SOLAR ECLIPSE: Compelled toward CHOICE

22 Feb 2016 2 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Holidays, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

solar eclipse embodiedA Solar Eclipse happens the morning of March 9th, 2016. Energetically this is a moment of profound choice that will deeply affect your fate for the next 19 years.

When I read that statement, my body tingled and sprouted goosebumps.

The event is the equivalent of a monumental power surge supporting transitions. Actually, forcing is the better word. In this crucible of opportunity we are forced to choose only one specific and critically important area of focus in order to make use of the energy.

In recent months I’ve felt a minor irritation, like a wasp circling my head, not too close but close enough that I can’t fully relax into my life. I’ve noticed uncertainties toward specific writing goals and family relationships. The questions spin through my mind, searching but finding no answers.

In the past, these sensations have preceded major adjustments to the status quo. Evolution cannot remain static. It’s essential to listen to the sounds pounding in the psyche, the discomforts rattling through the nervous system calling attention to the need for change. On one hand, the past offers a familiar path, the karmic conditions that dictated what life looked like before. Slipping into old patterns is tempting. But ahead, in the strange mystery of the future lies limitless growth. It challenges everything and promises only to pay your experiences forward with wisdom and empathy.

solar eclipse islandMarch 9th is also Nyepi, the Balinese New Years Day. It follows a night of chaotic wildness as dark spirits are driven out and the island experiences a re-set of benign peace. The eclipse and Nyepi taken together are formidable in their potential for effecting transformation.

It’s entirely probable that this supercharged moment provides the ideal frequency to connect with life’s purpose and core soul unity, part of the answer to Why Am I Here.

On the morning of March 9th as the sun disappears and utter quiet reigns over the island, planes grounded, the airport closed, people confined to their homes for silent meditation and reflection, I’ll sit in waiting, acknowledging the power of wounds, empty spaces and the sacred darkness, refusing to re-live those wounds or identify with them. But as I sit, will I contract with the universe to discard karmic patterns and re-assert my agency in the process of consciously driven evolution? Will I re-examine my belief systems, questioning roles, rules, and narratives I have held as sacred, unquestionable, or absolute? Will I release and walk away from anyone or anything that isn’t on my energetic wavelength? Will I trust my intuition, gut instincts, imagination and dreams?

Will I resolve to do only what is mine to do?

I’m excited and more than a little apprehensive. I’ve enjoyed four years of deep healing and explosive joy, unequaled by anything in my former life. It’s been a time of sacred idleness, a holy reprieve and I sense the chapter ahead will stretch me. On March 9th I’ll seal my fate for the next nineteen years. Will I lean into the unknown, embrace fears and plunge headlong into the vortex of change? Or will I stagnate, immobilized by the immensity of my own power to choose?

 

Credits:  Quoted text from an article, The Eclipse – Another Roll of the Dice, by Lorna Bevan

Image #1  –  http://www.globallightminds.com

Image #2  –  Holly Sierra, American Magical Realism Painter

 

 

Drinking from Blackwater Pond

08 Jan 2015 5 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Poetry Tags: , , , , , ,

black-water-pond-john-gusky

black-water-pond-john-gusky

Mornings at Blackwater
by Mary Oliver

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.
And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.

And live
your life.

I may have said this before, Mary Oliver is my hero. She surprises me. She uses common words in uncommon ways so I have to pay attention. I can’t get lazy and just assume I know where she’s going.

This poem is particularly significant as Ms. Oliver speaks of ‘the dry bowl of the very far past,’ and ‘the river of your imagination…the harbor of your longing.’ Then she urges that you ‘put your lips to the world and live your life.’

What I love about this is that you realize from her beginning stanza that the world is Blackwater Pond. It isn’t clean or clear. Rather, the trees weep their leaves into it’s depths. Wild creatures swim and feed in it’s murkiness. It’s gritty and real, and this is what she suggests that we put to your lips and drink. 

When we do that, as she did every day, you connect with the present and move beyond the distresses of the past. You begin to see things differently, to imagine, and to dream, until finally you are capable of making different choices. You begin to live your life.

Give yourself permission to let go of whatever is holding you back. Don’t allow the past, or your perception of the present, or your mistrust of the future, to confine you.  Your life can be so much bigger than that.

 

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