I want to know...
Do you ever take inventory of your life? To me, it's like cleaning. We sweep out from under the bed, clean out the closets, dust off the shelves, fix the leak and the squeak in the door and take a good look at all the junk we've swept up. It's been that kind of day here at Mountain Jewel. We've been asking the powerful question, what's all the stuff that we've been ignoring or avoiding?
Life can be incredibly overwhelming and this can lead us to run as far away as possible from that which overwhelms. Distractions are easy to find and can range from mindless and trivial to legitimately self destructive. In the end, we have the option to continue ignoring what is ours to do or to face it. As Toko-pa Turner says,
Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own.
I've definitely been a person who has run from life or just continually runs around, always off to the "next (best) thing"- I've left communities, friendships, jobs, and more. This homestead business, to quote a Diane Cluck song, Sara, "Pins my tail down." I'm invested. I'm tied up. I'm all in.
I can't just leave and when things get hard, I can't run for long.
And furthermore, I'm not only called to not leave, I'm called to continually tend, care, invest and love.
I have occasionally pulled a card in one of my favorite tarots, The Medicine Woman Tarot, that says,
"Your heart has found its home. Put your full energy into all you love here. Hold nothing back. Your heart has reached the heavens and brought them home to rest. Let yourself feel your commitment to a certain place, a certain community. Love can be expressed very particularly. You have a place to found all of your high hopes and dreams.
You are going to "do it" now. Longings no longer take you away to the illusive someone or something better. You have reached a time when you must give your full participation to what is before you. Fix it up; make it into your dream. Everything you need for full spiritual growth is here now. Take stock and dig in." [Ten of Bowls: Your Heart Is Home]
What a joyful message! Yet just knowing this doesn't cut me off from feeling the conflict that Toko-pa talks about in This Too Belongs:
In the end, so much of the conflict we feel in our hearts is because we’ve split ourselves off from the very life we are living. We partition ourselves from the things with which we are at odds, treating them as unbelonging even as we live them. We vaguely imagine some other body, some better career, some other lover – but the irony is that so much of what makes us unhappy is our own rejection of the life we have made. Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own. We must look at it squarely with all its unbecoming qualities and find a way to love it anyway. Only from that complete embrace can a life begin to grow into what it is meant to become.
Life isn't a pie in the sky and it's not always easy. There's some dangerous pseudo-spiritual babble that crossed my path somewhere in my 20s that says, You should be joyful all the time. If you're not, you're out of alignment or out of the divine flow... While I've experienced a lot of this joyful flow, I beg to differ: moments of struggle, hardship or overwhelm, moments where it seems like so much is broken, going wrong or too much is being asked of us are also a valid part of life and we certainly aren't disconnected from God(dess) when we're feeling them. That's some straight up mumbo jumbo that causes people to disown their lives and do something called spiritual bypassing (look it up.)
I'm finding Toko-pa's approach to be much more whole, honest and ultimately empowering, leading us along the path of a rich and complete life,
We must look at it squarely with all its unbecoming qualities and find a way to love it anyway.
When I was in high school, at the library I somehow made my way to Oriah Mountain Dreamer's book "The Invitation"- have you heard of her? Though I was young and still within the shelter of my parent's home and very caught up in the life I was living, her words spoke straight to me. I have been thinking of them lately as I face overwhelm and general resistance to just do the hard things that need to be done.
The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
My soul still feels so much resonance, perhaps even more now, as I did when I first read it. I want to know if you can stand in the fire and not shrink back. We all face trials and tribulations of the soul. We're all given the opportunity to stand in the flames and feel the burn and to keep going. It's up to us to say YES... or to shrink and ignore or hide. To cast off our life. To run in search for something else.
Great post. I find myself responding, "both and."
I think life is a flow. There are experiences, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, all of it flowing in and out. It's all impermanent, but we try to make it permanent by writing mental stories about it. This is an important coping mechanism for a world with an overwhelming volume of new information always coming at us, in combination with our innate desire to avoid pain and pursue pleasure.
To me the trick is to both develop our capacity to be with those parts of our story that are troubling us to where we can genuinely liberate their energy and no longer be undermined by patterns from the past, while also developing our capacity to let go of our story completely sometimes.
We need to give ourselves breaks from this artificially imposed idea of "me" sometimes, which is what happens during meditation. And we also need to realize that we can't LIVE in meditation. We have to actually live, and that involves having this flow that we are making order out of with stories. Developing a healthier relationship with those stories is crucial for us all.
I actually think it's best not to search for our troublesome plot points though. They tend to arise on their own when they are ready to be processed. When we set ourselves the task of "figuring this out" now, we run the risk of strengthening the pattern we wish to liberate. Flow reveals all with perfect timing naturally.
