I woke this morning to an incredible sight: rolling hills, mountains, deep pastures, and old, old trees. California. A green-scape due to recent rains. And this walking deeper into such an open and expansive sense of being…
It has been an incredible 5 days since I posted: so much travel–both internal and external–as if there were a difference, a distinction between the two!
But first things first: Sedona and the Super Blood Wolf Moon in Leo.
What I knew is that I wanted to be in Sedona for the Eclipse. And all I know is that the energies were wide, open, expansive, and welcoming. One might think, “Sedona and the vortexes” during this intensely energetic portal means incredible visions, etc.. But what I experienced instead was something so deep–an uncanny and expansive humanity–so many human stories needing to be told for release, so much healing occurring in Joy or sorrow, so many people ‘seeking’ and seeking what they weren’t even sure of how to name…perhaps didn't even know they were seeking...
Connection. Deeply human, soulful connection.
The soul seed at the heart of our humanity.
And so Sedona and the vortexes weren’t about ‘visions’, deep inner travel that took me out of the intensely human body and moment…it was about ‘love stories'...love story after love story, and being a witness to those stories that were opening people up to new levels of being, new capacities for holding and releasing their very human pains, sorrows, fears, and experiencing Joy, the vibration of joy through connection. Everywhere I turned, paused, someone was sitting down next to me...and finally after a day of always being startled by it, I gave myself over to it...I simply allowed it....
And I realized how true something was, something I’ve heard Lee Harris and the “Zs” say over and over again, “Now is your time. And you are needed.”
“Now is your time. And you are needed.”
That night, watching the moon and Eclipse go through its phases, these words seemed to vibrate in every cell my being, as if ‘wakening’ me more fully to who it is I am, and what I’m here for. Even after all the beautiful work and experiences I’ve already had in my life…there is still so much... The truth of these words–'now is your time, and you are needed'–were both liberating and invigorating–a resolve and recognition of knowing…and of simply being…
And though I may not know totally what the vision of that is…I was at least touching, experiencing, the living pulse of that knowing, and knew I was a part of it, and it was me.
And so late in the evening, Ruby and I climbed down from an amazingly, energetically powerful ledge on Baby Bell Rock that I had discovered earlier that morning and we had returned to for the Eclipse, and we headed back to the car, to our night of sleep….
And as simple as that…we woke the next morning, and I knew it was time to leave–even though I had barely walked into the Center of Sedona to visit all the shops, barely seen what the town itself had to offer–I knew the last three and a half days hiking in the Red Rocks had been fulfilled. And as I woke, I knew too exactly where it was I headed, though the evening before I was still unsure and browsing and perusing the map and the possibilities.
Listening and trusting… to this new path, this new sense of being….
And allowing that to guide me in the same way I had learned to listen in prior work below the activities of the day, below all the institutional rules and political barriers, below even at times the cultural formalities…listening instead to the humanity of the moment, the shared human presence of the soul that wanted to be seen, heard, acknowledged–beyond the fear, beyond the desire for ‘control’, beyond the external barriers and the subjective protocols, beyond the titles of who we were and the organizations we represented, or the stories we tell, and the need for recognition…
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So, about an hour’s drive outside of Las Vegas, I ended up at my mother’s, in a retirement community that hovered around a beautifully kept golf course in the middle of the desert.
I had not planned this direction–I had planned to visit her later, on what I thought would be the other end of the journey. Instead, here I was. In the midst of this vast desert landscape in the sun and dust and rock and small scrub pines...
There are so many stories that could be told–fear, anger, abandonment, love, alcoholism, abuse, struggle, loss and so much more… and the desire most of all to be loved and be love beneath it all… a desire to give even amidst the complications of the stories as they unfolded…and they were stories that belonged not just to me, but to her, and to my siblings...each of us having our own true version...
All those stories, told and told again over the years to try and unravel their making, unravel their pains, their joys, losses…their wisdoms…. Stories told so many times to try and come to some understanding of the journey… the stories we tell to say, "This is who I am..." Stories that are personal, professional, and just outright hilarious and uncannily beautiful too...stories...
And for a while, it’s useful, very beneficial to tell the stories, to get help even telling the stories so we are not afraid they, or their emotional energies they carry, will overwhelm, over-take us, in a way that we’ll be engulfed… Getting help to tell the stories in the beginning is useful... so that we can begin to release all the knotted energies that need to be allowed to breathe, release…and it is not forever that their releases take us into tears...but the tears are gifts of cleansing ...and it doesn't go on forever...in fact, at this time on the planet, the release of these can occur even faster than we could possibly imagine...
But after a while, as I’ve heard from so many others, from clients in sessions, and therapists themselves… after a while, the stories begin to just re-iterate the energetic patterns of those stories in the body, in the energy field…and we wonder why the same patterns, the same fears, keep coming up.... We simply need, instead, to release them, let them go... they are no longer us and we are no longer them…and we need to let them go… and we can....
When they come up, we can simply ask, whisper, say, "I ask for assistance in releasing this story... I release this back to Source...with love, ease, and grace..." And we do get assistance.... we do get release....
It is when we can let even the stories go that true Freedom arrives… that old identities truly shed themselves from our energetic being…. And we need not fear…the wisdom of those stories—it doesn't disappear… We don't have to worry that we'll go through the same thing again or attract the same lessons.... for we have become the learning, the wisdom of those experiences when we truly allow ourselves to learn from them instead of making them about someone else through blame, anger, resentment, etc… The wisdom has become a part of who we are… we do not lose it, we do not need to fear losing it…
The truth is, I was resisting visiting my mother…because I didn’t want to ‘go back into’ those stories, didn’t want to have to listen to them for all the years I’d already given them, lived them…told them...
But when I arrived, I knew it was ‘right’ to be there…simply to sit and listen… to say, “Yes. I’m still here. Yes. You are the woman who brought me into this world…the family I chose as a soul being… To learn what I needed to learn through. And for this, I am immensely grateful… "
But I also knew…the stories had no interest for me…I was not triggered by them, I was not hurt again or even reminded, for I didn’t need to be… I was simply present… and a beautiful clarity of acceptance was all there was…simple, pure, true… I was not vulnerable to them... and I knew I had the freedom to leave at any moment...a quiet, simple, calm knowing...
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And as the three days passed, winds came in over the desert…and at night the trees seemed to be both swept clean and opened as they leaned into the gusts… and I felt honored to be able to lay there and see the few of them outside the window in the moon’s receding, waning light… these beautiful winds passing over the land....
Stories: when we are able finally to release them, let them be carried off in the winds passing over the land, without a need to engage them emotionally, energetically, or to tell them to explain who we are..or rebut another's version of them…. that’s when the pulse of freedom lights up within us…and there is nothing but the universal connection of love…and being…
We are no longer vulnerable even to the stories... for we no longer need them to know who we are...
Instead, there is simply an open, beautiful path of being... a wisdom and power in knowing our own truth..
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I thought I was going to go on this morning…write more this morning…. about this beautiful invitation I received three days into my journey…this invitation to come and stay on this 5,000 acre ranch and animal refuge…from a woman I barely knew in the ways we speak of knowing, but a woman I knew who was as deeply connected consciously to this human journey that we are all on as one could possibly be....and so when I received the invitation.... there was this simple, "Yes. Of course....yes.... I would be honored...deeply grateful...."
And Tecumseh…awakened again as I drove up the Sacramento Valley…Delano…Fresno…. and then Mt. Shasta in the distance… I see now that all this is its own entry… and what is needed now is food…and a walk….
In so much gratitude and love,
Allannah