I went down a rabbit hole tonight and only realized about ten minutes ago that it was past midnight already. Experiencing this is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I’m annoyed that I got so caught up in what I was doing that I lost track of time. But on the other hand, the experience of diving into an activity and becoming so immersed in it that I lose track of time is a profoundly sweet pleasure.
Having this experience makes me realize just how rare it’s become in my life, and that makes me sad. Of course, I could make different choices and create more opportunities for indulging in such focus. Perhaps I will. But if I’m honest with myself, I probably won’t.
Part of the reason for that is that I don’t live in a vacuum. I live with Karl and we’ve settled into certain routines and ways of coping with how we manage the outside world. We’ve become comfortable in our ruts.
New Choices
Losing myself in the act of learning something new tonight really has me reflecting upon how much our lives have changed over the years. I realize (with some relief, I might add) that I do still have a reasonably decent attention span. I know it’s dwindled to some extent by virtue of all the electronics in my life and the irritatingly addictive dopamine effect of checking for email or ‘breaking news’ or text messages.
But at least I’ve not lost it altogether.
Realizing this, I’m feeling a yearning to reclaim some of my time. Perhaps make some new and different choices on where I place my attention.
I don’t want to mourn the dreams I have yet to fulfill just because I’m unwilling to turn off our television. Perhaps there’s a compromise I can negotiate with myself (and Karl).
Perhaps this whole unexpected conversation with myself is a reflection of something I need to give up at this time of the Virgo full moon. It’s the last full moon of winter. Spring arrives on Sunday.
Seems like a perfect time to make some new choices.
Today turned out to be a much more delightful day, weather-wise, than what I was expecting. While it was still chillier than last week, I was grateful that yesterday’s dreary pall of rain didn’t carry over into today. As we took a walk late this afternoon the lingering breath of winter felt exhilarating. And encountering this messenger, surely one of our horny hawks from last week’s extravaganza of mid-sky mating rituals and raucous attention-getting, felt like a seasonal setting of tone.
What tone might this hawk be setting?
First and foremost, Hawk (as an archetype, hence the capitalization) is a messenger. And this one perched not on a pole or at the apex of a tree, as is their usual preferred observatory, but rather smack in the middle of a telephone wire, perfectly balanced above the center of a roadway. And s/he watched us approach for a good quarter of a mile before taking flight again.
It strikes me that for a bird as hefty as a hawk, balancing on a wire takes more skill and focus than might be demanded of a sparrow or bluebird. This fact gave more credence to the deliberate intention of the act itself. This hawk was not trying to hide itself from us or observe us from afar. In fact, I swear it maintained eye contact with me the entire time I walked toward it with the hope of getting as clear a photo as possible.
I’m not suggesting that it showed up just for us, but surely a higher and more stable point would have been preferable as a hunting perch. And part of its message could therefore be that we need to bring an extra dose of skill and focus to achieve our goals this spring.
Communication, Creativity, New Life
Sitting on a telephone wire above the middle of a road. Being obvious and direct in its work as a messenger, possibly using new means of communication. Patiently awaiting the arrival of the new growth/life that so much effort was put into creating last week during the very public and unmistakable mid-air mating dances and rituals.
The energy I felt from this hawk was that it almost wanted to whack me upside the head with its wing. Perching there on a wire overhead it just felt like it was deliberately making itself obvious to us. It was pretty much demanding that we pay attention to it and heed its message – which at least partially was conveyed last week when she and her suitors made such a ruckus as they created new life.
Confirmation
Just as I started writing this post, I decided to choose a card from the Naked Heart Tarot deck, asking for a message on setting of tone for the spring season. I chose the Three of Wands.
To me, this card says yes, create a sacred space in which to focus your creative energy. Allow the rising sun that signifies the burgeoning energy of springtime to fill and illuminate your life. Give yourself a protected space in which to give this new life, this nascent creativity, room and space to grow.
It was suggested by one of you (my wonderful readers) that we need to affirmatively do something – ideally shamanic – in order to be of assistance in the midst of all of the turmoil we’re witnessing unfold here and around the world. The question was asked what we could do collectively to help the situation(s).
I responded by saying I would ask. That meant, I will ask Spirit, my guides, guardians, allies…those unseen Beings/energies who work with me to be of service in the ways asked of me.
I did not get a chance to formally do that asking today, although I felt like I was being given hints as the day unfolded. Sometimes that happens. There have been times when I will state something affirmatively, such as an intention to say or do something on behalf of another, and it’s as if I open the floodgates.
Asking and Listening
I’ve learned that when I either ask a question or affirmatively ask for guidance or a message – particularly if I do so out loud – the act of stating the intention is sometimes more than enough to get the ball rolling. In other words, I’ve learned that I need to open my eyes and start paying attention (i.e., listening) as soon as I’ve asked.
Which leads me to reflect on the sense I received as the day unfolded.
Interestingly, someone specifically kept popping into my head for no apparent reason. It was the person I’ve written about before, who asked for me to come visit them in the critical care unit at a local hospital after having an aneurysm. It might be recalled that they ended up asking me to place a buffer into their auric field to protect them from the onslaught of presumably well-meaning but exhausting, and in some cases conflicting, energies being ‘sent’ to them by friends, family, and even people who didn’t know them at all.
I’ll admit that experience made a dramatic impression upon me.
Our Inclination to Do
Perhaps it’s our nature as humans. Or maybe it’s the type of people I hang out with or who resonate with me and my energy and approach to the world. Whatever it is, I do seem to know and care about some extremely passionate and affirmative individuals who equate caring with action. We want to do something to make a situation better. We want to help; we want to help set things right.
