Imagine creating a beautiful art piece and then a year after intense hard work, dedication, and joy, you decide to light a flame to it and watch it all burn. This is akin to my life.
Annually as if one of the most creative rites of passages, I set aflame to the beauty I create and watch it burn. The flames engulf all. The smoke rises carrying my prayers and dreams as the wind beneath the angel wings brings my emotions to my ancestors and guides.
What remains in the ashes eventually cools down and creates another layer in the foundation. The cooled remains are the parts of me that are most valuable; the aspects of myself that still decide to remain.
I am building a foundation on the earth beneath me which houses the new art project of my soul this year.
As the creation of art continues, I realize that I am here to put a stop to the pain in the maternal lineage of my family. The heaviness that is placed upon the shoulders of spirit contains more than the injustices of my family but includes the injustices of all the feminine.
My journey into the feminine of my self is a deep, profound, lengthy journey that I continue to uncover and unpack consistently. The work is challenging, deep, painful, persistent, and so much more. I want to run away from it all the time, but it plays out in my worthiness, my health, the health of my friendships, relationships, and most importantly the way I value and respect myself.
Photo by: Emma Calary
Although at times I feel fear, loneliness, abandonment, unworthiness, and a spotlight on my insecurities, the desire to be whole overrides the ability to play out the programming. The programming is to be dismantled because my spirit requires flight with the Eagles.
As each of us undertakes our own personal journey we open the field of truth. This permeates out and others are compelled to figure out their own truth. Who are their ancestors? What did they do? How is that playing out in your life? Who were you when you were asleep? What parts of yourself are you still refusing to awaken?
The process of awakening is like my recent search for Douglass Diamonds in the lake in North Carolina. I place my right hand on the soggy earth and my left hand on my heart. I introduce myself to the place. “Hello Douglass Lake, my name is April and I come from a lineage of women who have walked these lands before and humbled to be a visitor at this moment. May you see me and allow me to search and receive the bounty of your land?”
Not less than 2min after introducing myself, I find the largest Douglass Diamond of my search. I offer a citrine in the place of the diamond. As my search continued I discover the secret of finding more diamonds.
Once I find a diamond, I crouch down in the mud and search from this vantage point and find the next. Walk there and repeat.
A metaphor for the great awakening, where I find a part of me in darkness ready for the truth, dismantle my fears and then stand in the vantage point looking out for the next place to awaken. In this consistent search, I realize that there are infinite places to unlock, awaken, and there is no goal of attaining, being more than others, or anything that appears in the patriarchal system we live in. There is no end, no goal, and no victory, only celebration of one more part of my soul retrieved, returns to me to encourage the next awakening.
This is only the introduction to what I want to share. The feminine awakening is not something that can be written in one succinct blog post, not a share that can be summed up in a short essay. It is endless, beyond a scope.
I desperately want to attempt to share my awakening, the implications with the divine masculine within and externally, and how the Earth and the plants play a role in this process. Therefore, I am creating this share gradually. Releasing different short stories of my existence. This experiment is ready to be conducted. It might appear that there is whining, hardship, distrust, inability to be happy, but I will let you know now that I am grateful for all of it, for all the experiences, for all the pain.
The writings in the upcoming weeks will include short stories, poems, songs, realizations, dance, videos, messages from my guides, ancestors, and earth gifts in the form of plants, crystals, and etc.
Take a moment to share with me if you enjoy, want more, and your journey. I am always open to sharing more experiences.
Here is an exercise that I am implementing at the moment and I Invite you to join in:
Whenever you hear yourself in your mind or in conversation mention a self-limiting idea, write it down. Examine that thought. Is it a self-limiting belief that is running along in the background creating fear, stopping your dreams? Then take that statement and turn it around to something positive.
For example, this one came up for me while writing this post (which is actually 15 pages long): “No one wants to read what I have to write.”
I turned it around to, “By sharing my thoughts, I organize and release the messages from spirit which positively integrates the lessons into my life.”
I leave you with the teachings of a plant I am working with at the moment, Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) The flower of fortune:
Image Credit: Steve Shelasky via Flickr
This deep plant wants me to remember that fortune comes to those who cleanse out the old decrepit patterns that reside in the psychic channels of my spirit. The channels relate to the physical blood within the body. This is clearing up the negativity picked up from all that is around me in the world. Especially during times of crises, fear, panic, and well basically the way the world appears to be going if you pay attention to the news. However, there is more love happening in the world at the moment. According to the balancing principle of life, the more negativity we see on the news, there must be that much love growing.
Anne McIntyre states, “Red Clover acts as a balancer, helping one to remain centered within, despite the storms outside. It instills calmness and clarity, and enhances self-awareness.”
I chose this remedy due to a physical issue on my body. Since June 2017, I have had a cyst under my left armpit. A cyst is a way for the body to block off and wall toxicity within the body and keeps it confined as not to create havoc in the rest of the body. Matthew Wood states that Red Clover is a remedy for a single cyst on the body.
This coincides to a time in my life where I decided to take under my wing (aka under my arm) a person into my life who took advantage of me in a big way. However, I was grateful for this experience because it made me realize where I was also being manipulated in other relationships. For the past year and a half, I spent it letting go of those that are toxic for my soul. The cyst got a little smaller. And although red clover has been a part of my formula for the past year, it was not getting any smaller.
I studied with Matthew Wood this past month and when he looked at it he mentioned Red Clover. Therefore, I decided to get serious and only work with this plant. Overnight infusions every day and actually a tincture of fresh red clover a fellow herbalist “happened” to give to me recently. In the past two weeks since I got more serious with this remedy, the cyst has decreased in size significantly, I have sneezed out some toxic shit, coughed up some ugly shit, and each time I do that the cyst appears to be smaller, less hard, and I am so fucking happy!
Not only that, but I am uncovering so much of my self-awareness and gaining clarity on the messages from my dreams, elders, and stepping without fear into my maternal lineage.
There is more to this story and obviously more to this herb, however…I will wait for the next blog. See you then!