a mirror: the guardian of the threshold
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HELLO THROUGH THE ETHER ✺
I have been sitting on this little letter for some time now - knowing, yet not knowing, what to say, or how. Feeling (self applied) pressure to share after what feels like a long absence, while trying to honour that my timeline is my own, and a place to claim sovereignty. There is so much noise on the internet, and I am wary these days of what I amplify through the stories I tell. What I make space for.
What wants to be expressed is about the body.
In May I moved back to the city (Toronto), after spending a year living with the trees up north. In our little airbnb is a full mirror - 7ft tall, and wide - which has become a portal into seeing Me with more clarity and grace. I am learning to love this body through this mirror. I have made a ritual of staring at my naked body - really looking at my self and showing tenderness to the places where I would rather look away. I am watching my self change. I look at the lines under my eyes where my skin has worn (a reflection of my growth, and cycles of transforming ways of seeing self / the world). Where there used to be worry and fear, I place knowing and trust. I trust my eyes and my skin, and know that they are doing exactly what they need to to heal themselves. I am believing more + more in the power of my body to self heal. I am leaning into its incredible intelligence, unraveled over millennia, which can morph towards wellness when gifted with the right kinds of attention and support. I am learning to accept, and to love, the patches of hair that I have been conditioned to think do not belong, or should be sheared away for some other's gaze, as if another's gaze makes me loveable.
What I know through this ritual of looking, is that our capacity to Choose to really see our selves, in our wholeness, is a mirror for our capacity to see the wholeness of the outer world. In its totality, our world is dancing between shadow and light, beauty and ugliness. Much like we are. What I transform within, gives spaciousness and energy to what wants to transform without. Around me, through me, into our shared collective reality. Making space to witness my self (cells) change, creates spaciousness for witnessing, and believing in, the capacity of our world to change too.
EXCERPT: DREAMING THE DARK, MAGIC, SEX & POLITICS BY STARHAWK
of Belly and Blood, page 69
"Transformation of our inner landscape may transform our bodies and cure physical ailments as well as emotional pain. Facing our terror of annihilation, reintegrating our split, warring parts, frees us to cherish the passionate unrepresseed “animal/poetic” body, and by extension to cherish nature and all of life.
The esoteric term for the thing that embodies power-with, not power-over, is The Guardian of the Threshold. The Guardian sets limits and defines boundaries, that is why s/he lives on the threshold, the gateway, the place of passage. The guardian teaches when to contain + when to express. To share power and responsibility more widely with others."
As we traverse through this massive time of crisis and change, I regularly remind myself that it is wise and well to take it easy, to allow myself the grace of slowness, and make space for rest. We are collectively moving through a gateway – out of the old outworn ways of being, into the new. We are wading through a passage that is full of (our own) shadows and is surrounded by the dark unknown. We feel it all. It is medicine to know that the Unknown is a ripe space of Imagination, Possibility, Change.
YOUR WOUNDS MAY BE HEALING GRADUALLY
"Veterans of war who've been wounded by shrapnel often find that years later, some of the metal fragments eventually migrate to the surface and pop out of their skin.
The moral of the story: The body may take a long time to purify itself of toxins.
The same is true about your psyche. It might not be able to easily and quickly get rid of the poisons it has absorbed, but you should never give up hoping it will find a way." via Rob Breszny
For the past 4 years I have been holding space for a book about wholeness (she is birthing & ready to be held by you all so soon). I've learned a shit ton on the journey to make a book about what it means to be Whole. Here are some lessons:
What you set as an intention gets delivered right back to you. We know this truth through aphorisms like: words are spells, and be careful what you wish for. To create work about wholeness, I was provided, by Source (/self), with many opportunities (read: challenges) to see the ways I was standing in the way of honouring my wholeness.
You are a creator, and you create with every thought… A reminder of the importance of any efforts made to find clarity: clarity in our intentions, clarity around the ways we choose to communicate.
Wholeness is not all light work. Embracing our wholeness requires a willingness to be with our shadows. Shadow work is making space to witness our ugly bits, our hard edges, the places where we have built walls of protection. To heal, or find ourselves whole, and transform ourselves, we cannot turn away from that shadow work, as uncomfortable as it is to labour here.
All things Sacred have their own timeline. Wise things unravel beyond the limited timelines our humanness might try to impose. Work guided by Source does not give a fuck about the urgency or scarcity thinking of capitalism.
