Tag: letting go of expectations

Stepping through the Threshold to Build a Sanctuary #nonprofit

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light13 Comments
Photo taken during the medicine walk at the beginning of the day

In the days before my “nonprofit sanctuary building retreat day,” my co-facilitator, Heidi, and I found feathers everywhere. The banded blues and blacks of bluejays and the curled wisps of downy undercoats fell repeatedly along our paths, and in my case the tail feather of a yellow-shafted flicker in the middle of my driveway. The golden center unmistakable. Some things are meant to be noticed.

My yellow-shafted flicker feather

The invitations had been sent out about two months prior, and almost immediately responses came back, most stating enthusiastically that they were definitely going, or would try to. Yet, life has a way of taking over, and by the time Saturday came we were expecting only four more. That made six of us for the day, with one more, my husband, who appeared periodically. Some things are just meant to be.

For those of you who know me through the mystical world that I walk through, you will know that I have a rather intimate relationship with the hexagram. Not in any nefarious way, as that is religious dogma’s fear of mystical symbols that predate even the written word. The hexagram is the symbol that brought me to Sue, my spiritual mentor, and is the symbol that came as a labyrinth calling in the Warriors of Light in my book series. It is a sacred geometrical alignment of unity and balance. Combining the (triangles) elements of water (feminine) and fire (masculine), as well as earth and air. Its elemental form creates a six-pointed star. In the center is one more, not always visible point, representing the soul as an aspect of the divine. On Saturday, I had my 6 + 1 = 7. A complete hexagram star.

Some things are meant to be, and as the weekend played out I became more and more convinced that Sue was orchestrating, at least in part, from beyond the veil.

Our magical sunset

So let me tell you about the night before. Heidi and I arrived at the lake at 7pm. Dusk was settling in fast, and the setting sun haloed the hills of the (goddess) land in an aura of gold. Into the cove we walked to watch the alchemy of earth, fire, air and water.

We went to bed early, Heidi to a downstairs bedroom, and I to the upstairs loft. It took me hours to fall into sleep, and when I did I was woken abruptly by the sound of the fire alarms going off. It was 11:01am. Heidi, downstairs, noted the same time, also now fully awake.

We gathered with racing hearts to assess the situation and could find nothing amiss. Climbing back into bed with my mind restless, it took a long period of time to find sleep again. Shortly after I did, the fire alarms went off. It was now 1:11am. Heidi, downstairs, also noted the time.

As we once again gathered to assess the situation, we become increasingly convinced that the alarms going off with three ones each time had not been accidental. Perhaps we were just not meant to sleep, at least not restfully. Heidi did not wake again until about six in the morning, I, on the other hand, woke once more, this time to the persistent hooting of an owl. I was too tired to look at the clock, but the messenger was noted.

The ensuing day unfolded as it was meant to. The six, plus occasional one, shared thoughts and ideas. The right questions were asked, and I had some, but not all of the answers. By the end of the day, lots of pieces of the puzzle were scattered about, but it had yet to be assembled. Our mission was to work on a name, tag line and logo, and we had aspects of each, but the whole was still illusive. Earlier in the day, during a medicine walk, I had heard this phrase inside of my head, “Surrender to not knowing, that’s when the magic happens.”

Tired and packing to go home, I didn’t know what to think of it all. Everything still felt amorphous and uncertain. I was grateful for the efforts of the gathering, but I wasn’t sure what to make it. So I let it settle and be. I went home and unpacked, watched some TV, read, and then went to bed. Almost immediately, I fell into a deep slumber.

At 1:31am, I woke abruptly. My shoulder was aching and so I rolled on my back and started to think. I thought about the pieces from the previous day and what was missing. I thought about how when I had read my vision narrative for the sanctuary, one of the participants had noted there was something missing, yet I could not articulate it during our day together. And then it occurred to me.

Wonder.

How could I have forgotten wonder, which had always been central to the vision, but had somehow not been articulated in its story. And then the name came to me. And then the tag line. I started piecing together an image for a logo, realizing the components were there, laid before me, I just needed to put them together. I thought about the book I had recently read even though, as my husband said, I had “hated” the movie, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Suddenly, I realized who my target audience was in a way that felt more concrete.

