I saw the flames of Beltane on the horizon right on time, at the very beginning of April. I stood in awe at the glow which promised intense change. It made me stop to look at myself: could I really keep walking toward that fire? It burns so tall and passionate! Would it devour me whole? I looked deep inside myself, and turned around to take in the landscape through which I had just walked.
When I look back, I see green shoots growing along my path. It occurs to me that I learned to grieve fully this winter, and each time I did, I coaxed another ghost from her hiding place inside of me. I held her hand and showed her the love she had been needing. She taught me how to love better, and I taught her how to receive what she asked me for. Until we arrived in the place my body stood. And put the seed of that moment into the earth.
Wisdom plants?
I saw how, in allowing myself to feel all of me who speaks up in response to each place, each person, each obstacle along my path, I have been planting my ghosts as seeds in the ground. And I live in each of those seeds. Each feeling felt becomes a blaze marking the way I have taken, and so when I look back for courage or wisdom, it is there and clear. We are all always whole, and all always becoming.
The horizon made me turn this Spring because it asked me this question:
"If this fire takes your house, your money, your routine, your vista, your plans, what do you have? Are you still Home? Are you still You?"
I made myself a promise, to allow my body to be home before anything else. So long as I am home, my hands have the strength to do their work and my heart has the space to hold my family.
It's how we can be free to walk through the flames that burn down our structures, our attachments, our plans. And come out somehow more ourselves each time we do this. I urge you to draw a blueprint for the home you are building within you. It is a good tool for taking care of yourself, because you can step back and see all the places you're forgetting to keep clean and nourished.