Seeing through more of the illusion
If I thought my life imploded after our trip to Sark, little did I appreciate what might happen after a trip to Carnac, immersing myself in the magic of its neolithic landscape and enjoying time out from the usual routine.
I arrived back on a Sunday and by the Tuesday I was fully immersed in the washing machine of life, not quite sure which spin and how long it may last but being challenged in every area of my life.
I know I’m not alone though. The universe has ramped things up and last week we were all going through it in some way or form. if we’re not aligned with our truth, then the universe is intervening and re-aliging us. This is rarely a pleasant experience. It’s like having our roots tugged up and being planted somewhere else in the garden. It is pointless trying to hold on, just causes us more suffering. But the letting go into the unknown, allowing a different view, settling into new soil, well it’s all a little challenging.
Life has certainly been challenging. Tuesday my gentle and kind uncle sadly passed and we made the difficult decision to take our slightly traumatised youngest son out of the school system, for now at least. There were a few other things that asked me to dig deeper and be clear about my boundaries. It was one of those days. One of endings and new beginnings simultaneously, when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry and are reminded of the paradoxical nature of life. Death is rarely welcomed, until it eases suffering. Home schooling is not easy, but neither is watching a child suffering.
I watched my uncle’s breath a long time. How the body can slowly shut down but the breathe carries on. Until it can’t carry on anymore, until there’s no energy for breath. My cousin and I talked about these transitions, the one of death and birth, when you’re not sure when it’s going to happen, what comes next. There’s waiting, waiting for something to change, for the contractions to increase or the breath to change, something that indicates that the shift is happening, that birth or death is imminent.
These are transition times. Nothing is ever the same again. There’s before and after. There was before Carnac and there was after. Places can offer us a death and a birthing simultaneously. Part of us dies so that the new can be born and life is never quite the same again - more of the illusion of who we thought we were, of ego identification drops away. My life has been full of dragonflies, here in the garden when I was practising yoga before I left for Carnac. In Carnac itself. The dolmen of illusions was surrounded by them, it was kind of funny, and even coming back here, more dragon flies in the garden. You know life is going to change when you see dragon flies, they are the master of illusions.
I am grateful to the practice because without that I’m not sure how one maintains one ‘s centre and grounding, how one can ride the rough and the smooth, the births and the deaths. I always remember my yoga teacher saying that our yoga practice is preparing us for a good death, because it is teaching us (in theory) to let go. Certainly I have had to do a lot of letting go recently. But death really, is the ultimate letting go. And this into the unknown. I watched my uncle and I realised how hard it truly is, to take that last breath and slip away, slip away, slip away.
It’s the unknown, we have such a hard time settling into this. I’ve blogged about this before, because often we want certainly, we want a guarantee of outcome, we want to know how it all turn out so that we can feel as if we are in control, assured that we are safe, come what may. Life isn’t like that though. It throws us curved balls, to remind us that we are never in control.
That said, I had a sense that all this change was coming, that it was my uncle’s time and that Eben needed a change, that we were trying to live one foot in each camp and running ourselves ragged in the process. For now at least. This is one of my mantras of late. For now. Today. Because tomorrow we might do things differently. Nothing is certain. Nothing is forever. Always there is the possibility…and more potential…and greater alignment to truth…as one comes to know more of one’s Self with a capital S.
Thursday the cycle ended and I was hung out to dry, exhausted. We were all exhausted. Friday was my birthday, a strange one this year, a day of water, of tears and rain, of swimming and surfing, of visiting a dolmen and getting out to the fairy ring, of solitude on my mat and sociability with the boys and family and of playing chess with a good friend. It was a little bit of everything I love, but tinged with the apprehension and uncertainty of the unknown, of wanting things to be different this year and beginning as I mean to go on, surrendering to whatever the universe brings and letting go of the small voice that talks of fear.
It interests me how my clients go through phases of needing the same Bach flower remedy. This week it has been Red Chestnut. Even I dowsed it for myself today as if proving the theme. Red Chestnut is is for people who feel fear for the well-being of others, for example the husband who is afraid when his wife goes out alone after dark or the mother fretting over what may happen to her child at school.
Red Chestnut fears are natural, normal concerns magnified to the point where they have a negative effect on the people who are the object of concern, undermining their confidence and self-belief. When we are in this state the remedy helps us send out calm, unworried thoughts to our loved ones, so that instead of making everyone anxious we are rocks on whom others lean.
We are going through a collective period of concern. Because the world has gone mad. We are living in a way that is out of harmony with our true nature. This morning on the Spiritual Love-liness course, we were using dowsing charts and my dowsing indicated that I carry a sense of hopelessness on a sub-conscious level. It’s shown up before. And there is a hopelessness, simply because of the state of the world. The planet doesn't concern me too much as I know that she will take care of herself, but humanity. Where are we going, what kind of world are we creating for our children, how are we shaping their minds and perception of reality?
I have to trust that we will all be aligned in a way that benefits all of humanity. That harmony is possible. That if we all do the work to be loving and kind, to live true to our heart and soul, to let go of our limiting conditioning and the binds of society as society has become, which tries to make life known and certain, squashing our spirit in the process, then we can create a humanity which sees beyond the illusion of money and power as being the only way, and find something much simpler and magical in the innocence of our lives, in those moments where we watch a sunset or witness a baby born or hold someone’s hand as they die. That these are the moments we capture deep in our hearts, that make us who we truly are, reminding us of the sacredness of our time here on Planet Earth.
Life is changing as we know it. We always have a choice. Are we going to let spirit guide us or are we going to cling on to what is known? There is no such thing as good and bad, right and wrong, that’s all in the mind. There is only this moment and the next and the one after that too. How we live is up to us. The Capricorn full moon is pulling out the stops. Pay attention. Dive deep. Breath. Notice the patterns and lets all set ourselves free, letting go of more of the illusion of how we think it should be to let something far more magical in instead.
Love Emma x
