-
Thank you Lorie. I feel the truth of all you shared here. I know the central importance of that “but” – that the practices and tools to re-gain perspective and re-center are essential, and I experience them as all the more valuable after I have let them slide.
I think you’re right, too, that loving and open-hearted community is another support, possibly the greatest, to have in our alchemical tool kits. It’s an edge for me to reach for it in this way. To show up raw, vulnerable and unfiltered. Not pleasing or nurturing others or sharing insight, but rather sharing my pain and disorientation. It’s both frustrating to do it online and feels safer as well because I can use the written word rather than my voice. But I think its a step in the direction of more open-heartedness and, I hope, more heart-centered connection.
I’m reminded as I do some of the Fire reading in Kigo and 5 Spirits how central the coming and going of my spark of shen is to the dance I described above. Leaving myself, losing my way – my most painful moments – are when my Fire has sputtered out. I am lovingly and consciously tending that energy in myself this week and reaching for things that spark joy and connection. It’s still not always landing. But sometimes it is 🙂