Sacred Cycles and the Manifestation of Self-Love.
Here and now I recognize this: I have been here before — to this red, raw place of fire, the purifying flames leaping at my bones, asking to strip me back further to my truth.
Here I stand in this hellfire, somewhat condemned as a woman living outside the mainstream — the place where everyone pretends it’s okay. I remember being like that, being small and damaged in a way that has echoed throughout my relationships, with everyone and myself.
Small and worried, fixing and pretending that this was normal — my story is the same as thousands of others. Shards of shattered women who blamed themselves when they felt they weren’t loved, but sensed, in their young beating hearts, that something greater then themselves loved them anyway.
I always wanted to know God. Amidst the uncertainty, I foundered my version of spirituality. I spoke to the trees, concocted potions out of leaves and flowers, ran with the tides, bathed in moonbeams, swam naked among the salty waves and wished mermaid wishes — I always identified with the sea siren.
I dreamt I could fly, believed my mother when she told me she had once when she was a girl. When magic was real — that childhood place of escape where anything can be imagined to make it okay again. I prayed for miracles which came true. My parents back together, trying again and failing again — repeated patterns I would come to know myself… of course. No wonder.
Yet I knew a type of love — the love that comes from good hearts who are just lost — the wisdom of my mother weighing up the fate of humankind as we walked on the beach, with sea-whipped hair, holding hands. She spoke of intuition and Mother Earth. Not repeating cycles, doing my best to learn and grow.
Us kids were almost always naked in the warm bliss-filled summers of swimming in water holes, eating watermelon for days, camping, cricket and tree-climbing. All that good kid stuff. A dad who played guitar and was my hero when he was around. A mum who sang and was my whole world.
Now I am a woman stepping into the well-heeled shoes of motherhood, steering the next generation, my own daughter thrumming with life before me. The arrow flown from the bow. I cultivate a new adult relationship with the father who couldn’t be that to me in childhood. Like so many others, slowly we repair the damage.
Echoes of dysfunctional relationships littered behind me continue to ring out across the horizons of my future self. Standing before solo parenthood as the greatest relationship behind me crumbles, I realize the work before me. The work done by a thousand woman before me.
The funeral pyre burns bright — it must be built higher, the flames hotter. I can no longer pretend that this is okay, this repeated place of pain. Tripping up and falling on my face again. This time I carry my daughter upon my back, absorbing each of my experiences. My strides forward must be certain, my footing sure of where I next choose to place my step.
She watches me with the ancient wisdom that only a child can hold, fresh from that place of truth. So here and now I gather my will, my will to do better, to not accept that which does not reflect my worth.
The work is slow and I don’t always make the right moves. I trip up and stumble under the weight of those two ancient boulders of beliefs a woman carries: trying to fix it all, and dancing with the damage in the form of drama. I feel judged and alone, and I burn with desire. Temptation to fall backward into the old ways abounds.
I spend time with women who don’t get it, who smile politely and look away, and I can feel their thoughts, their fears of not wanting to be like me. Oh, but the freedom of choosing my freedom is bittersweet. I look for the wild women who dance under the moon, I grow in the company of the women who do get it. I feel accepted and nurtured, surrounded and supported. Love flows in again.
Oh, the beauty of a woman untamed in all of her own fury — the fury of living under a societal belief system where she is blamed for not accepting less than. For not just putting up with. And this isn’t to say that all the fault is with him. In whichever form he presents, No. I needed the pain that came with him, he was my best teacher, my perfect mirror which showed a reflection of my shadow self.
He represents half of the sum total of our love manifested — in our daughter, bless her bones. No, I cannot forever resent that, I refuse to bend that way towards blame and its bonds. I practice rituals of release and let him go on full moon nights, with sticks of incense and symbols of power, crystals and incantations.
But I do feel the thrum of fury at being misunderstood in the strength that it takes to recognize the opportunity for growth.
To not stay put and watch the same destruction return like an ancient tide of a demented ocean. I won’t swim those dark waters again. I seek the cleansing waters of growth and nurturing, self-love and womanhood. Those waters glow under a full moon’s sacred light. Those waters are lit from within as cosmic rays penetrate the water, and I sink under and into its depths, to find myself.
Along the way, as in any mythology, I do encounter those deepest fears, sea monsters within the depths of my soul. I dance with these shadows of myself but in a new way, with the help of the light illuminated from within, carried into this dark, deep place from the heavens above. I remember my truth.
