journals, poking at the charred metal coils of the notebooks with a stick…it was all gone, all gloriously gone; all record of the pain, the outmoded habits, the old stories about who I was supposed to be and how my life was supposed to look, had all been transmuted to ash, a sacred offering to the future.

Burned. Cleansed. Free.

I can see now, looking back, that that was a turning point in my life. I started a new journey then, I started walking my way back home, and in many ways writing my way back home.

I vowed then that I would never keep another journal like that and I never have.  Instead, because the urge to write is in my bones, I try to write my way towards the light and not into the spiraling darkness, that having walked through the flames I would offer my humble stories to you, who may also be arising new like a phoenix from the ashes of your old life.

May you know you are not alone.

May we all be reborn in the fire, and may there be a winged one to witness it with love.

xo Shona

 

 

 

Authenticity, Awakening, courage, Joy, Mystery and Magic

This is how a hug changed everything

I recently attended an Indigenous Peoples Drum Workshop at my local library.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I took my 9-year-old daughter, Madeleine, and we went with open minds and open hearts.  The workshop was informative, powerful and moving.  But that’s not what inspired me to write this.

After the circle, I waited to speak to the beautiful Indigenous woman from the Anishinaabe nation who had lead the circle with such power and grace.  I wanted to thank her for sharing her story, for sharing the traditions and customs of her people, and for the loving and deeply respectful way she held space for everyone in the circle.

And not surprisingly, as I spoke my words of gratitude, there were tears in my eyes.  And so, in mid-sentence, she simply opened her arms to me and gave me a hug.

And this was a hug that changed everything.

For this hug had no agenda.  

It was possibly and unexpectedly the most peaceful and profound moment I have ever experienced. I was lovingly and peacefully held in the arms of unconditional acceptance where there was space for me, just as I was.

To just be.

To be sad for all the reasons I couldn’t explain, to feel this outpouring of longing that seemed to always find it’s first expression in tears, to just be a person, a soul – held in complete and divine peace and understanding by another soul, in a library in Caledon.

This hug lasted for moments and it lasted a lifetime — until I felt a slow, healing calm taking over my body.

And as my tears subsided and we stood apart, and said goodbye, I noticed my wise daughter watching me.  She had been so uncharacteristically patient and still throughout the entire circle and its aftermath.

She said nothing, just smiled at me and took my hand.

I can tell you that in my work as a teacher and a healer and in my travels in this lifetime, I have experienced many profound moments of connection, of healing, of life-changing insights. And I have given and been the recipient of many loving hugs – as I hope you have also been.

But I have never had a hug like this before.  I have never felt so completely accepted and at peace. Or felt my fears, doubts, anger and anxiety just fall away.

It was as if – as we held each other-  we were both being held by something greater than ourselves. And we could rest there.

I realize now that I have been granted a glimpse into heaven, into something sacred or holy and larger than me or my life or my purpose or any of the things I think matter.

It’s as if I have been waiting to rest here all my life.  And the resonance of this hug hums in me still.  I am changed.

So now when I feel afraid because I can’t see the way, when I feel discouraged or impatient, or jealous or mean, I can call up the memory of that hug…and remember that even when I’m not actually being hugged, I am always seen, and loved – I am held.

We all are.

And that is the gift of the hug that changed everything.

“Held by another, held within by our own hearts, or held by a star – despite the pain and confusion and hopelessness and doubt – somehow we are already held. It’s not something we must earn or deserve or frantically search for. Held by the morning light as it comes into a room, by the song of the birds, by the imaginal world. Somehow. Already held.”
–  Matt Licata

 

Animals and Nature, Authenticity, Awakening

How a Spider Woke me up to This Powerful, Essential Truth

This past summer I was lucky to able to spend some time on the shores of a small mountain lake in British Columbia.  One hot afternoon, as I paddled my kayak past the dock and out into open water, I discovered that I had a stowaway on board.  It was a spider.

I do not generally find spiders alarming, and so I observed what unfolded next with a sense of bemused curiosity.

I quietly watched her make her way up the paddle, and onto my hand. She then crawled up my arm and onto my shoulder and then along my neck, and that was when I started to find her distracting.  I confess that I did contemplate dropping her into the lake, where she would surely have drowned, but something made me hesitate.  She was so small and fragile after all.  So instead I gently moved her to the front of the kayak.

She stayed there for only a moment and then she headed back towards me. I watched her crawl along the side of the boat, onto the paddle and up my arm back to my shoulder, as if to say “pay attention.” She then moved purposefully down my torso and onto my leg and stopped at my knee.  And there, between my bent knees, she started making a web!

As often happens when I have an unexpected encounter with an insect or animal, I laughed.

And then, as you do, when kayaking with a spider, I closed my eyes and listened.

Floating on that quiet lake with the spider, I had a flash of insight.  In the silence I heard: “I am here at your knees because you are giving birth – to yourself.  And you need to tell the story of your rebirth — to write about it.”  And I remembered that for many people spider is a symbol of creativity, especially in the areas of writing and drawing, and also an ancient symbol of death and rebirth.

It has taken me these past months to fully understand what this encounter with spider was teaching me.

A spider woke me up to a powerful, essential truth

At that time, I had just left my full-time job and was working on building the structure of my new business and my new life – so I truly was birthing a new way of being for myself in the world and struggling to find my voice and vision.  And, just as I had tried to lay the spider aside and had even considered drowning her, so too had I attempted to lay aside and drown out my own desire to write.

I yearned for creative expression and yet I had been casting about looking for an outlet, bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t paint or play the piano when all along the answer was sitting right on my shoulder whispering “hello…writing”.

And it wasn’t just the recent avoiding of writing for my website or blog that I was faced with…it was the fact that I had been putting off writing for YEARS.

It took this most gentle and tenacious of creatures to crack open the door I had closed on the creative fire inside me, to remind me that in the call to be ourselves we must give our creative gifts expression, we must let our story and our voice be heard.

To be ourselves we must make space for creative expression. We must let our story and our voice be heard.

For a long time, I didn’t think my story mattered that much.  I didn’t think anyone would want to hear it or read about it.  Mine was an average life, my struggles too trivial or certainly too private to share. My writing surely only mediocre.

What spider showed me was that we are in fact every moment giving birth to our story. And it matters.

Ted Andrews asserts that “The spider awakens creative sensibilities and reminds us that the world is woven around us and through us… just as we are the keepers and the writers of our own thoughts, so too are we the keepers and writers of our own destiny”.

Inspiration longs to come through us, in all creative forms, to allow us to weave our story into the immense design of things.  It’s a way of marking our place in the world, and each and every story and the expression of that story is important.

If you can, take the advice of a small but mighty spider:  write, draw, dance your way into the creative rhythm of nature, weave the story of your life, step into your untapped creative powers and give birth to your future.

Do you hear the small yet persistent voice of your creative force calling you? Is it time to birth a new chapter of your life full of vibrancy and meaning but you’re not sure how or where to start? Would you like to better understand the messages that nature offers you every day?

Schedule a free call with me –  I am here to help and I look forward to hearing your story!

Shona