We are finding our way through a transformational passage, a significant turning of the time with humanity and on our earth. We are walking with death. Cycles are completing. Endings are being crafted. Leavings are taking place. Changes are being made.
In the thresholds between what has been and what is being envisioned, designed, and built, we’ll inevitably encounter mystery and unknowns. In the time between worlds, we may feel curious and excited, lost and unsettled, numbed and overwhelmed.
How is your heart?
A couple weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a pit in my stomach. A long list of worries was swirling around in my mind. Worries get tangled up with stress and fears. Worries get loud about unpredictable outcomes and uncertain futures. Worries get locked in the body and mind by overwhelm, isolation, and boxed-in points of view.
When I got up the next morning before sunrise, I knew I needed an antidote so I could welcome the dawning of a new day. Worry is a drain of energy and time, a loop-de-looping dead-end road. I wanted to find my center again. I wanted to move through the day doing and being something much more beneficial than digging a deeper pit of worry in myself, in my home, in our world.
I needed some help. So I got out a piece of paper and wrote a letter to the spirits, calling to ancestors and guides. It was a rather simple message, a few words requesting help with a list of challenging circumstances and the many tasks at hand. My worry list morphed into a ceremonial asking-for-help list. I drew symbols in the margins just for fun, adding creative designs to illustrate my heartfelt appreciation.
I placed the note on my altar and immediately felt uplifted. Not because everything had instantly and miraculously resolved. Asking for help wove a circle of connection. It wasn’t all on me to figure it all out. Asking for help freed my mind from relentless repetition of the growing list of things I should be worrying about.
Asking for help was a ceremonial act which opened a remembering of what had been buried beneath the heavy weights of worry and fear. Ceremony reweaves connection with the fullness of your whole self, with energy, spirits, and ancient knowledges, with boundless potentials and possibilities for life.
A couple days later, some magical happenings happened. Standing in the dirt lane where I could get a decent cell signal, I was talking with the person repairing my computer. This needed repair was on my asking for help list. Despite the technician’s initial efforts, the computer glitch was still oddly glitching.
As we spoke, I sensed movement just behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and a magnificent buck was standing steady and strong on the hill.
In my medicine bundle, Deer is the spirit world ~ ancestors, spirit guides, ancient ones. I was elated, seeing Deer on the hillside. The spirits had come. Someone was watching over.
Ambling down the hillside, Deer passed very close by. I stood there in awe, trying to keep up with the conversation about the computer glitch while marveling at the wonder of the world.
Deer continued on his way, calmly and elegantly heading on down the dirt road. There was medicine in his majestic presence. Powerful. Peaceful. Graceful. Embodying his body. Purely being deer. In relationship with the world all around.
Deer was showing the way of moving through life with steadiness and grace, giving and receiving in the web of relationships, attentive, clear, and aware. Since we’ve crossed paths, I’ve been holding Deer Medicine close as I, too, continue on down the road into the mysteries of what lies ahead.
I invite you to give this a go. Come up with your own simple, sweet, meaningful way to remember who you are beyond the weights of worry and fear. Hidden beneath worry is a rich source of information about who and what you love, about what you really want, about your visions and desires and callings of your heart ~ for your life, for others, for places and ecosystems, for particular species, for all life on our planet and beyond.
Write a letter, if this feels inspiring to you. Paint a picture. Sing a song. Whatever your natural expression may be, reach out for connection. Ask for help. Aim your attention and life energy into what is healing, ceremonial, and creative, even delightful, magical, and fun.
Pay attention to what happens when you purposefully generate a different kind of conversation and approach to addressing concerns.
Notice what happens within and all around when you engage in a ceremonial process rooted in appreciation, or when you find an in-relationship way to tend to what needs tending in your life and in our world.
Innovative actions, creative possibilities, and interwoven relationships are essential in order for the rivers of life to flourish and flow in the direction of well-being, balance, and love.
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Grandmother Corn Medicine
Boundless Potentials
Love this reminder to ask for help, Joanne.