I watch myself tangle with self-destruction and dangerous desires — the science of seeking to validate oneself through another. I watch with newborn consciousness, taking the stones from my eyes to see the ugliness of some of my choices. I remind myself that without the goodness that I also hold, I could not recognize this for what it is. Within the shadows my light only glows brighter.
I swim to the surface. I carry the treasures of the depths within my soul — the new knowledge, self-awareness twinkling lightly in soft colors of dusky pink, strands of gold — to be polished brighter in the future where new knowledge is integrated into my truth. For now I float.
I come away to a place of rest and rejuvenation, and acknowledge my journey thus far. I give silent blessings to the women standing along the shores of empowerment, those who mark the way forward. The solidarity of motherhood in all its forms, even those who are unable but demonstrate that nurturing in other ways — in the old ways, the Earth Mother ways.
Washing up upon the shoreline of our ancient Mother, I kiss the ground that holds me, give thanks to those support structures around me. My grounding of ancestors behind me — that lifeline which links mother to daughter, sage to priestess.
Standing on new feet, I hope for my step to be surer. After swimming through the dark nights of my soul, I must remember to be here now amongst the land of the living. The trees and mountains tell me I am deserving — to be here and now experiencing. There is much abundance for those who seek, who are on the path to that mountaintop — the place where we are all headed.
I am told that I already carry all that I need for the journey within me — I just had to remember that as I dove down in the waters of self-knowledge. I had to feel that knowledge as I stepped into the white flames of purification. Now I stand on the Earth with the path of truth laid before me. As I journey towards my full potential, I try not to feel too weighted down by the pressures of being here on Earth.
I seek out the howls and sensuous singing of my fellow wild women, and I try my best to uphold my newly learnt values. As I climb that mountain path, each new height brings newfound lessons — my past behind me, honored when I lie my head down to sleep, to dream — I plant my fragile self into the soft Earth and grow upwards towards the light.
I come now into the domain of Spirit. Air. I have been here before. I remember that which I am. Looking down from above, I see the path I have taken, that cultivated childhood crafted perfectly to learn self-love. People are fallible beings — I see that there can only be forgiveness for that. That each is only doing the best that they possibly can with what they have at the time that they have it.
You are right where you are meant to be at all times. It is necessary to get lost. Spend time in those dark spaces — experience it all. It is necessary to see the light of love that exists in what may be perceived as wrong. It is only wrong to think in those terms — our pain can only exist to serve us.
These truths and more are murmured along the currents of warm winds lifting my spirit higher into the ether. Until the next time I choose to descend — maybe to experience a dancing storm gathering in the planes beneath me.
I might choose to dance with the thunder and tussle with lightning, feeling it crack me open once again, so that I become love licks of fire sparking down, down into the present moment forever occurring — I am ash, dust settling in the womb of a new reality. Once again I am incubated, awaiting the next transition before me.
As I sleep, I dream that I am whole. I see myself as One, with no need to seek out the Other. In this manifestation, I am already Love. It is then that he appears — to walk beside me, our shadows cast out in front us, clear for us to see. We are enormous in our power and gentle with our sufferings.
We exist alongside one another in full respect of each being’s gift. Woman who holds the gift of manifestation — who moves out into the world to create and to be. Man who holds the gift of service, in which he honors the Divine Feminine, stands in his own masculine shape — gentle and humble with his ability to inspire. It is he who provides the space for Woman to Be.
It is he who believes in all that she is, and is the support structure that allows her to dream a paradise into being.
It is not enough to only exist as pain, and it is a type of exile from the rest when someone makes a stand. I feel that aloneness, and I welcome it as I feel into this moment. I know the bitterness of a reality grieved which never really was. I acknowledge my pattern here, and I make a vow to break free from it.
I will not become that bitterness, I will not continue to attract less than, through remaining lost of the faith of love existing. I do know that it will take a cultivation of self-love, through the sacred cycle of the elements — fire, water, earth, air — a breaking open of the soul before the new shores of a higher self are revealed. And then I will remember, I will know, I will bathe in the waters of the truth that I am.
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Georgia Todd is a solo mama, blogging about personal growth and anything alternative and kooky in the community. She lives within the beautiful mountains of the South Island of NZ. Holding a degree in psychology and various certifications in the healing arts, she has always been curious about human nature and what makes us Us. After giving up the bottle seven years ago, Georgia has evolved towards helping others who struggle with addiction, and finding a sense of spirituality in whichever form that it appears. A lover of Turkish delight, hip hop, dancing around the lounge while dinner cooks and casting spells on full moon nights, Georgia continues to write and learn through all the cycles of life.
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