It’s amazing what you can do by just
telling and owning your own story.

I shared stories in the first two posts of this still-new year. Post one. Post two.
I’ve been demonstrating, in my own imperfect fashion, story-telling power.

I couldn’t share either of those stories immediately. I had to give myself time and space before I spoke about my experiences of missing the mark three times in the first six months of 2022. And then just this week, as my personal year closed, the day before my Re-Birth Day, I did it again. I was shown yet another blind spot.

I felt compelled to share the stories as they each happened. However, there were no words. I am an artist who employs images and narrative to track my way through the world. I can tell when I am not ready. I know when I feel raw. I can tell when I am too muddled to make any true sense out of a recent happening.

I wait.

 

… we can rewrite these stories.
We just have to be brave enough
to reckon with our deepest emotions.

I am well-trained in creating space. Interior space. I push the pause button and turn to my journal. I begin to move my hand. OR … I hold my hand at the ready and wait until the pen is brought down to kiss the page in its own time. Then I follow the line that tracks across the page. I often have no idea what is coming to meet me until much later. I don’t start out trying to make sense. I start so I can empty out.

I have a formula that I follow, see if it makes sense to you:

I M MT n I MT n 2 XTC

I want clarity. I have to dump my stories of judgment and inadequacy before I am able to access the true story. I am looking for what’s true. I’ve spent too long digging around in the muck and the mire of what is not true.

We are now eight weeks into the deep Mystery with four weeks to travel before reaching the spring equinox, opening the door to the Natural New Year. Here’s an illustration showing the Natural Circadian year as a circle calendar… Winter: Mystery/My Story …of going into the deep interior…that’s what we do, even if only for 15 minutes each day.

The Circadian Circle of the Natural Year, Drozda

 

I invite you to invest at least 15 minutes each day in imagining the gold within your Mystery/My Story. Recognize that any heavy, dense, scary stuff can be transmuted and uplifted through your conscious intent to meditate, settle your attitude, and set your sights on the opportunity to row, row, row your beautiful Lifeboat gently down the stream. Count on it. Visualize it. Have faith in your capacity to UP^lift any situation or circumstance by pouring Love on it.

 

True story. When I worked as a hospice respite caregiver I visited a home where a woman suffered from what her family members referred to as alcohol-induced dementia. She and I would have an afternoon to ourselves each Wednesday. She rarely knew that I was in the room. Her world was quite small and interior. I found her beautiful, tall, and stately. She had been an artist. One day her husband gifted me with her antique wooden paint box. I still have it in my Small Works studio at my tree farm retreat. Today I came across the jottings I made one day while I listened to her stream-of-consciousness ramblings. This is how Betts (not her real name) spoke to herself in her private world which no one else could enter:

I wrote her words verbatim as she spoke them aloud…

She is calling, calling, calling
For Mary her long-dead sister
She sees white chickens
over and over again
She tries to nap, to rest
her brain will not allow it
She tells me
do what you want
enjoy
bye bye.

I want to walk and walk and walk
I want to go home
What do you want?
What are you looking for?
A store?
Can somebody take me to the bathroom?

Everything just stop.
Oh God.

 

She goes on. As she moves about the room she speaks to no one but herself …

 

I would like to apologize to you.
For being so rude
I’m sorry
I apologize
and if you would excuse me and you sit
I’ll take you …
you look at me.

Aren’t you the unknown soldier that I talked to before?
I wish I wouldn’t cry
Why am I crying?
I’m not afraid of anything that I know of

It embarrasses me
That’s what it does
Now isn’t that stupid.

I’m just gonna lean back in my chair
and maybe snore
That would be a good idea
Except my Father would pop me one

What have you chosen for dinner?
Awful
Why are you all hiding?

 

In the Dream, Drozda, collage/birch board, 12×12″ 2021

 

Vocare: to call:
the place where deep gladness and deep hunger meet

I wonder what the coming six moon/months hold for you and me and our stories. I wonder if we are dreaming the dream of what might be the highest and best good for all. I wonder. I am deeply curious. I lean in and listen. I wonder.

How are you? What is the Mystery/MyStory that is coming to meet you?

This is the appropriate time to ask for what you want and to imagine that you can dream the deepest dream for your precious human life at this time. This is the natural Return, the Renewal cycle. Imagine all that you can Trust to come forward in the next four weeks laying the foundation for the six moon/months ahead. I invite you to consider your current level of Trust in your capacity to Renew. Choose an area of your life and as you fall asleep each night settle comfortably in your bed and ask;

“Old Friend, Old Friend, What would you do?”

Remember that Old Friend represents ‘all the yous that you have ever been throughout time’.

 

Trust that the whispers will begin shortly. It may take a few days, it may take a bit longer, yet from your gold mine within, through the inner prompts, the hints, the hunches, the intuitive urge, someway/somehow you will be guided. Trust this. I can vouch for the validity and the never-fail with experience after experience.

Next post I’m excited to share my most well-kept secret

… see you then ~