self love

This week I have been focused on self-love as planetary healing and responding to deterrents from this. In presence, what does the role of voice play? In presence, what does the role of consciousness play? In presence, what does the role of listening play? How do we create change that does not lead back to the initial state of oppression and separation?

I have found that the source of motivation must be Love otherwise the source of pain perpetuates itself. I am using ‘Love’ in an expansive way – one that speaks to the energy of everything: Source, Tao, Chi, God, Life, Death, Birth, Dreams, and Cycles.

When I empathize; the neurons in my body mirror that which I am present with. The present state alters with consciousness. Therefore I literally have the agency to generate feelings of wellness within myself based on what I focus on.

Perhaps the issue of separation is like a forest maze deep within the collective psyche, and the source of vitality is like the water that keeps the forest alive and ever changing.

In the film Gabbeh, I saw a story of the ethereal spiritual realm weaving reality through dreams, art, expression, and a state of being in community where mind and matter are one.

This week I listened to Isha Judd talk about love-consciousness. She talks about living from the heart instead of the mind. She talks about ideas and how they grow and that when we attach to an idea and identify with it is where we loose our true nature of being Love.

This week I listened to Claudia Castro Luna: Washington State Poet Laureate at The Evergreen State College. She said, “art and beauty belong to no one, it is boundless and each one of us is capable of creating it”.

I spoke with a friend about cultural appropriation, art, and consumer culture. It left me thinking about how emotions of shame, doubt, fear, and manipulation block the ability to create with Love. How do we reconnect with the source of Love in our-self and for our-self so that we actually have the capacity to respond with Love?

The act of reconnecting to myself, to forgiving and Loving myself is an act of stretching my imagination, and being open to new perspectives. It has been about shifting perspective, about digging into my subconscious and reaffirming my Love for myself, and being in this Love at every moment. I am beginning to be able to notice when I step out of this and give my power away to other people, when I step into their projections and begin to believe false narratives about myself. The truth is that only I can create my narrative. One moment of experience can happen and there are infinite ways to describe this in words, symbols, and interpretations based on what I am focusing on. My empowerment comes from being aware of this. What to focus on is my choice. I choose to Love. This way of being allows me to have healthy boundaries and to have the capacity to Love others. We are all connected. In this connection I only have control of my-self and my own awareness. When I Love my-self I am also Loving the things outside of me through the fact that we are connected.

primordial marbles

Discovering story within:

There is a whispering deep within my heart and being. It speaks when I listen. It speaks when I ask. It speaks my language – a pattern of my dreams – an unlocking of Source’s guidance.

     “What is the context?” I ask my inner voice

     “The context is love.” It was as if all matter, all light waves and sound waves were streaming from the channel tuned to Reglow. This story exists beyond linear time. The past and future meet in the present field of energy.

When my experiential construct had dead-ended, the question was why. Why tell a story? To express love? Acceptance? The illusion of reality?. Sitting at a computer in the library, I envisioned myself going to Mercury (known to be the planet of communication) and presenting a bag of marbles. The avatar of Mercury, Hermes accepted my gift and showed me a red book with a glowing title “Phoenix”.

The legend of the Phoenix as I have heard:

A bird becomes enflamed, turns to ashes, and rises from its own ashes.

The Phoenix legend has been represented in a spectrum of places throughout recorded “his-story”. Nigg speaks to the diversity of this legend:

“The bird’s cultural development is thus very problematic. It could not be otherwise for a unique mythical figure whose sex is variously said to be asexual, male, female, and bisexual; whose attested home ranges from Arabia, India, and Ethiopia to an earthly paradise, Eden, Elysium, or Paradise itself; whose recorded life spans include 100, 300, 340, 450, 500, 540, 1000, 1461, and 12,954 years; who dies of old age or by fire; and who is reborn from the ashes, often from a worm nourished by flesh or bone. Such are part of the enigmatic Phoenix’s cultural history beyond the timeline jumble of names and behind the bird’s twenty-first-century presence.” Xvi Nigg

Here, Nigg is alluding to an enigma, not just one account of a story. The quote speaks to how all of these accounts together co-create the enigma.  This speaks to the living story and stories being subjective experiences. An origin of experience came from experience, which came from an experience, which came from an experience, etc. There is currently no recording of the origin of experience except for in living story, which is subjective to experience.

Giving meaning to my story of the Phoenix:

The mystical function of the burning self is the epitome of transformation. When everything crumbles, it is dark. Nothing means anything. Everything means nothing. This is the moment right before birthing into infinite wonder. The Phoenix rises above the crises, destruction, shame, oppression, broken dreams and expectations. The life once stagnated is turned into nutrients for the soil. When rising above the loss, new horizons appear. The creation from this place is unwavering love.

A poem from my experience:

           
Phoenix

Internal flame burning

Singing of renewal

Listening to forgive

Memories echo breath into the flame

Reflecting oceans in parallel horizons

Through tuning combustion dissolves

Perspective takes flight

Perspiration drips

Naturally revealing distortion

Telling the language of multi - ages

The phoenix to me represents the choice of self-renewal. The story reveals an avenue beyond fear and blame. When my heart hurts and I begin to spiral into the suffering of holding onto oppression and victimization, I can open the door into wonder. Inside this wonder, I open the door into deeper wonder, deeper and deeper I go into the mystery of life. Here the dance and balance continue to synthesize.

In my search for meaning I am discovering that it is up to me to create my own meaning of life experience. Even words can be meaningless unless we feel their potency. The Phoenix is a story of balancing physical and conceptual matters above and below and restoring equilibrium – an aspect to the collective consciousness – an aspect of resiliency.

  

References:

Nigg, Joseph. The Phoenix. The University of Chicago Press, 2016.