And I thought of another message I had received during the medicine walk after I had heard the call of a loon, “Let go of expectations. Anything is possible when you open the doorway and walk through.” After years of holding this close to my heart, I think I had just walked through the doorway with my dream.

Chocorua Part 4: Meeting the Chief in the Clouds #mtchocorua #NHhikes #snakesymbolism

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Travel Adventures10 Comments

As my husband and I continued our journey up the quiet mountain, I stopped now and then to place my offering of tobacco leaves in the nooks of trees and rocks. Noting, as I did, how sometimes others had made their own offerings. Small and large stones nestled into crevices of wood and stone, along with the more permanent and not so mindful markings of names carved into the skin of trees. I saw the carvings as a sad reflection of the ego’s need for permanence, forgetting that the mark that lingers is a mere shadow of the true self that never dies. How we yearn for something that is false, so often forgetting the harmony that beats around us. I found the buzz of the mosquitos oddly comforting, in its reminder of the cycles of life. The sacred spring below having given birth to the insects that followed my footsteps along a path older than the trees surrounding me.

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There are several large and impressive boulders near the summit of Mt. Chocorua, but they hold their stories in a quiet, watchful manner.

The mountain remained, to me, quiet and reserved. Welcoming, yet not offering too much. Not yet. This was my first visit, after all, and as the miles slowly rose, I realized that I would likely return someday. Perhaps not to the same trail. Perhaps not with the same companion. I didn’t yet know, and that was okay.

Life cycles as it will, and it behooves us to allow it to play its rhythm without resistance. When we push, we are often met with a counter-push. A simple law of physics. Perhaps this is why the snake appeared. Not once, but twice, as we hiked the long, winding trail, slowly losing the mosquitos as we gained elevation.

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One of two snake messengers we encountered during our journey. This one reared its head toward me as though reading for an attack as I ventured near to photograph it.

I have found the snake to be a frequent messenger that appears at points in the cycle of life that call for a surrendering. A letting go of the old “skin” I choose to wear to make way for the new, lighter sheath. They remind one of the wheel, ever-turning. Endings moving into beginnings, endlessly repeating.

I had thought that the mountain might harbor hurt. A long held wound from the legend of the chief who fell from its summit. Cursing, as he met death, the white man who had poisoned his son. As I walked the first half of the mountain, I found that I was also, in essence, curing the “white man” who had felled all the trees, and placed the wall of stone beside the path of the sacred waters. Yet, as the snake reminded me (twice), time moves on, whether we allow it to or not, without judgement. The cycle weaves its circle of life and death, over and over again, and we can be a part of it, or we can use defiance to try to resist its flow.

I could not forget that I had breathed acceptance into my body before I had left my hometown that morning. There are no true accidents to life. I realized, as I walked, that it mattered little, if at all, that I was not seeing the faces of the long passed in the rocks, or feeling the pull of the familiar through my cells. Instead, there was that quiet harmony of belonging. Of being present with my beloved in human form, and the sacred landscape around us.

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A guardian along the path

There was no denying the many gifts that had been offered. The crow who had welcomed us, the “ghosts” beside the stream, the white feather in the path before the call of my feathered seer, the snakes of renewal, and even the mosquitos buzzing life. There were also berries, full and ripened to the deepest blue of truth as we approached the final mile. Tempering greed, we reached, now and then, to pick small handfuls of the fruit and felt the renewal of life in each magnificent bite. Agreeing that there was never a better blueberry than those grown on the nearly soilless top of this mountain. A grateful gift that was even more welcomed when we discovered how little water we had left and how warm it had become during our journey, as well as how unsatisfying the apples were that we had brought. Mealy and soft, whereas our mouths hungered for a cool, crisp bite. I thanked the land for the blueberries as I offered it more tobacco in return.

As we sat on the granite ledges and took in the views of the landscape around us, my husband and I noted the time and how far we had come. We felt the ache of the climb in our bodies and the hunger in our bellies. Ahead of us was the head of Chocorua, perhaps another half mile away, we could not be sure. Its side looked steep and a bit dangerous as we realized we would either have to make our way around it to find a more gentle side, or allow ourselves to finish our journey below its peak. I was surprised that I did not feel disappointment. That there was no resentment bubbling up inside at the possibility of not “completing” our journey. Instead, I felt acceptance. It was enough, all of it.

