Labyrinth in the Woods Out Back - My Anchor Place of Solace
Anger is a great flame of presence. It is difficult to mistake or ignore an angry presence. John O’Donohue
All you need is love. John Lennon/The Beatles
As I woke and moved into this day, I felt a deep sadness coupled with a touch of anxiety. Although I’m far away from the most recent violent atrocities, the war mongering words following those events feel closer. I notice I’m a bit ‘edgy’. Observing interactions with Zadie Byrd for the last few days, I see myself being sometimes snappy, impatient, and moving to impose a sense of control. I sense it’s not about Zadie Byrd. Hmm…
Words don’t come quickly as they often do in the morning quiet. I’m restless. Words that do come seem inadequate to how I feel, what I sense, and to this time of violence, unrest, and change on a scale beyond our prior experience.
I needed time in a place of solace to grok the world and my feelings: the woods out back. I needed to lean into Grandmother Pinon and allow my tears to flow as waves of anger joined the sadness and anxiety that rises when I dare ask, ‘could this happen here?’
I know the answer. I see under currents in the vitriol of our so-called leaders and others who declare to ‘defend their position to the death’. I hear saber-rattling and war-mongering language coming from all sides.
‘What will it take for us to heal these vast divides?’ I ask as I enter the labyrinth that, for me, is the anchor point for the solace of these sacred woods.
Walking the first circuit feeling gratitude for THIS place, I drop more deeply into my heart and its knowing. ‘Love’. The answer echoes, having been spoken by Grandmother Tree minutes earlier. I wonder, ‘how do we channel our anger, our outrage into Love? How do I?’ I hold these questions as I continue to walk to the center. They seem to ease the sadness and angst, and I can express heartfelt thanks to the four directions, to Mother Earth, and Father Sky with a sense of peace.
As I acknowledge Father Sky, I invoke a prayer that sky above be traversed only by actions of peace. May all our places and spaces be used only for purposes of peace.
As I begin the slow walk from the center, my questions remain, yet love’s presence brings light and curiosity to the heaviness of the sadness, anger, and anxiety that I carry as I wonder about my role, my actions, my choices.
I need to visit these places of solace to keep love and light in the soup of this heavy, violent prone world. Perhaps we all do.
Where are your places of solace? Where do you take your deep cares for self, for others, for our world to lighten the load and maintain love’s presence?
As we move closer to Saturday’s powerful solar eclipse and its intense energy, I invite you to inhabit a place of solace for a while. Whether long or short, give yourself the gift of acknowledging how you’re experiencing the chaos and horrors of our world. Then, when that feels complete, add all the elements of love and light you can muster for yourself, for humanity, for the planet, for our world.
For this is how we shift – individually and collectively – acknowledging what is without allowing ‘it’ to drown out who we BE as we move ever closer to living the Truth that we are all One.
Pathway in the Woods Out Back