Life is a spiral. Truly. It feels like that proverbial onion because of our linear dimension experience here. But if we step back and look, it is a spiral, just like our DNA, and most everything else in nature. We visit, revisit, and revisit the many perspectives of life on our turn around the spiral, which is where our growth occurs. Hah – if we dare to go there. Embrace the different perspectives and we move up the spiral. Deny them, and we remain in that oh so uncomfortable, even raw place until we see the wisdom that Life is trying to show. And the wisdom is always so much easier and more graceful than what we have been holding on to. But because it is “the unknown,” we sometimes go kicking and screaming. This time of year, as we celebrate “ dead things” - the passing of people, experiences, and the passages of life from one season to the next, I share my own experience on this glorious spiral in this word and photo collage.
the “things that happened”
things that go
bump
in the night
day
dream
welcome to my
nightmare
As a child, experiences caused me to believe I was a host of bad things that I most definitely was not. But I had no context of being anything different. Life early on was not safe – to be me, to be seen, to be present, to learn to be a powerful, connected being. I became a master magician of being invisible and creating ways to leave – my body, situations, relationships, life. Checking out on multiple levels.
Life catches
you
up
the ladder
or maybe you slip
down
for a bit
until you find the
rungs
of who you are
So I visited an inner place over the last few years where, for a time, I didn't care to live anymore because there was nothing there recognizable as what I knew to be “me.” Life had excavated a path to my core and prepared me to receive the truth of me.
Closing a full healing practice and returning to my home town to help my parents was a huge leap of faith. I went grievingly, grudgingly, and terrified. My father was my hero and our close relationship had changed since I became an adult and moved away. Something was up with him, as he was no longer the immensely capable and brilliant being I had always know. Being with him and helping him in the last two years of his life as he descended into Alzheimer's was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. Healing lifelong turmoil with my mother was an even greater gift, but it required going into the mouth of the dragon to create this possibility for both of us. Standing up to the dragon, slaying the dragon, and eventually seeing that there had never been a dragon there to begin with. Just people with people issues, doing family relationship things. I was with her as her memory was compromised by the beginning stages of dementia.
Returning to Boulder after three years, I found everything had changed (except it was really mostly I had changed). I never gave myself time to "be" and unravel my life of the past three years. Still processing my father's death and the (not yet seen as amazing) shift I'd experienced in reclaiming the true self of my childhood, I did what I did best, what I had done most of my life
Run
Pain is adrenaline
drug
where is the Earth
where are my feet
and where am I
I cannot feel
me
The terror of uncertainty. The mastery of running – from myself, from life, from people, from authenticity, truth. I created an opportunity in Florida and I ran toward things I told myself would be beneficial. Huh, I found the same shit – the same damn luggage waiting for me. It leapt across the entire continent. A great experience in many ways, many wonderful people who are dear friends. And some very toxic people and toxic situations that I allowed to take me further down into that well of despair – which was my healing pool in disguise. Still we pretended everything was wonderful, we were successful, we were wanted. We were good enough. It was all okay... La la la la...
Let's just drag this invisible fucked-up luggage along with all my other possessions across country yet again, back to Boulder via Savannah, GA (actually a wonderful experience and friends there). However, Santa Fe was the ending destination, out of curiosity and the suggestions of two friends. And I got "stuck" there. A lot of learning wrapped up in 17 months of more life challenges - I'm clearly a slow learner in some ways.
“Hello, this is your Soul speaking, it's time to move back into your body and live your life as who you truly are.”
Couldn't face it. Had no context of who or what that was.
Return to Boulder/Longmont. This time, much of that luggage had been left behind, burned in the fires of self-transformation. Eight months later, and the deepest Soul Work I have ever done, working directly with my Soul and Source Energy, some amazing individuals of the Earth Angel/Healer variety, and some perfectly orchestrated Life experiences, including a seeming toxic reaction to cannabis, I feel for the first time, truly who I am. It is a brand-new, amazing, gently powerful feeling. The Love in the air, Mother Earth, Father Sky. In the beautiful beings who co-habitate this amazing planet with me – regardless of their personal beliefs, political or religious alliances, what their meat suit (as a friend calls it) looks like or the human quirkiness (no, I have not lost any of those things). I “see” and experience things much differently. I am the originator of my cosmos - everything originates within me. Early on I prayed to the Deities, Angels, Masters outside of me, giving me guidance and encouraging pats on the head. That perception fell away several years ago. But now, the experience comes from One Source within.
Pain is the
Path
Medicine
Chalice
holding
awareness
Pain is the
Passage
Imprisonment
or Freedom?
Resist the deep dive
it is still there, constantly
insistently
Calling
Meanwhile, back to the Spiral. A couple of weeks ago, I spent the entire weekend photographing Mother Earth in her own Transition – a Passage of Life – as she moves from Fall to Winter. Into that perceived Great Good Night – which is merely a shift in perception. What I saw astounded me – in “death” the spiral exists as well, as you will see in the photo collage I created from that weekend.
The following poem I wrote many years ago, early on my healing journey, and it truly captures this new expansion.
I Breathe
I am a spiral
a vortex spinning, melding, bending
past present future
cumulative and dispersive
passages of tenses eager to be life
to do to be
a frequency so high
it shatters
scatters the sibilance of silence
Alth'aia be it now!
A passage
traversing beyond before
I breathe in the resonance
polyphonic aromas of life
reservoirs of DNA rhythmicity
I breathe the spectrum
the prism of light and life
the gate of nephesh
I am opening to entirety
It is a passage….I breathe…..
Copyright © Myrrh de Marmion 2002-2016