I journey to the woods to walk with the fear.
***
All weekend the
fear is a companion, causing me to curl up and seek a desperate shelter within
myself. I succumb to the coldness slowing my movements, dimming my thoughts,
stagnating the warmth and compassionate currency circulating in my heart. I
sink into a heaviness becoming too familiar. The icy power fear employs
silently poisons my ability to perceive with clarity. I fall prey to the
narratives cautioning expansion, questioning worthiness, warning about the
price of open-heartedness.
The fear laces my
blood and bones with a toxicity that can be remedied only through warmth:
mindful movement cultivating energy and heat is the tonic to cleanse, rinse,
and renew.
I venture to the
woods, a rolling landscape of hills and creeks that I trust to soothe and
restore spirit. I walk on paths blanketed by leaves, in presence of trees and
quick stirrings of life readying for winter. The walking chips away the
ice-like hold, cracking emotion open to river through. And the feelings of
helplessness and hopelessness rush from the wound, stunning me to tears.
I
pause by the stone remains of a mill overlooking a creek dried by lack of rain.
I stand in the emotion, stalled by the narratives surrounding the fear, and on
the edge of a breakdown or breakthrough, I return to practice what I teach:
return to what is real.
The rush of wind through trees. The touch of air still warm from the lingering exhalation of an Indian
Summer. Boots on the ground. I look up and see her. This elegant queen of
darkness circling nearby. For a moment, I fear her presence, this symbol of
death haunting and hunting above the trees. The reaction is to continue on, to
turn my gaze elsewhere, to push her away, but the response is the breath, and
in the peace arising from the breath, I stay.
I watch her. Fear
dissipating as I become entranced by her effortless flight. She soars in an
endless loop, never flapping her wings for additional speed. She coasts on
invisible currents, circling, cycling, continuing to gently spin closer and
closer to me.
Gaze trained on
her hypnotic flight, I am lulled back into the chaotic waves of thoughts, striving
to reconfigure the pieces, the stories, the pains, the lessons from this past
year. And there’s a soft revival of conversations with wise women, speaking of
cycles and the vital death that must come if we are to spiritually, creatively,
emotionally evolve and proceed on.
Deconstruct.
Break down. Burn. Grieve.
There’s been a
death. The death of relationships I held dear, the death of a connection to a
community I loved deeply, the death of my rose-colored perception of humanity. Grant
grace to be in despair, to feel the rhythms accompanying the death. The fear
eases into the realization that I am where I need to be in my cycle of grief
and rising.
The death is rich
in rebirth. The ashes reveal fragments of limiting patterns now ready to be
remolded. There's a glimmering promise of a new chapter, daring me to step forward in greater truth, brighter authenticity,
deeper love. The fear is there, the concerns are real, and they can coexist
with the compassion, with the peace emanating from the vulture sweeping above.
Now, she is so close
I see the tips of her wings, and she traces a circle of protection, grace,
faith directly above me. A circle mirroring the circle of breath: inhalations
falling into exhalations, exhalations gathering into inhalations.
Return to what is
real: the breath, the visiting guardian orbiting overhead to pull me closer
into knowing, honoring, trusting the cycles of being. I accept the message. The vulture disappears, leaving me to surrender to
this piece of the path.
