LIONS AND LAMBS AND THE MONTH OF MARCH

March 29, 2011

Having arrived with a roar, as we prepare to turn the page on the calendar, will March move on as meek as a lamb?

The thing about early spring--it stirs up hope as I poke around the garden looking for the tulip tips (hoping the deer didn't get there first). It fires up the blood and I feel like hiking through the woods. It is muddy and messy and dirty and chaotic. One day it is sweater weather and the next day it is snowing and the day after that I'm bundled up to face single digits and the day after that I'm turning down the furnace and throwing open the windows.

This stormy, drab, mucky month mirrors the transformation taking place deep within the earth of my own being. It’s messy in there. The debris that was hidden under the frozen places in my soul is exposed. It is muddy where I am thawing out. My heart is stormy and unsettled; one day dark and raging, another day brilliant skies blazing blue—then clouding up again by mid-afternoon.

I’ve never much cared for March. Nor have I ever moved through periods of transformation with much grace. Yesterday I stood up on the ridge overlooking the river valley, the harbor and the Lake. All this brown and grey unfolding below me, the only color the blue sky overhead and some dark green conifers scattered among the bare birches.

I sighed. How else can the green return? How else can the buds unfurl and the breezes shower apple blossoms on the ground? How else can there be tulips in April and lilacs in May and roses in June? We have to have the winter season when Life moves deep down inside to regenerate, to dream new things into being. But winter passes and it is time to wake up, to emerge from the caves and caverns where we retreated and once again bring life and beauty to the world. We thaw and we storm and we clear the debris, allowing the green to come.

My storming subsides to a gentle rain. I catch the drops with a tissue, retracing my steps for home. Nothing is wrong. It is only my sweet soul waking up.

DARK DAYS

DARK DAYS

February 28, 2011

At last, I have broken free from the nets that held me and I am standing safe upon this path! I am filled with Joy and I do a little dance...

Suddenly my feet go out from under me and I land hard upon my back. The sticky fingers of Hollow Spirits reach toward me, wanting me, wanting my life energy. So desperate they seem. They murmur, they whisper, they sing, like the ebb and flow of the wind. Their voices make me want to crawl off to the side of the path and lie down and sleep. Just for this hour. Just for this morning. Just for this day. The woods look inviting—so cool and earthy; the green glow of sunlight filtered through a thousand leaves illuminates the mossy floor. Fairy bowers and elven playgrounds they seem. And there, beyond the trees I glimpse a meadow filled with wild poppies of every color! So beautiful, shining brightly under the clear blue of sky and flaming yellow sun.

But it isn’t safe. They are not what they seem. Not the mossy floor of the woods. Not the poppy field beyond. When I wander off this path I sleep a death sleep. My energy slowly draining from my body into those wretched, sticky spirits. It takes a very long time to re-awaken. It takes many days to recover lost strength, lost courage, lost miles.

I am no longer dancing. I trudge down this well-worn path, this path I've been down so many times. But then, oh! Maybe not so well-worn, actually. Really, I see it is not worn much at all. So, why am I on it? Oh, yes. I remember. I was told that further on, beyond this treacherous wood, beyond the illusions of meadow and field, there is a place where I will thrive. I will be well. I will not find it so difficult to trust, or to love, and joy will course through the river channels of my body like spring floods. I will be as if made from Light. There will my books be published. There is financial abundance. There I am able to teach what I have learned. There are all the desires of my heart--my life's purpose fulfilled.

I want to be in that place further on. If it costs me this terrifying trek to get there, so be it. Yes, that is why this path is different. Unlike the old one that loops and circles endlessly, this path actually goes somewhere! A place further on.

I hear the mocking laughter in my mind. Questions rise up from some dark cesspool within me, wanting to know if in fact these wonderful changes can really take place...if I can really find my way to this place of Light and Healing and Joy...if I really have within me what will be required of me there...will the desires of my heart really be made manifest?

I ache all over and my heart is so heavy I can hardly bear it in my body. My mind is full of dark thoughts.

The sticky fingers clutch at my arms, my legs, my hair.

I am on the path. That is the only good thing I can say right now. My feet remain yet upon the path. I will hold on. I will hold out. I will somehow make it through this dark landscape within myself. Perhaps it is from this very darkness that the golden threads of Light are spun.

I choose to smile. Maybe if I whistle a bit...