From Purgatory to Peace
August has brought a fierce heat and required us to surrender to the fires of transmutation on multiple levels. We fear fire and often mourn what it reclaims, but we forget fire is an alchemical agent. What survives it is transformed, refined, and stronger; what succumbs to it makes space for something new to blossom. Fire is part of life and creation. We contain sparks within us, affording us creational agency, passion, and excitement. We are no stranger to life’s transformational tools, though we often don’t recognize them as such when we are in their intensity.
When we observe nature, we become aware of the cycles, patterns, and rhythms that facilitate and guide all life. We are part of them, guided by them, and facilitators of them in our own way. As much as we think we have control when we advance ourselves in some area, we are at times reminded of our subservient position to the grander forces and designs at play.
The manifestations of these forces can seem destructive, punitive, and cruel to those living in a lower frequency bandwidth of perception. From that view, loss is unjust and forever. Life is cut short and unfinished mistakenly. People seem victims of life, lucky or unlucky in their draw at birth. Death is menacing and predatory. Some belief systems preach death’s dark intentions as an avoidable fate mitigated only by an exclusive set of rules or submission to a deity. Fear is a currency that is used to drive life in subjugation, and eternity is held as an unimaginable possibility and option for a select few.
As consciousness rises into the higher bandwidth of assured eternal origin and inevitability, however, fear simply becomes an illusory block to divine flow and potential. Fear is a misunderstanding or misperception, in the way of a higher truth. Fear productively, becomes the direct path to access transformation. Fear does not stop action or cause retraction, rather it warrants investigation and illumination. Fear that is fully recognized and processed, is then easily dismissed, or dissipated when encountered again in another person or situation.
We are shedding many old layers of experience, some inherited and not originating with us in this lifetime. To rise, we must see where we hold old energies, imbalances, and entanglements in lower realms of experience, relationship, and belief. They are blocks and limits to expansion. Life exists in perpetual motion; we are in phases of expansion and contraction, birth and death, ongoing and often simultaneously. Saying yes to life is saying yes to death and its various forms and agents.
August called forth a culmination of karmic residue and responsibility. We have increasingly been guided by death’s direction and new offerings, and what we refuse to acknowledge is aflame in our awareness or exploding in our reality. Old ways, comforts, and roles won’t get us through. Some are falling away completely and won’t be available anymore. If we are perceptive, this has been coming for a long time. If we are honest, we are relieved with some closures, and terrified with others. Have we ever considered who a butterfly is inside the chrysalis, as we marvel after at the glory of its wings?
I experienced my karmic climax over the course of moving my youngest daughter to college. I of course knew it was impending for quite some time and had waves of emotion surface leading up to the event, but the enactment itself brought additional ancestral accounts forward that were seeking acknowledgement and liberation. It can be quite a challenge to stay present in the moment while a heavy-laden toll claims its due. It is no different when the toll doesn’t originate with you. The energies can feel like your emotions, your thoughts, your feelings, your fears, your projections, your grief. You have most likely engaged in dramas with them in your own life before unknowingly, and felt victimized by their perceived threats, while projecting their enemies in your relations.
For me, it was unburdening the plight of the women in my lineages; I was filled with feeling and knowing so many dreams unfulfilled, anger, resentment, disempowerment, perceived failure or weakness, and rage. I felt an accumulation of suppressed grief and unspoken desperation. I felt an immense fear of losing worth and value as I aged. I was overcome with a loss of identity and purpose. It was disorienting at times, so I spent my mornings in meditation and spoke the Hawaiian prayer for forgiveness through my ancestral lines. I walked the earth with love, connection, and intention. I was gratefully held for the transition and present for my daughter’s initiation into her new chapter.
I knew what I was stepping into when we first entered our cabin on the mountain. I was immediately greeted by a newly emerged locust on the porch. The metamorphosis phase of the locust informed me of the state I was in and its intended outcome. I felt the vulnerability and rawness of one that had shed its former skin. I was told the transformation was already in place and reminded of my wings. I then got to see the locust take its first flight. I kept the shell for my prayers and was guided to release the old skin on the last day in honor of what was experienced but is no more. As I went to go, there was another empty shell in gravel at my feet. I was told to acknowledge my husband’s transformation too, and to allow him to be new. The women in me had so much mistrust, anger, resentment, and fear of the power and position of men. They lived so many toxic relationships and imbalances. Some of the women grew cold and saw the men as dangerous fire. The men carried their own burdens in the mix, but emotional connections and understanding between the sexes were not well-trodden in my line. Men were often a source of income, but also conflict between family and friends. I had carried these attitudes forth early on in my marriage. They were settings I didn’t know to question, relationships I grew up seeing, dynamics I played out with my husband, and assignations I placed on him often.
The most important thing to recognize while being a vehicle for a collective’s passage of the past, is to know your ability to change it for yourself. You are supported by many generations in doing so. Sometimes unresolved voices simply want to be acknowledged, sometimes their pain and stories felt and understood, sometimes gifts and wisdom want to be passed down, but always the bearers of the karmic weight want to be set free. Old vows, traumas, grudges, and burdens have ways of being passed on down the line and hardwired into various manifestations of mental, emotional, and physical inheritance. Many generations felt helpless in their lot. Many didn’t know they had the power to change familial or societal traditions and expectations. For most, these frameworks of experience were prisons and perspectives that they were obligated to carry forth out of honor in sacrifice to the greater good of their people. Some families were entrained to certain behaviors and beliefs through religious influence, others through economic and social status. The chains of our past shape our possibilities from the inside out, until we know we have personal agency, and our kin on the other side celebrating our ingenuity and innovation. We are not doomed to repeat patterns; we are often brought to the energies intentionally to create new outcomes.
