My Path of Creativity (part 3)

I used to carry a black thorn around in my heart. Do you know what I mean? It was the pain of past relationships, the anger, regret, and especially unexpressed grief and longing for love—from others and self—that lay just below the surface, but extended deep into my soul—that was never fully embraced for fear of losing control, or even never coming back from the abyss.

I’ve been feeling recently that my heart and my voice are more connected than I am allowing them to be. Do you know what I mean? When emotions based in the past come up, stimulated by actions in the present, they long to be expressed—with tears or shouts of rage, sobs of despair, or just gentle weeping. Even when they were acknowledged, the full extent and depth was never voiced because of the fear of seeing myself too clearly, and not liking what I saw.

There were always moments. Moments when the sun came out, the windows were opened, the breeze blew through the corridors of my heart, and airing out my dirty laundry was no more difficult than taking the time to hang the comforter on the line in the backyard on a bright spring day. Do you know what I mean?

To create a place: a mind like a river, and a heart like a well.
God in my waters creates rainbows, and sparkles, and sprays
of fat droplets of love.

Those moments always came with the gratitude of being alive, and a faith and hope in the eternal connection I have with the Beloved. And yet, there was always something that I could not shake, a feeling that was often triggered by the turbulent times that roiled around me. There was something that I just couldn’t accept, (or was it contain?) in the me that I longed to be. Do you know what I mean?

Part of it was the fear of responsibility. With great potential comes great accountability. As I learned and grew in depth and assurance, the more I survived, the more I knew was expected of me. However, although my understanding was linked to my heart, my will and determination was attached to my rage and grief, often keeping me in a bind and at a standstill.

I discovered this by chance. In my studies of energy work it is taught that the front chakras, or energy centers, are associated with emotion, and the back chakras with will. When I became aware that I was ignoring the back chakras I asked why. Although my will and resolve helped me to survive, and directed me to grow rather than become bitter or manipulative, I had always associated it with my grief and rage, and therefore it was something to be hidden or even shunned.

As I opened myself to actually healing and letting go of my deepest pain, I could only do that by accessing the goodness in my will and desire to be the best Anne I could be, which showed me that black thorn in my heart. And then I breathed and opened to the love and the energy of the universe around me, bigger than me, and yet me. And I grew, expanding beyond the confines of the room.

As I grew I looked more closely at the thorn. It was quite beautiful, multi-colored, not black at all. The impression that it had made in my heart could be considered a wound, but what a wound it was. Have you ever stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon and looked across to the other side? Have you ever noticed the layers of sediment formed over millions of years, from intense pressure and persistent wearing away? Shaping, molding, creating, unfolding, uncovering, discovering the beauty within the Earth, unveiling it for merely humans to gape at open-mouthed in heart-stoppable beauty.

Do you know what I mean? That was the thorn in my heart. Not a source of grief or rage, but of indescribable beauty and unimaginable contact with self and other. And that was me! Amazing, isn’t it? All I could say was, “Aren’t I beautiful?” I knew I was. I know I Am.

unfolding cosmic spring
connecting us all with love

(Thank you Jen, for holding that space for me. I couldn’t have done it without you.)

My Path of Creativity (part 2)

I wrote these words last week: “But my path was more . . .” I discovered that I must rephrase: My path is mine. The moment for it is Now. Neither more, nor less than the people whose shoulders I stand on—I am not here to compete or even improve on what has come before. What they have given is perfect in its own right, in its own time. This, however, is my time.

“My grandmother, the Teacher, my mother, the Nurse . . . my ancestors, leading lives of service and compassion . . .” I realize, as I am writing, that there is a fear in me that I will not measure up, that I will be found lacking in some way, that I will not be found worthy to “belong” to their ranks of healers and good women. The gifts that I have, that I see, that I have yet to uncover, are gifts I have not paid for dearly enough and therefore can’t justify in embracing completely. I am still in the process of letting go of that fear, but the first inkling I had of a life yet to live began when I turned 50.

It was then that I first allowed myself to whole-heartedly follow my destiny. Before that I had allowed myself to be led, to follow a call from above. I had asked, was told, and had given myself up to follow. At 50 I realized I didn’t need to leave myself behind!

I am aware that my gifts arise from remembering the past—the pain, the joys, the failures, the triumphs. I am also mindful of them as I open to stand in this moment of my own making and view the immense possibility of a future that I am nurturing with these gifts of my heart. One such moment came as I asked the question: “What is to be my life’s work?”

“Right relations”, I was told. “You must have right relations with all beings.” I went back to school and got my masters in Earth Literacy. The gifts that path uncovered were three-fold. The first was the connection I had buried with mother, grandmother and nature. In re-learning the importance of honoring each being with a name, I clearly saw every thread in a tapestry of cosmic proportions, of which I was a part, as well as a whole.

The next gift I uncovered was my joy in writing. Shortly after returning to school I began a weekly column called Our Place in the Universe at religionandspirituality.com. Its purpose was to explore the relationship between spirituality and the environment. It became more than that. My writing wasn’t just for self-expression, reflection, education or connection. I realized that my story mattered. Writing from my soul was a way to open the path that led toward self-awareness and healing, and allowed my story to reflect and vibrate with the heart songs of others.

Another gift that was uncovered combined both nature and writing. In my wanderings I capture moments of beauty with my camera. My artistic sensibility had always recognized scenes in nature that I have etched in my memory. Now, I take photos and engrave on them a saying, poem or haiku that further amplifies the moment.

With these works, I strive to create a place—an environment—with pictures and words. My desire is to join with the Muses evoking and awakening memories of pure beginnings when we were One with the Divine and knew it! Nature offers us hints—even more than hints—of our greatness and beauty. We just need to be reminded of the path that leads towards wholeness, and to ourselves becoming sons and daughters of the Divine in this awakening world, where Oneness exists Now and love exists always.

Bert Hellinger writes in his book “No Waves Without the Ocean” that solutions only occur through inner development. These three gifts encouraged my own development for the next few years, but I was in for a new twist in my path of creativity—and it had to do with seeing myself as I really am, for that is the beginning of happiness.