Lyn Thurman | Weaving Gold

Commandeering Myself

by Natalia Iwanyckyj

Yesterday, I wielded the Magician’s tools and arrived at Destination Heart. I drank the nectar of knowing and accepted the call to follow the urgings of my heart.

Today, my respite is interrupted by the appearance of a Priestess and the ever-increasing rate of whirling energies on the planet.

“I have the greatest secrets of all to share,” she whispers. “I am the Guardian of Mysteries and the guide to your path.” She hands me a scroll. “It reveals the secret of your highest potential,” she says before disappearing.

I delight at the easiness of today’s task. I am not being asked to step off a cliff or to travel a treacherous path. I am required, simply, to engage in beloved activities: reading and learning about myself.

I unfurl the scroll, revealing the uppermost portion. The parchment is the color of burnished gold and smells of burning leaves — because it is smoldering at the edges. Heat singes my forearms. Smoke stings my nose. Symbols slide around the page. I roll down the bottom rod, scanning vanishing words. The images are baffling and before I discern meaning, the scroll bursts into flame.

Devastated, I crumple to my knees and close my eyes. The secret to my highest potential is ashes.

Let the scrolls burn. Transmute old directives and prescriptions. Break free from the shackles and chains.

I hear.

A grandmother fusses over my dress. A grandfather admonishes me to hurry. A murder of imperious women crowds on my shoulders and pecks at my head.

I see them, and understand the tyranny of their presence.

Buzzing. Trembling. Shaking.

I feel expansion in every cell, a swelling to bursting. I let it go, and my tormentors, the fabricators of my beliefs and being, are propelled away from me on torrents of air. I stand alone.

I am complete. I am whole. The Priestess in coextensive with me.

I do not remain here, in my heart. I step fully into my body. I commandeer My Journey.

I joined Lyn Thruman‘s October Writing Challenge: Writing the Wisdom of the Soul. I am expanding, evolving, and shining.

Prompt for October 3: Channel your inner High Priestess and ask her to reveal your potential, the wisdom written on the scroll. Write her wisdom.

Natalia Erehnah

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The Longest Journey

by Natalia Iwanyckyj

Card from OSHO Zen Tarot

Love is an enigma for me: a word bandied about in writing about partners and children, a feeling that should dwell in my heart, a mystery that is the key to enlightenment. The thought of love causes my pulse to race, my body to quiver, and terror to swish through my belly.

I discern no cause for my trepidation. I had a happy childhood. I was, by every definition, loved. I was valued, honored, and supported. I am in a beautiful marriage. I am, by every definition, loved. I am appreciated, encouraged, and celebrated. I have three amazing children who shower me with hugs, kisses, and conversation. I have friends and community. I have everything I need, except the understanding, experiencing, and embracing of the greatest love of all.

The journey I want to take has been called “the longest journey you will make in your life.” The path I wish to travel is from my head to my heart.

by Mira Reisberg

At this point in my writing, I was interrupted. Jonathon, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, came for a good morning cuddle. I realized: I do know love.

I know love as the tenderness I feel for my family members’ successes, failures, struggles, and joys.
I know love as a willingness to provide a lap for snuggling, to interrupt my own activities to deliver forgotten school books, or to listen to what they want to say.
I know love as pleasure in resting my cheek on a child’s head, in touch, in sharing meals or a glass of wine.

I do know love. I feel love. I experience love daily, hourly, in every moment.

But…

Do I feel tenderness for me?

What am I willing to give to me?

How do I find pleasure in me?

I could write, for, to, and in MYSELF. Myself sounds BIG and IMPORTANT, compared to little ol’ me. But I am not little. I am old in the most glorious and ancient of ways. I am ready for The Journey, from Head to Heart. I am ready to dwell on the path of Self-Love. I am ready to trust.

“…Trust, is the greatest quantum leap. To come from the head to the heart is the longest journey. Man can reach the moon — that is easier — and soon man will reach to the stars; that too is not very difficult. The only problem and the most difficult journey is: to move from the head to the heart, because they don’t exist in the same dimension — their ways of existing are so different. (Osho, Darshan Diaries, The 99 Names of Nothingness, Ch.20)

I have come to the end of my writing exercise. My journey is begun, as every journey is, with a single step. I know, something new: To be tender with myself, I must be willing to look at and see myself. Then, I can take pleasure in ME.