The Beginning of the 44th Journey Around Surya... a glimpse into the first few weeks

On the eve of my solar return, I was in shambles. Full of anger, guilt, surprise, confusion, disbelief…my heart was cracked, my arms were heavy and my eyes were fighting back the flow of tears that wanted to burst through. I felt like a dam that was losing its capacity to hold back the force.

The morning of my birthday, before I got into the car to go to the beach (for I have never spent my birthday at a beach) I decided to clear up the debris and take out the trash, leaving all that no longer serves behind.  If you are familiar with my journey, you might have a wrinkled face with a thought similar to, she has so much shit to clean up. Or maybe you smile because you too know that once you do a deep clean, you have to maintain in order for the dust not to settle, to accumulate and for you to collect it all again. 

That morning I recorded a long piece, a long conversation with myself, a facing of myself, a coming to grips with that which I am tired of carrying around, tired of holding on to, tired of being burdened by.

Here is an excerpt from that recording. I type it here since I have not yet learned how to edit my recordings….

“I am seeing how I need to soften and not be so rigid, because the rigidity is not helping me at all. And I recognize that I do not feel I was being rigid last night, I was just honoring a commitment to showing up for myself, which is beautiful in itself, that I want to do that for myself. That showing up to a commitment I made to myself is important to me and I am making it happen. Rebecca offered that I create space on either side of my commitment so nothing wavers…..

So I wake up in the morning and I realized oh, this really did happen, it is not pretend. And I feel guilt, I feel guilty, heavy. And then I realized, I place so many restricting rules on myself, rules I feel to conform to and it is exhausting. I see how I have my own way of doing things and my own way of doing things is wanting to push through these barriers of how I feel, think I should be doing things. It doesn’t need to be so rigid. So there is this rigidness and this softness and what is real and what is not real and then all of the karmic stuff and I know that I am here to learn and I cannot get it wrong and it feels like I am doing it wrong and messing up and there is so much pressure it is really tiring.”

When I lived in a cabin on the edge of the wilderness, I was in awe with the wooden slats that framed the space.  There were what looked like a tear, a rip, with stitches on either side to hold it together. I would often lay in bed or sit in my red chair staring at these marks on the wall while the line, “you can sew it up but still see the tear,” from U2’s Sweetest Thing played in my head. It feels like this now, and as I type this I see tear can be read like tear or rip, but in a different context it can read like tear, or tear drop. It feels like I am being ripped open again and again. And the tears have wanted to flow and I am holding them back.

I am resisting. What am I resisting? I am resisting myself. Aspects of myself that I do not want to see, accept. Interesting, for these aspects are powerful and they are the truth of who I am. I spend time thinking about what others think of me and seeking that external. Often when I am seeking, placing power to those whose opinions of me do not matter, whose view of me is not in alignment. I am learning to turn inwards and trust internally, to trust my own inner wisdom and guidance. And at the same time, I am seeing that there are those, those who I love, who really see me, who offer glimpses of me to me. Friends who see more of me than I allow myself to see. They see aspects of me before I allow myself to see them within me. So it is a both and, it is not that I can not seek external, it is about whose voice I am giving power to. So really, when I think about this, I see that I am fighting myself, I am fighting these lower tendencies, these lower, reduced, fragmented pieces of myself that I have picked up from others and that I am still giving power to. WHOA. No wonder why I say enough, I am done. I am tired, I can not take this anymore. I see how I am breaking through and standing up and claiming me.

I know I have done this before. I know I have. I have started this work. What I know is that I saw glimpses of myself, pieces and parts and I had strength to do the work, yet not to sustain it. It ebbed and flowed. It had peaks and drops, periods of dedication and consistency and then void and avoidance.

Now I am backed. I know I am backed. I am backed by my own self, what I know about myself and how I show up for myself. How I have shown up for myself and how I am doing it now.

And all that is arising, is arising to show me traces of where I have been, what I have picked up along the way. It is show like the pink ring in the tub in the Cat and the Hat books, I can see it. Since I can see it, now I can clean it up.

With this, I feel called to share imitate recordings, conversations that I record for myself, here now with you. I feel called to share glimpses of this inner work. Why? So you can witness the pull of the mind, the wavering, the questioning, the inquiry, the longing. So you know you are not alone.

Here they are:

I celebrated my birthday at the beach and a few days later I went to Six Flags Great Adventure. When I got home that night, I sat for my evening practice and recorded this:

We are never alone. We are always held. We are always guided.

Everything is happening for us and while I do not always know why, I trust, softening and surrendering knowing I am loved always in all ways.

And so are you,

Sara