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Teachings from Living Through the Darkness

I have been thinking a lot of shifts.  How the change happened.  Why it was essential for survival.  And where navigating through the darkness brought me.  It is the turn of a Decade.  This seems significant, and points to why these contemplations are happening in my mind.  Self-discovery is an uncomfortable place for most of us.  But what happens if we close that book completely…  how much MORE pain do we experience as we continue the patterns, habits, and thoughts that take us deeper into our dark times…

In these modern days, we are designing ourselves to be like a machine.  Never quitting.  Non-stop production.  Going until we break down.  Maybe it is a minor break.  Possibly it isn’t.  But as a farm gal, breakdowns generally mean setbacks of days, weeks, even months.  Emotional breaks after decades of hard wear and tear can completely derail our lives.  So why do we push piles of shadow further into our bodies?  Is it because of the way we are expected to continue?  Push through no matter the consequences.  Feed the giant machine that has become our society…

No THANK YOU.

These thoughts are heavy ones.  There is no doubt.  Are they too heavy for us to handle with out breaking down?  Or is it inevitable to face these dark questions?  These shadow aspects must be released to eliminate this threat of breaking.  I feel that we have been pushing so much in for so long now.  That the consciousness of the greater whole of our society is cultivating this to be the normal way.   Working constantly.  Disregarding boundaries of body, mind and soul for something else.  In some cases, I would guess we don’t even have a clue as to who, or what we truly are feeding.  All with the greatest sacrifice of our own personal sanity. 

Depression, Anxiety, & Emotional Unrest

How many of us are affected by these categories of emotional un-rest?  I feel that the numbers are staggering.  Almost that most every day, there is a post somewhere to remind our friends through cyber space, we are there for them.  Preventing and making aware of suicide.  The Me Too movement.  How many women do you know who are affected and deal with trauma from Sexual Abuse?  It feels, even in our small community, that I can reach out and touch dozens of these cases.  Is the cultivation of machine-made human being numbing our abilities to perceive right and wrong?  And then not reach out when we suffer from these cases?  This, the way I have seen only creates a space where the darkness of these conditions can thrive.

Inspirational Darkness

These aspects of the current times are incredibly upsetting.  BUT also inspiring.  We have a chance to SHIFT our perception and action.  We have the chance RIGHT now to change the way we raise our children.  How we can teach them, standing up for what your body feels is right is MORE than your right.  Speaking truth, living in the light of your truth.  Isn’t this, in our children, where potent change can & will occur? 

These conditions of the human body and spirit.  Are nothing but.  Conditions are stages of embodiment.  Meant to be worked through.  Not pushed down and ignored.  Or sedated and diminished by chemical applications of drugs.  They are to be smoothed out.  Sorted and deciphered of root, reason, and cause.  Working with TOOLS to construct a place of safety.  A place to do the work in shifting the condition to better serve the human affected.

Living THROUGH Your Darkness

The light at the end of your tunnel isn’t always the most brilliant.  This, the harsh reality we all have to face.   Saying it feels far away, is most likely, an understatement.  Like the tunnel that you walk within is all encompassing.  With only a glimmer of brilliance to focus on pushing towards.  This can be a very difficult place to be at.  Finding the capacity in your darkness to move forward is something you must pull deeply for.   Diving into the shadow further to grasp your courage.  This reality however painful it may be to realize, is a major part of the process.  As you begin to shift your consciousness from the engulfing darkness to the courage.  You have taken one step closer.  Soon, focusing on that brilliant speck of light is where the subtle shift beings to happen.

Once this decision is made to push forward.  The rest starts falls into place.  Within weeks of practice, I realized the darkness wasn’t my focus any longer.  I had started the process of RE-focusing.  The mantra became the light.   The realizing of my darkness began the process of living with it.  The real shift was happening before I consciously realized.  With each movement towards that speck of light.  I noticed it getting bigger.

Pulsatilla : intoxicating the darkness…

While I navigated my dark shadow aspects of self.  I started to slowly come to grips with the fact that light cannot exist without dark.  While drudging through the emptiness allowing this light statement to exist was difficult.  But I did start to see how it fit into this process.  After I made the decision to move through the shadows.  My path re-aligned itself.  My focus immediately shifted to what I knew had been calling me my entire life.  The plants.  Our home, the Earth.  Healing humanity through natural blessings of the forest, prairie’s, and wetlands.  This dive reignited my life.  This reassuring me that the light needed the shadow to exist.

 I was able to identify a new genre of plant allies.  One who soothed anxiety.  Others that helped me sleep through the night.  This new genre even hosted herbs who became my meditation companions.  A plant I found that I loved keeping in my pocket was Pulsatilla.  During the days I feared walking to the store, she would bring me strength.  If I had a random anxiety attack in the store, she quickly calmed my heart rate.  

The fuzzy warmth of Pulsatilla.  This flower grows directly out of the snow.  This is what drew me to her in fascination.   She thrives up to the tree line and above here in the Rockies.  The 1st blossom of that Alpine country.  She has to be strong to live up there.  Right?  But this lovely sweet flower has a delicacy to her.  She is whimsical and nods to the winds in a purple glow.  Just observing this flower in her natural environment leads me to understand her medicine that much better.  This leads the questions…  How do we do when we’re in our natural environment?  What IS our natural environment?  Do we know the answers to these questions?

Learning From Plant Whispers…

Pulsatilla is there to teach these understandings.  She shows us the darkness.  Nods to it with respect & gives us the delicate strength to continue navigating through.  Not afraid.  Letting go of anxieties & attachments.  So that we can make room for the light.  Shifting from being engulfed by our shadows.  To allowing the brilliance of light to flow through us. 

Pulsatilla holds the ability for our mind to shift in a moment.  Letting things go to the winds as you bow in respect and gratitude towards what they have taught you.  Are you beginning to piece together the light bringer that this Pulsatilla is?  Do you see how through nature we can be supported effortlessly through our dark shadow times?  I strongly believe that these plants are here to serve us.  Enlightening our minds so that we may better serve them.  

Blessings to you my loves,