Realizations and Lessons

I had a big change a week ago, a huge realization:

I am not what is swirling about in my head, my body or the environment around me.  I am the stillness that resides deep within, that I have been allowed to touch every so often in meditation.

With this realization, that sense of stillness has become ever more present – on the meditation cushion and off.

Following this realization, I have learned some important lessons this past week:

That I can indeed trust the answers that are provided to me from that deep place of stillness and mystery within; and to trust those answers in directing my course of action without second-guessing said answers.

The fire and strength in me is true to me, it is “real” – there for me if I am also sensing the stillness and “rightness” of it (for lack of a better way to describe it).  Sadly, I forgot that I had this in me, and that I don’t have to question its existence, role or purpose in my life.

I learned that I don’t have to shrink myself and say yes when the situation clearly calls for a “no”; I can speak my mind clearly without ill-will or intentions of harm.

Surrendering to the force that rushes up and says “now is the time, you can do this, you must do this” will not lead me astray.

You see, I’ve spent the last two and a half years working to get to this place.  It was on the horizon yes, but the horizon seemed to never get closer.  Yet, maybe, just maybe, all that my teacher has been trying to teach me is sinking in and taking root.

I tend to be willful and stubborn; about change and allowing myself to go to those (sometimes terribly) uncomfortable places within. But with these major shifts that have been happening, with so much power behind them: Who am I to question it when there’s such a deep sense of rightness and trueness, comfortable or not?

So now, my boat has dissolved and I am in the middle of the ocean. I have jumped off the cliff and am forever falling.  It may sound like I am losing my mind, but I’m fine.  I am freer than I have been in a very, very, very long time.

What a strange gift this has been, all spurred by the unlikeliest of circumstances: I left teaching at East West School of Herbology.  My herb home-of-origin of 7 years.

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed.

Queen Anne’s lace