As the months of 2014 ebb and flow to us, I realize that I have been on a 7 month journey of unemployment insurance that has drawn to an end.
I know without a shadow of doubt that I am not the same woman who looked out into the world on November 27, 2013. I cannot even remember who she was. There is a tad bit of a memory of how she felt and an understanding of her story. There is a deeper understanding of how the story dissolved, the realization of a stronger essence of her, and a willingness to feel into the moment and hold no expectation, no opinion of what is to be.
Oh the journey was complete with wildness, back-ups, and delight. It carried me to a place I had desired to hold deeply. It carried me out into a jungle replete with tangles, rushing water, and mystery. The adventure did not disappoint. It has no ending.
I am truly blessed with the opportunity to focus solely on my path. And these last 7 months allowed a deeper involvement into uncovering this path. It enabled me to bring into my daily life a realization of how my path, even the search of it, was individualized from others.
Through this time a stronger concise understanding of who I was, coupled with a releasing of old patterns and beliefs, balanced by acceptance of the value of illusion moved me into an empathy of self and my community. The freedom to lay about, wander the mountain top, grovel in the frustrations, and epitomize standardization pushed me to turn and deny the existence of self; to die to myself as I had never imagined.
There has been a shamans death experience, a mystics evaporation, and yet what I was being asked for did not contain another level of these prerequisites to soul evolution. I have experienced a burning to the ground, the severing of the leash, but I had not experienced the dying to myself. The dying took place sudden with the realization of the ask, moved into flowing with the demands of daily life, and ended in an ancient ritual that almost seemed uneventful. It was the forward motion after the dying that emphasized the Divine's request.
Every time I looked to draw a frame of reference the screen was blank. It wasn't just the screen of Future but the screen of Past that lay black and empty. Only the place of Here and Now held any form or design. Anything presenting itself to me was met with nothing but what I knew to be true for me. Trying to decipher anything has been unsettling.
The unsettling is not in being unable to fit in or know the direction. The unsettling is learning to walk completely within the present. It is learning that where I once related in life with others is non-existent and non-essential. It is non-identifying. It cannot relate to me as much as I cannot relate to it. In the midst of all of it, there is laughter, joy, tears, love, and a completeness. A focus of all is finished within itself bringing with it a solid sense of self without identity.
Spirit has said others have experienced this and many will join in the dying to themselves. Everyone will be offered, not all will accept, and all will continue along their path.
Having words to express this past 9 months has been very difficult. Having words to express this newest endeavor has been even more difficult. It has not mattered that there are no words. It does not matter if I ever climb the mountain top, it no longer matters what I hold dear, where I wander, who I meet or don't meet, how I show up to the world is all that matters. Do I come with my heart open, my mind quiet, my eyes bright, my ears listening, and my tongue gentle? Do I come willing to share everything including the unacceptable? Do I come each day willing to make it a good day to die? Do I come prepared to return to the primordial juices? Am I willing to live outside the perceived existence of all that matters? Am I willing to be the ancient? Am I willing to hold past, present, future completely within me?
These questions may seem to be those we all ask ourselves daily. This time there is a very large difference in asking them. We all know being who we truly are means living with hearts open, mind quiet, listening, no opinions, etc., and yet this is different.
Dying to yourself means you cannot do anything else but show up as an unidentifiable person. You cannot be You. You can only Be.
The Soul Traveler