***
For centuries,
the Winter Solstice has shined as a sacred time to gather with community,
celebrate the warmth of family and friends, cultivate gratitude for this year’s
harvest, and honor the steady return of increasing sunlight to the dark,
awaiting earth. The longest night of the year also serves as an invitation to
turn inward, to reflect, to lovingly trace the narratives and journeys from
this past year so we can proceed into next year, the new year, with clarity and
deepening understanding.
So musing with
this theme, on the eve of the Winter Solstice, I decide to brave a reflection
on 2016. This year – and I’ve heard the similar sentiment from friends and
acquaintances – has been riddled with rough and raw challenge. I speculate that
the stars and planets mused and divined a plan to align in such a way to
unleash a fury of hard core, and perhaps necessary, tough lessons.
The choice,
because it’s always a choice, is how we respond and rise to greet, or ignore,
or flee with lightening speed away from these life trials. In the past year,
I’ve vacillated between all three of these options.
2016 rumbled,
roared and knocked me to the bottom of my being. The “dark night of the soul”
gloomed over the expanse of the year, ushering in heartbreaks, betrayals,
disillusionment, emotional exhaustion and spiritual breakdowns. Depression
plummeted me into tiring despair, which I could only mindfully navigate by
collapsing into self-constructed solitude. I self-protected my wound by
disappearing – swiftly and suddenly – and closing my heart, and in doing so
sickeningly realized that it’s entirely possible to pull a veil over a heart
center beating and humming for connection and desiring to express love.
In those days,
which in truth were months, the bravest thing I could do was walk out of my
house and complete the work. I centered all my energy on the work – the work of
establishing a foundation for a program, acting as a vessel for the message of
the program, and recycling my emotions into energy and clarity so I could teach
yoga from an authentically aching heart.
I showed up for
others, delicate and firmly concentrated in being present for them and holding
their stories. I sobbed in overwhelming fits of complete helplessness. I pushed
through days where I felt like I was living underwater, cut off from fresh air.
And I survived.
“The light is
back in your eyes,” a loved one tells me, and I take comfort in her loving
gaze.
The trials, which
I perceived to be threatening to extinguish my inner light, brought me closer
to reverently recognizing and valuing the brightness, the blaze of my inner
flame.
The light of my
being anchored me so I could explore the shadows of heartbreak, jealousy and
betrayal, illuminating the contrasting play of lightness and darkness
constantly creating our humanistic wholeness. I learn the necessary practice
and daily implementation of discernment – to trust the intuited messages and
signs about a person so I can perceive the full package of a person and proceed
mindfully.
In the swallow of
darkness, I relinquish control, and surrender to the all-knowing intelligence
existing within me. I abandoned my intuitive powers to please the culture of
practicality and adopted a strive and achieve mentality to extract external
approval and validation. In the trying, my creative spirit, my wild feminine self
lets out a strangled cry. I feel half-alive, not fully embodied, and when the
grief arrives, I find relief on the shore of my creativity and deep healing in the
invisible arms of the inner feminine. I release the rational adult and return
to the mysticism, rich imagination and intuitive prowess naturally governing
the realm of the inner child. Here, I revive and refine my powers as an empath,
an intuitive, a healer, a creatress.
This turbulent
period, where I lost faith and questioned if I should ever trust, pulls me back
to reconcile my alienated inner child – wise and connected – and in the
befriending, I come home, finding soulful solace and a treasure trove of
intrinsic gifts meant to be utilized as trustworthy guides. My trust in others
may have been compromised, and perhaps in time that will heal or an additional
layer of self-understanding shall be revealed, but the trust I have in myself,
in my resiliency and fiery ability to rise, strengthens my blaze and emboldens
me to live authentically, and compassionately.
Staying close to
my own inner flame of truth and insight allows for me to practice discernment
and compassion for others with whom I interact on this soul-journey. Working
weekend shifts at a domestic violence shelter, hearing survivors of interpersonal
violence tell their stories, seeing firsthand child abuse and neglect,
personally experiencing the effects and aftermath of emotional abuse confirm
this truth: wounded people wound people. A harsh, unforgiving light reveals the
cost of cruelty on a human’s life, and compassion lets me extend connection
while retaining presence and boundaries.
I now understand
how people fall into abusive relationships. All the signs were there, and my
intuition whispered to flee, but I ignored the signs to pursue the attraction,
curious to explore a chemistry that should have been left alone, a heat never
intended to warm, but consume and burn –
a moth to the flame.
The healing
focuses on self-forgiveness and freeing myself from his physiological hold. In
an attempt to explain him to others, the calculated psychological warfare, the
exploitation of my feelings manipulated through masterful approach and avoid
techniques, the fake futuring employed as gas-lighting intended to leave me in a
haze of self-doubt, I notice a distancing occurring between the listener and
me. So, I stop and change the topic, and silently give thanks that they don’t
know what I’m referring to because they’ve haven’t walked through it, and I
hope they never will. The ones who have walked through the same flame are the
ones who stay engaged and cocoon me in understanding and grace. And these
luminous souls are my moon tribe, the light glowing in the darkness,
reconfirming our innate need for community, circles of loved ones, for tribe.
2016 leaves me intimate
with darkness and reunited with my inner light. As the year prepares to give
its final bow, I take note of the passing play and acknowledge that the trials,
challenges, sorrows, pains have brought me back to my fullest, realest self: my
creativity, my revered femininity, my compassion and my courage to love
continue to beam bright. This is the light I vow to nurture, celebrate,
protect, and shine in 2017. My hope for you, loves, as you reflect and redirect
to the New Year, is that you choose to blaze brilliantly.