In my most recent prayer gathering, I invited my ancestors for communion. They gently reminded me that I am also here to enjoy the wisdom and fruits of their labor. I had focused so much on the task of clearing and integrating traumatic energy, that I forgot about the gifts and treasures available. We can call on them to offer their strength and guidance. No matter how imperfect or unapproachable they seemed in their human form, there is the spiritual nature of our kinfolk that holds understanding and insight beyond their capacity in the physical world. As I marveled at what should have been obvious to me, they had an offering.
A young male stepped forward that appeared to be a hunter or warrior type. He was shirtless and wore a lion’s headdress. He introduced himself as more of an adventurer than a fighter, although he fought hard to find his way. He gifted me with the spirit of assertion and exploration. He had left home and all he knew to cross an ocean to a completely unknown land. He knew he had to make his own way, and he learned new languages and manners to get through. He assimilated to a certain point, but he maintained his authenticity and belief in his greatness. He held his love for his family and saw his pursuits as extensions of its love and honor. He reminded me that this is part of me, and that it existed in both sides of my family. He said although the roles were slightly different, both men and women blazed this trail. He acknowledged the new territory we were in on earth now, but assured me I had what I needed to succeed. I felt the energetic presence of the gift inside and was deeply grateful for his experience and the exchange. I am now seeing every day as a new adventure. We are in unprecedented times and evolutionary changes. It is beyond important to stay grounded, to know our roots and depth, and to hold our value and vision for the sake of all life.
All of life on earth is our family. There are lives we spent as trees, animals, and otherworldly beings. Our ancestry is vast and full of magic and medicine. So many various life forms have shown up in response to my prayers and offerings to the earth during this transition. Love is the unifying ingredient. WE are not strangers to each other or life. When we are drawn to things, even those that are seemingly different or difficult, we are seeking recognition and reconnection for a purpose. Some things that show up are outside of a belief system or familiar face, but they are known to us in our hearts.
I was recently visited by a Lakota legend named White Buffalo Calf Woman while I was in intense pain and grief. As I opened my prayer ritual and circle, she was there waiting. She came to me and placed her hand on my chest. I was immediately overcome by a force of tranquility. She told me that the stillness and peace that I felt was the true nature of reality. She assured me that all of the surface disturbances and complexities in emotion, division, and story, are not real. We are experiencing and shedding many imprints of emotion and perception that are distortions of truth, and that it is important to surrender all of them to what’s real. She said that the world needs those that are ready to embody this peace. The world needs examples and demonstrations of this now. She encouraged me to make time for truth and peace in my day. This is not something I get from outside me. We are encouraged to seek our truth, peace, and stillness inside. It is from this place that we will live, share, create, build, and birth the new earth. It is from this place we will know we are love and stop looking outside for validation or completion. We are already the love that we seek. We are already our purpose and our success. We are already that which we seek in the outer world. We are learning to master ourselves to receive in the outer world that which we activate from inside.
To access and embody more of the peace we are, we are detoxing the denser karmic distortions and residue we have accrued over many lifetimes and experiences. When we understand what’s happening, we can give ourselves the space and time to prioritize this process, without projecting fear or danger into our current circumstances. Our bodies are releasing and mutating ongoing. We can offer support to our bodies by attending to what they require as needed. Sometimes they require changes in nourishment, rest, and activity. Exercise and movement are good ways to shift energy in the body when we don’t have a healing modality or practice. Writing, singing, and speaking help with shifting stories and intentions. If you haven’t tried speaking the release or claim of something for yourself, try it. Prayer is communication with your spirit. Consider that your body and voice are instruments of expression and creation for the you existing beyond form.
We are closing out August with a full blue supermoon in Pisces, while 6 planets are retrograde. What do you need to see in yourself and your current circumstances that need upgrades? What do you need to let go? Are you carrying forth old stories, beliefs, emotions, projections, defenses, prejudices, conflicts, imbalances, relations, or distortions that prevent you from assuming your power and mastery as a divine creator being of love? What disturbs or dishonors your PEACE? Paradigms are shifting, narratives are flipping, and systems are breaking down for you to rebuild and align your life to your authenticity. It’s a process, it’s a blessing; it’s a procedure procured by PEACE itself to secure the golden age on earth imagined and foretold for ages.
Where can you find peace in yourself? Your day? Your relationships? Your communities? Your landscape? Your work? Your mindset? We are bridging this peace in each moment, choice, intention, relationship, action, opportunity, and creation. Take notice of those in your atmosphere that instill peace; discern all that you invite into it that brings its opposition. We are practicing standing in our true nature no matter the circumstance. You are only here response-ably to be you. Choose wisely and treat kindly.
I would love to hear from you about your August experience! Let’s come together to share and bridge, WHAT BRINGS YOU PEACE?
