Monday, September 23, 2013

Big Enough to Hold the Now

I’ve always prided myself on my adaptability, on my flexibility. Today I am seeing this word: Resilience—bouncing back after a setback or surprise.  That set me to pondering the difference between flexibility and resilience.

I’m flexible. I can bend and shift, stretch and shape myself to fit into many situations and relationships. I’m discovering that isn’t always a healthy thing. I see that by doing that in my life I have often given up my own shape to make room for another’s.

Being resilient, I am noticing, retains my own boundaries; my own desires and needs while taking into account what is happening around me. Being resilient is a response to the present moment, to the now. Adaptability looks at the past and takes that into account in shaping who I am now.

I’m not saying that one is more important or necessary than the other. This is a both/and situation. Yes, I can look at the past, but recognizing that the past is Not Now, my resilience in bouncing back to a balance and stability that can navigate the now gives me the opportunity to learn from the past and maintain those boundaries that serve me and my relationships in health and safety.


In energy healing I am encouraged to experience a container that is big enough to hold all the emotions present in the now, whether they are exacerbated by my own past experiences or are being expressed by the other and I am feeling them empathically.  Having resilience makes it possible to take some of those “learned behaviors” from the past that have shaped my container in less than healthy ways and stay aware to the fact that I am big enough to hold the Now.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Building Sacred Space

When I turned 50 I was guided to build a labyrinth in my backyard. It was a 7-circuit classic Labyrinth. I outlined the path with small, white marble chips. Lo and behold, the earth rose up over those chips creating an embossed effect. It was as if the Earth embraced the pattern becoming one with it.



That labyrinth was green, moist and mossy. The one I am building here in Pennsylvania, exactly 10 years later, is brown, dry and dusty. There was a perfect spot for it in the woods next to my house—one of those wonderful glades I am attracted to. A little bit smaller than the spot in my backyard, this space will hold a 5-circuit labyrinth.



It’s like a magnet. Even as I create it, I am drawn to it. It’s like the land is thirsty for the water of my emotion. The labyrinth radiates peace and safety, and I find, as I did before, that my day must start grounded in this Sacred Space.