A Buried Key
Wishing you steadiness, Community,
I find great peace when I allow myself to listen to the morning rhythms of the natural world. On a spacious morning, I rise for 2 hours of movement, sitting (meditation/prayer), journaling, and tea. In these moments (whether 15 minutes or 2 hours), I feel completely held. As I've been listening lately, I've become aware of patterns emerging over the last few weeks regarding the magic of story and our collective awakening.
The giving and taking away of stories shape our inner being and sense of truth. The feeding and starvation of stories give way to behavior. The following and confinement of stories give way to system, policy, and procedure. The gift of the tongue is to encircle these stories in such a way that they become belief.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés speaks to this in a quote from her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype:
“The door [found in stories] is portrayed as a psychic barrier, as a kind of sentry that is placed in front of the secret…a psychic force that twists and tangles us up as though by magic, keeping us from knowing what we know…In order to breach this barrier, a proper counter-magic must be employed.”
I continue to wonder what barriers (doors) we are required to breach (untwist and detangle) in our current conditions? What is the secret held on the other side?
The secret is you.
The secret is us.
The secret is access to the heart.
The secret is the wisdom of the belly.
Your creation has ordained you as a required part of the story of liberation. Some of the throughlines of present over-culture stories (psychic barriers) attempt to bring ourselves and each other into combat. They attempt to lessen the value we hold for all beings. They excuse away supremacy and violence. They entangle the boundless field of the collective heart. A counter-magic is required.
Questioning is a vital practice of counter-magic (my inner christian child gasps that I’ve said this!). Before we know the questions we may have for the barriers, can we notice that they even exist? I love how Estés goes on to say, “asking the proper question is the central action of transformation…questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.” I enact this same wisdom in my own practice, as well as my creations and coaching with others.
When we allow ourselves to question the barriers, we are allowing ourselves to crack open. That is surrendering work. That is disrobing work. Asking questions brings us closer to a bare essence - the primordial sound, language, shape, color, taste, and texture. When we sense this essence, we can begin to speak with them. When we speak with them, we begin to hear from them. When we begin to hear, we can locate the very key that has been fictionalized by the barriers.
Take a moment to lower your chin to your chest and listen for the essence:
Speak into your heart and listen.
Speak into your belly and listen.
Speak into your bones and listen.
I am with you on the mountaintop as we call out and listen in, my friend.
In love.