We did not turn around then, though, but decided to walk a little further. I was grateful, as we continued on for this small final leg of our journey forward, for the soft presence of the land and it’s hallowed feel. For the berries that continued along our way, and for the knowing that we had just enough daylight ahead of us to get back down, and just enough water to quench our thirst if we needed it. I thought of that sacred stream and the yearning of my body to feel its cool release. And, as I turned my gaze one last time to follow the path of a vulture around the neck of the mountain, the mighty bird moved toward a cloud that hovered beside the rock face. Perhaps it was my imagination, but to me it looked like the head of a chief in profile. Its face pointing away from the summit that would need to wait for another day.

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Where we stopped to rest with the cloud formation of the legendary chief in profile. It was a bit more clear in person.

 

 

 

Castlerigg at High Noon #castlerigg #stonecircles #cumbria

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, Travel Adventures14 Comments

I had been forewarned. Silence can speak volumes, and the early spring was impossible to overlook. Yet, there was that glimmer of hope that the mysteries of Castlerigg would somehow be open to me.

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The Welcoming Information at Castlerigg, which sits atop the charming town of Keswick.

We are waiting for you.

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Unlike some stone circles, Castlerigg is easy to find and access, and with unbeatable vistas it’s nearly impossible to have the place to yourself.

I had heard the ancestral call. I had felt the cells stir through centuries past with a visceral memory that fired my body into deep longing in the weeks, months, and even years before I made this journey. Yet it was not to be. Not this time anyway.

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The stones felt lifeless to me, as though their energy had retreated deep within their forms.

We drove up the hill that holds the stone circle known as Castlerigg at high noon on a brilliantly warm spring-like Sunday. Cars flanked the roadside, and at its crest an ice cream van sat in wait for the throngs of hungry tourists. The urge to turn around and hop back into the car nearly consumed me. You can’t erase first impressions.

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Castlerigg is an undeniably beautiful place any time of the year.

Sometimes, though, we must face our must crushing moments head-on and take the lessons they give us. Disappointment can be a gift, leading to surrender and acceptance. And so I climbed to the top of the hill and met the stones filled with visitors.

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I wanted to spend some time with this stone in particular, but as you can see it was a popular spot.

It’s a beautiful place, I am sure, in any season, and that day Castlerigg shone with the light of the noonday sun. Bright and golden. It lit the faces of the picnicking family having lunch in the sanctuary (hence the absence of photos of this intriguing area of the site). Its rays played through the shadows of bodies as they wove in and out of the standing stones, and lit the smiling faces of selfies posed amid the inert bodies of rocks.

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Although I didn’t do a great job capturing it, the stones of Castlerigg shadow the contours of the surrounding landscape.

The site was filled with energy, but it was not coming from the stones, or the distance hills that rim the landscape. Instead, it came from the revelers of humans visiting the site.  It was, in many ways, the antithesis of the encounter with Castlerigg I had envisioned.

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Even the faces one expects to find in ancient stones were virtually absent during my visit.

If I could, I would take it all back. I know that this may be the wrong response, but it’s the truth. There’s no point in lying to oneself, it merely pushes the truth into dark corners where it festers for light. It is not an easy thing to do, writing this post. It would be impossible to describe the full impact of my first encounter with Castlerigg, and its effects on me. Yet, it is for me, and me alone to process as I attempt to dig inside and find the gifts from this experience. Not the “why,” as much as the acceptance of the “is.”

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It was as though the spirits in the stones had turned their backs to me.

What felt, in the moment, as the ultimate betrayal and rejection — a date to meet the beloved, only to find the beloved had receded back inside the the distant hills — led to the inevitable acceptance that the beloved resides within. Always present. Yet, this is not an easy acceptance. I still long for that promised (re)union. To place my body supine upon that open hillside in the middle of the ancient stones and hover in the liminal space that bridges the Earth to the heavens. I still long for that moment where I can open myself completely to the spirits of the land and listen to all they have to say. To feel the wild wrap of the elements and the stirrings of a long held magic waiting, just waiting, to be brought to life in that perfect moment of union.