Very often, with this sense of doing something to help comes the corollary to that: if we’re not taking action, then we’re passively (and weakly?) allowing bad things to happen. In other words, the sense that often accompanies our desire to do something is the fear that if we don’t, we will have aided and abetted awfulness by idly standing around doing nothing.
To be sure, some of this action anxiety is stoked by the exhortations we see floating around via meme or otherwise that entreat us to not stand idly by while injustice or cruelty is inflicted upon others. For those who did nothing, we’re told, were the worst of the lot.
The Power of Presence
And I guess that’s where consciousness and intention comes to play a huge part in all of this.
Very often we fear being perceived as doing nothing in the face of great tragedy. But if we know we are doing our part, does it really matter? Can we be secure enough within our own selves and our own knowledge of power and intention to feel just fine about how we are responding to the issues of the day?
I ask that because I feel as though my acquaintance/client popping into my head a couple times today was Spirit speaking to me as I stood at the sink doing my dishes, engaging in informal contemplation. Perhaps the greatest thing some of us can do to be of service in these times of disruption and chaos and tragedy is to hold space. (Ooh! I just realized as I typed those words that I believe I’ve written about this before – the power of ‘holding the center’- hmmm.) I’ll have to do a search.
Setting the Intention
The action we so deeply crave (again, as a result of our simply being human or because we have been raised to believe that action is the answer to everything) is setting the intention. It is holding space with intention. It is closing our eyes and simply opening our hearts to provide open-hearted love and compassion to go where it is needed.
Right now, there are a lot of groups sending various types of energy to situations (be they children in border internment camps – I can’t believe I even typed that just now – or doing this or that healing ritual for the fires in Australia) or addressing a myriad of other situations around the globe. And maybe there’s just a whole lot of conflicting energetic intention flying about.
Maybe what the world needs right now if for people who can hold their focus on maintaining steady, loving, compassionate courage and calm in the face of howling wildfires and insane, power hungry madmen is precisely what we need. These people may to all outward appearances look as though they are doing nothing, yet actually be providing the space for those in the direct line of fire (so to speak) to do their jobs clear-eyed and from their centers – free of being bombarded of other people’s potentially conflicting beliefs about what needs to be thought, said, or done.
Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel
Holding Space – Together
In the spirit of the power of working together, though, I want to propose that it might be a great experiment of togetherness for those interested and reading this to join me and each other in holding that space of allowing courage and compassion to be felt by all who need it together.
I will continue listening to Spirit for further fleshing out. But this feels right. A practice of actively holding space and allowing courage, compassion, and space to be given to all sentient beings – humans, animal, plant, and elemental (including rain, wind, sun, earth, etc.) – feels like an answer.
The other night I entitled my blog post “Phoning It In.” At the time I wrote it, I was beyond tired, and it felt like anything I might write would be rote and vapid.
But as soon as I started writing, I knew the post wouldn’t be boring or average. (Short, yes. But that’s because it was after 4:00 a.m. when I started writing it.) I’ll admit it: I was giddy.
I was buzzing – literally – from giving myself permission to try something new and just diving right in. As I described in that post, I was sorta kinda pressured into trusting my friend Luz. She swore up and down that I could create a painting I’d be excited about – and she could show me how, if I would only trust her. If I would show a little courage and just immerse myself in the experience.
Immersion Theory
If I really think about it, it was this immersion in the experience that really juiced me. And what’s also intriguing is the connection between what I’ve taught Luz and what she taught me: I do believe that the skills I’ve honed in learning how to journey, as well as the further practice of cultivating the ability to take notes during my process of straddling the worlds, have cultivated my ability to immerse myself in a task.
The process of journeying takes a great deal of focus and attention – especially when receiving a lot of specific information or guidance. And I’ve found through the years that if I doubt, if a significant enough portion of my consciousness stands outside of the work, observing with arms folded and skepticism (and doubt) coloring my experience, my perceptions and ability to receive and process information from other realms is seriously compromised.
As Above So Below
Or in other words, trusting myself and just surrendering to the experience almost assuredly makes any such experience itself exponentially richer. As a result, I figured, “What the heck?” I could feel it. I needed to either be ‘all in’ or not do it at all. That’s because I could very easily have allowed a huge part of myself to stand slightly aside as I painted, with arms folded and ego fully engaged, criticizing and worrying about every single stroke I made on the canvas. And I knew, I could feel, that would buckle my ability to create.
But Luz had asked me to trust her, to trust her process – a process she’s developed and practiced herself for several years. So it was only fair.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve asked Luz to trust me many times. To trust my description of the process of journeying and to trust her ability to see, receive, and perceive other realms.
So I went ‘all in.’ As she assured me over and over, “Lisa, you can always paint over it and start again. Don’t over-think it.”
“Just go for it.”
So I did.
Beginner’s Luck
My very first creation was “First Owl,” above. I could barely believe my eyes.
My second creation, below, I call BearWolf, perhaps for obvious reasons, depending upon your perspective, perhaps not. While I don’t feel it’s nearly as amazing as First Owl (which I still attribute a bit – OK, a lot – to ‘Beginner’s Luck,’ much to Luz’s annoyance), it’s still a piece I will enthusiastically hang in my office.
Wider Application
I’m getting a feeling that there’s a lesson here, a wider application for this Immersion Theory. I need to ponder it.
In the meantime, I offer you the fruits of my courage and trust. Thank you, Luz. Worthy investments – and a ton of fun.