But when things are arising, when the sense of self is strong enough to not be terrified by seeing itself more clearly, then what?
There are many responses people will recommend. What has worked best for me is transmutation. I find the place in my body that the contraction is happening (which is always somewhere in the body if my mind is troubled by a thought and emotion is arising) and then I focus my attention fully on that physical contraction. I feel into it as deeply as I can.
Sometimes it shares an insight with me, and with that insight I release the mental and energetic patterns associated. Other times there is no thought, the energy just transforms into what I can only call bliss. When the contraction is fully felt it naturally can reveal its true nature, which is always the perfection of our being.
thank you for sharing this road map @indigoocean! it confirms something for me that i was doing last night as an extension of my reiki practice ...
these points also stuck out to me:
i like how you also talk about letting go of the story completely and realizing we have to live within a flowing and changing story. that both /and is so crucial- i agree!!
i'll have to continue sitting with it to test the last paragraph! i don't know that for myself fully. i've known about an energy i've embodied for years and it has yet to fully release! i'll keep giving it my full attention as you say and feeling into it deeply. that love and acceptance part/strengthened sense of self that isn't too terrified to see it is key and also giving it time to release in full awareness when it's/i'm ready! definitely don't want to be harsh or pushy with myself here, but yes to let it flow <3 thanks again for the map :) it can be difficult to find other people who can articulate playing with the nuances!
❤️
Yes, this sums up what shadow work means to me. Facing the unknowns and the undesirables in order to free us from the weight. Today, I felt this heaviness in my youngest son, age 3, who really wanted to join his brother and sister for the first day of school. It was a real weight that I could physically feel. I believe addressing these stressors is a key to feeling lighter and treading lightly in the world. And I love the way "light" has a double-meaning in this instance.
So wise @mountainjewel! Living life certainly isn't for faint of heart. The nice part about walking through the fire is the cool air and peace you feel afterwards. ox
haha ready for that!! xoxo
My wife's mom recently past away. My wife handled it all with so much grace and strength. It was inspiring to watch. As the oldest daughter she was there for her mom and then for her father. Her father let her in to his soul in ways he has never allowed before. Her relationship with her family was instantly and forever changed. She stood in the center of the fire, she sat unflinching with her pain. She challenged me through her actions to be there with her. It was a terrible and beautiful experience.
powerful testament, steven. thank you for sharing. blessings to you and your powerhouse, fortified, brave hearted wife <3 glad you stood there with her as she endured!
I love that Oriah Mountain Dreamer invitation. I swear I had a huge circle of friends who had that photocopied and blu-tacked to their dunny walls. Even my best mate's Mum had it stuck in her toilet next to her planting by the moon calender. It really seeped into my consciousness and it's lines often echo throughout my bones.
hahah! love it! it comes around cyclically for me. it was just popping into my head the past few days and as i read it again, i realized just how nourishing it is! what a blessing to have it seeped in and echoing! XO dear, i see you and love you!
So beautifully put! When I first moved to my community, it was easy to be flighty. I have always maintained shallow roots. This time, I wanted to set something deeper, to create an anchor. Today, I have reopened my wings and begun to fly again, but those roots keep me connected. Home will always be Damanhur, no matter where I am. I will keep going there to honor my commitments, to connect to my family, to create magic, to feed my soul.
i so hear this! that was one of my main intentions setting up this homestead life... to have heart home where i could dig those roots in. i think i'm more comfortable on the move, but it's important as you say:
glad to hear you're keeping connected to your roots while spreading those wings! thanks for the lovely comment xoxo
Thank you for sharing your story. It really helps me understand why I am and why I do the things I do.
Oh this is so powerful.
Maybe I just need to hear it.
Living in limbo in temporary situation had been challenging.
My heart longs to sink my roots and throw my whole being into it.
I will have to find this book.
i hear you <3
The Invitation is awesome, it speaks straight to my soul. thank you for such a terrific and stimulating post. Really give me something to think about.
<3 <3 you are welcome. thanks for reading it.
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I have been in this place a few times in my life. If you haven't, then you are not living life to the fullest. Somehow, I always find the courage to face the day and know that things will be better. Maybe not today, or tomorrow but I do know deep in my heart that there will be better days ahead.
exactly! that courage is a daily thing, even moment by moment. thanks for your kind and wise words @cecicastor <3 xoxo
Words of wisdom. We cannot simply expect life be rosy all the time, hence the need to develop a sound mindset for the tough times.
We cannot simply stop because things get hard
well said well said! we simply cannot stop b/c it's hard..and moving through it reveals our strength. much love @empress-eremmy!