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Below Castlerigg, the lakes of Cumbria mirror the glory of the land.

There is, though, a comfort in the mundane, and the knowing that I made it through this trial. This test, of which I am still unsure of the answers. That I am unscathed, albeit a bit heartbroken. My beloveds surround me in physical form back home in New Hampshire, and little, in the greater vista of life, has been lost.

Later that night, when I closed my eyes to sleep I saw the girl standing in the hallway and the wrap of cloth around her eyes had disappeared. I still had two full days ahead of me, and I was determined to make the best of what was offered to me.

To be continued…To read the previous posts in this series about my recent visit to England, please follow the links below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The Perfection of the Unknown Life #life #acceptance

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections3 Comments

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The unknown road of life. Photo Source: Pixabay

I once read about a man who came into the world remembering everything. By everything, I mean not what had happened to him, but what was going to happen to him. He knew exactly what would happen before it would happen, including his own death. Instead of feeling relieved or in control, the man felt utterly depressed and helpless. The very joy of existence had been extinguished from his life before he was even born. Whether this was all true or not, I feel is of little importance. The concept is what matters.

Although I’ve had premonitory dreams and visions since I was a young child, I was certainly not born knowing how my life would play out. There were only two things I knew with a visceral conviction: that I would one day be a writer of books, and that I would be a mother of two kids. And, thank goodness for that.

Let’s forget about the really bad bits that are beyond our control. No one wants to know they will happen, and thankfully I’ve gotten through them thus far. Instead, let’s talk about the good bits. By good, I mean those bits that allow us to grow and truly live. Even those that come with much angst and the sometimes sharp stab of growing pains, They’re usually the best bits, after all.

I’ve been giving this some thought these days. How, for instance, I would never have imagined I would be traveling to England in a pattern that has become “once a year.” Ten years ago I would have labeled that idea as a fairy tale fantasy relegated to the world of dreams. Yet, this fairy tale has become a reality. And, although I would never have guessed it to be my future truth as a young child, it all sort-of makes sense. Yet, had I know these magical trips were in my future, they would have, no doubt, lost some of their magic in the knowing.

What about those books I always knew I would write? Well, that dream was adorned with embellishments in my child-mind as I devoured tomes by famous writers. Maybe one day, I thought, I’ll be just like one of them.

What utter nonsense that has turned out to be. Yet, how we can hold onto some dreams while forgetting the blessings of the life we do lead. I’m 45 years-old and I’m only just learning to let that one go. I’m currently reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, and cannot in the least bit relate to her claim that she never once held onto a fantasy that she would one day be famous. Nor, it seems, did she ever care if her books were ever read for more than mere entertainment. She wrote for herself, she claims, even Big Magic, which is, on the outside, a book intended to help others discover their own “big magic.”

Nope, that was not me. I’ve always wanted to make a difference in my outer world, and some days I’ve gotten so caught up in it, I’ve forgotten that I have made a difference in many individual’s lives, including my own. Just not in the way I once had imagined I might. And, that’s just perfect.

I’ve realized that “knowing” can be debilitating. I used to, not so long ago, rely upon cards and readers to predict my future. I can’t tell you how many “psychics” have told me I would one day write “best sellers.” Now, perhaps this may one day happen, as some of them also predicted I would travel to England, and frequently. But it may not, and that is okay. In fact, that is just perfect.

Life, I have gradually come to realize, is not about the striving and reaching for some set destiny. It is about the beautiful (and ugly) unfolding of the unknown. The “who” hiding under the covers, waiting to discover that life is moment after moment of becoming. If we are forever focused upon the destination we think we are meant to get to, or that label that is meant to become us, we forget about the essence. The pieces of the self learning be whole. The being, learning how to live. Truly live. Breathing each moment into existence with wonder and saying, “Yes. Yes, this is life. My life. In all its beautiful unknowing. I will take me for what I am. Forever and always, until death ends the mystery. And I will live, yes live, each breath with gratitude for what it unfolds within me and outside of me. Because, it is just perfect for this journey called “my life.”