Week 26 | Transform | Use a Fire Ritual to Transform Something You Want to Change

Is this the halfway point of the year of positive intention? 26 weeks!! Thanks for coming along on this journey. Let me know how you're doing and what you're up to with a comment!

I blew it last week and never made time to post. Brian's mom came in from Oklahoma City and we were exceptionally busy transforming a messy extra floor of our temporary rental into a guest suite for her.

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Happy belated summer solstice! What did you do to celebrate? I gathered with the women from my therapist collective and we had a wonderful sage cleansing followed by a small fire ritual. It has been way too long since I celebrated the solstice with an actual ritual and it was soo nice! It reminds me to invite ritual into my life more often. I've left behind the part of myself that was so engrossed in women's spirituality, my inner pagan. I'm reclaiming her**!

I'm still feeling a strong sense of the summer solstice and the changing of seasons, so I want to focus on the energy of the solstice in this week's mantra and action - transformation. Fire is the element of the summer, and fire represents transformation. It's a time to look at what brings you fulfillment in life and how it can transform you to be a better person.

For a simple fire ritual, you can sit outside in the dark and light a candle. Think about some things that you want to transform and visualize sending them into the flame. {transform: to change in condition, nature, or character; convert.} Be with nature. Enjoy the moment. Absorb the abundance that is around you.

I'm looking forward to being in nature next weekend in Wisconsin. (See you there, Jamie! Can we do a fire ritual together?)

**Major aha moment here that I'll share.
I am seeing an acupuncturist who specializes in psychological concerns. She is amazing and I have had two really intense sessions with her. My first session included a terrifying and jarring vision that rocked me, but that also helped me start to reintegrate the parts of myself that my trauma severed. I expected my second session, which happened to be on the solstice, to be equally intense, and was a bit disappointed and surprised to only have a calming, centering experience on the table. But when I was done and I sat with Barb to talk about the session, she told me about a shamanic vision she'd had while I was on the table. It turns out she'd taken the intensity on herself to make it safe for me. In her vision, she and I were standing together and watching a "crazed, wild, primal version" of myself in the wilderness. This self-part was clutching an umbilical cord, dragging the baby that was on the end of it in a slight disturbing, but very protective and primal way. Barb was alarmed, but I let her know that everything was okay, that this was what was supposed to happen. We coaxed this wild part of me to sit in a tree and calm down. She then transformed into a serpent and slithered over to me, wrapped many times around my body, and then entered my body through my skin near where my liver is. (My liver that was in distress when I had HELLP, mind you.) I'm still making sense of the whole vision and the message within it, but I'm pretty sure that my inner pagan is closely related to this crazed, wild, primal version of myself, and I felt it that night when we were doing our fire ritual, but only just now clearly see this connection.

What do you make of the symbolism in this vision?

The day before my appointment Gavin had noticed an image of a snake eating its tail. I explained the symbol and we talked about it. It's the first time I'd thought of a snake in a long time. Tonight at bedtime he told me that we both have a snake that lives outside. His is yellow and mine is blue. Just coincidental? He's a very spiritual little being.

(Let me know if you want Barb's number!)

Week 26
Mantra | Transform
Action | Use a Fire Ritual to Transform Something You Want to Change

Week 24 Animation

Look at this fascinating animation about time and our orientation to it. Brian found it today, not having any idea what my post was this week, and I thought it was very appropriate to share with you all.

Week 24 | Love Where You Are | Document Your Day-to-Day Moments of Bliss

Summer is just about here. My favorite season! And we've had the warmest spring in Chicago's recorded history. I love, love, love this weather! If there's any time when I should be in love with being here, it is now. But, you see, I get struck with bouts of restlessness that strike me when I'm least expecting it. And I can't really blame it on Chicago, because I experienced this while living in San Francisco, one of the world's most beautiful and amazing cities.

Brian and I are searching for a new home right now, a process that usually triggers my longing to be elsewhere. This restlessness forms an emotionally toxic combo when paired with my basic temperament, which involves spontaneity, zig-zagging, living from moment-to-moment and feeling my way through life. It's hard for me to commit to most things for longer than about a day. (My Virgo sister is laughing out loud reading this, and my Virgo husband is probably rolling his eyes. Lovingly.)

Anyway, I am struggling hard right now with my restless sense and yearning for vague something elses. I do think that part of my healing from my traumatic HELLP experience, as well as my continued adjustment to the rigidity involved with raising a young child, requires that I just sit still and look for the happiness that is all around me, instead of focusing on the something elses. The happiness that is all around me goes with me wherever I go, and I know that. So this week's focus is on the happy day-to-days that exist wherever I am in time and space, like Gavin just walking up to me to show me the squirrel sticker on his toe. This week I'm going to take photos of things otherwise ignored that happen every day. If I get around to it, I'll post some here.

Thanks for reading!

Week 24
Mantra | Love Where You Are
Action | Document Your Day-to-Day Moments of Bliss

Week 23 | Make Someone Happy | Do one thing a day to make another person feel happy

Thanks to Bree for this week's inspiration. "Make someone happy." For those who don't know, Bree is my childhood best friend. You may have read about her in the post from Week 21. We met in 4th grade when we started a new school together. It means the world to me that we've stayed in touch over the years, in spite of different high schools, universities, cities, lives... She was just here in Illinois two weeks ago and made the incredible effort of taking the train into the city, not once, but twice to see us and meet Gavin for the first time. Bree and I played sports both together and against each other :( so it was really special that Gavin's first time "playing baseball" was with her. You can watch the video here. She sent an email today that included all kinds of daily actions for conscious living, which is where I got this idea for this week. Plus, she always makes me happy. :)

Week 23
Mantra | Make Someone Happy.
Action | Do one thing a day just to make another person feel happy.

(And sorry for skipping a week last week. I wrote a check for $40 to the over the weekend to make up for the weeks I've skipped or haven't completed my action.)