Blessings of a Shadowed Moon

Photo by Anders Jildén

My husband roused me early this morning to see the blood red moon. The eclipse was already underway as the shadowed moon at its fullest was setting. It was as though Luna’s brilliant reflective light was turned to blood by the Earth’s shadow, our shadow.

But blood isn’t just about woundedness and death. There is blood at birth too. Out of the pain and struggle something new is born. But first the shadow must rise and be seen. This is the nature of healing, the nature of being reborn.

As I lay down again to rest a while longer, I thought about the challenges the world is dealing or not dealing with. We as a whole seem to be casting a large shadow across our own reflective light. These thoughts lead me to wonder if somewhere in all this are the words that want to be born through me.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s Waiting on Wingbeats & Stars blog, I am waiting on the words. My goal for this year was to write and publish articles, but all the ideas I have come out stillborn. And then yesterday I realized the healing I’ve been doing has brought what it is I am to write closer and closer to the surface. Sharing my story like I’ve been doing here is a part of it, but I sense there is more.

As we heal we release our soul’s potential. Any blockage you feel is something to be healed. The shadow you cast upon your inner reflective light is simply that which you don’t want to acknowledge. It could be something you don’t like about yourself or something you want to love, but don’t feel good enough or worthy enough to step into.

So I will wait on those wingbeats and stars and I will continue to know I am good enough, that I am not my circumstances but the light that is reflected in my heart.

Time is the Wind Time is a Mountain

Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash

The trees are rustled by the wind, a fleeting breeze passing through. For a moment the trees get to dance and shake loose the leaves they no longer need.

In the distance, the mountains rise against sky, have been there for ages. Life comes and goes upon them. They still stand.

For a brief time we are here, standing on a spinning planet that will go on long after we’re gone. The brevity of a breeze, the longevity of a mountain, our time here must pass as though it were both.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how I live my life. I’m afraid I’ll run out of time to do all the things I want to do and yet I feel weighed down and unable to gather my energy to do those things. I move in slow motion. Time passes and I look back not seeing what I want to leave behind. The mountain is not rising.

And then I remember time is subjective. In order to live life with all of its ebbs and flows I need to see it as both the wind and the mountain. It is both fleeting and stretches infinitely before me.

To live as though time were infinite, a mountain standing steady through the ages, is to give yourself time to breathe and take in the gift of being here. There is no need to rush. There is enough time and what you accomplish today is enough even if you only got out of bed and spent the day staring out the window at wind through trees and mountains. Today the air is clear. I can see the mountains and know that the eternal is right here where I am.

The wind passes quickly and then all is still again. To live as though time were but a brief moment is to remind yourself to make the most of each day. I’ve learned not to rush, but I also know tomorrow isn’t a mountain but a breeze that may or may not pass through.

What both of these ways of living do is make me aware that now is what I have. Now is both fleeting and eternal. We are all just a wink in time and of the eons of galaxies, exploding stars and the dark and light beyond. Time stretches before us. How we choose to view it, to use it is up to us.

In every moment make time what you need it to be in order to heal. Today I see it as a mountain that will stand for an eternity. I’ll let it pass as it will without having to grasp it. I rest in the ever present now and let the mystery be.

Why Cauldron of Healing?

A cauldron is a container in which things are transformed by the heat of fire. The fire represents those experiences that help us grow. Our life is the cauldron, the container our soul uses to heal, transform and free us. Here is what I mean by freedom.

Freedom is to enter life more fully,

not to escape it.

Freedom is to enter the body more fully,

not to transcend it.

Freedom is to enter the moment more fully,

not to move beyond it.

Freedom is…

yours.

Cauldron of Healing

The fire brings changes.

Life brings changes.

The wood burns and I with it.

There is no other light but that

which burns within.

The cauldron bears the heat.

All within breaks down just enough

for something new to be born.

I am stirred.

My emotions, my sense of balance

stirred until something else begins.

The heat. The fire. Soon…

the moment of my rebirth.

Joanne Young Elliott ©2016

 

My Heart My Mother

 My heart, my mother. My heart, my mother. My heart of my becoming.

~ Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead

I once asked my mother to check if my heart was still beating. I was about six and it was late at night. I got up from bed feeling anxious about my heart. My mother touched my chest and assured me my heart was still beating.

When in the womb our hearts are started by the electrical energy of our mother’s hearts. Once born it seemed I still needed my mother to remind me my heart was beating. Now she’s not here and my heart is anxious and it is breaking. I know I need to let it break so I can put myself back together. Hovering between broken and not broken just prolongs the pain, keeps it alive, but it also reminds me that I am alive.

My heart will lead me. It will remind me of who I am and of who I am becoming. It’s the mother of my being, it’s where the Mother lives and now it is where my mother lives.

As I lay my hand over my chest and feel the steady rhythm of life pulsing within me, I relax. My heart is still beating. I’m still here. My life is still unfolding in perfect time to the music of the Universe.

Now, I can breathe. To swim through the emotion and let it find its way onto the page brings solace and healing. May your heart lead you to peace and joy.

Why Cauldron of Healing?

A cauldron is a container in which things are transformed by the heat of fire. The fire represents those experiences that help us grow. Our life is the cauldron, the container our soul uses to heal, transform and free us. Here is what I mean by freedom.

Freedom is to enter life more fully,

not to escape it.

Freedom is to enter the body more fully,

not to transcend it.

Freedom is to enter the moment more fully,

not to move beyond it.

Freedom is…

yours.

Cauldron of Healing

The fire brings changes.

Life brings changes.

The wood burns and I with it.

There is no other light but that

which burns within.

The cauldron bears the heat.

All within breaks down just enough

for something new to be born.

I am stirred.

My emotions, my sense of balance

stirred until something else begins.

The heat. The fire. Soon…

the moment of my rebirth.

Joanne Young Elliott ©2016

The Urn of Forgiveness

In the late Old English sense, to forgive is “to give up the desire or power to punish.” Today, I feel as though I have given up the desire to be angry at my mother. These old wounds have yet to heal, but I know I won’t feel truly fulfilled and whole until I am able to fully forgive. There seems to be fine balance between healing and forgiveness. When I heal, I’ll be able to forgive, and forgiveness is the balm that brings healing.

A few years ago, I did some deep work around forgiveness and reached a point of understanding there was nothing to forgive when it came to my mother for she came from of place of woundedness. In these past few months I realized I had only reached an intellectual understanding of this. My heart had not given up the anger.  

But today, I’m tired of the fight. I engage shadows of the past to no avail except to keep the anger alive. To what end? Perhaps I just need to feel all those old feelings that I suppressed. And I have felt many of them in these past few months. Today, I stop resisting and simply let all I feel rise as it will.

I know part of what has held me back, kept me from fulfilling my potential is the anger and hurt. To forgive will allow me to move on into the life I’ve always wanted. It begins in the heart as I always say. I forgot this for a while. We can’t forgive in our minds because it is the heart that is hurting. The heart lives outside of time and space and so there is no putting a limit on how long it will take to heal. It’s a matter of letting it be as it is. We can offer it reason. Sometimes that perspective can help. But mostly we simply need to let it be. One day you’ll find yourself watching the clouds drift across the sky and feel as though the sun has finally emerged within.

Why Cauldron of Healing?

A cauldron is a container in which things are transformed by the heat of fire. The fire represents those experiences that help us grow. Our life is the cauldron, the container our soul uses to heal, transform and free us. Here is what I mean by freedom.

Freedom is to enter life more fully,

not to escape it.

Freedom is to enter the body more fully,

not to transcend it.

Freedom is to enter the moment more fully,

not to move beyond it.

Freedom is…

yours.

Cauldron of Healing

The fire brings changes.

Life brings changes.

The wood burns and I with it.

There is no other light but that

which burns within.

The cauldron bears the heat.

All within breaks down just enough

for something new to be born.

I am stirred.

My emotions, my sense of balance

stirred until something else begins.

The heat. The fire. Soon…

the moment of my rebirth.

Joanne Young Elliott ©2016