Sparks in Wisdom's Fire: July 2022

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Growing Newness from Mystery

At the end of June I went on a two-day retreat. The cabin in the woods was in the middle of Nowhere, Kentucky. It was a wondrous two days — the ticks even stayed away! To be by myself in the silence was spaciously peace evoking.

I came home and within 7-10 days I knew that something was just not right in my life. Through the cracks of my being something was seeping. As I peered into those cracks, Mystery said, “Look at your life. What needs letting go” I looked. I let go.

I discovered that my schedule was just too busy. A fair amount of the busy was not life giving. In fact, it was life draining. What I actually needed to do wasn’t getting done. I didn’t have the time or energy. So, I decided to put myself on a diet — not the food kind — a diet from the stuff that added to my fatigue and feelings of malaise.

For the rest of the summer I am fasting from nonessential meetings, learning to be okay with saying no, unsubscribing from email lists, and making better decisions — I hope.

After two weeks, I have noticed a change. I am better at slowing the swing of my moods. Last week I actually had two nights during which I slept 7+ hours! I am feeling calmer and can more easily recognize my triggers. Sometimes I even avoid tripping them!

Something mysterious is shooting up through the cracks of my being letting me know that I am on the right track. In those openings I see the magical newness of growth amid the destruction of old. The old is crumbling into compost to nourish the new!

How did I get to this place? By listening to my body/mind/spirit/heart. Discovered what was not feeding me. Then I left go of those things that were draining me. Things are changing because I shifted. I made room for the magical newness to grow from the brokenness, the destruction of the old.

Want to begin? Here are my suggestions: Discover what is taking your energy. Ask yourself before an activity, “What is the level of my energy?" (High energy, mid energy, low energy, or no energy.) Then after the activity, ask yourself again where your energy is. This will give you a clue what to keep and what to let go.

Suggested check-ins:

before & after a conversation or text thread with a friend
before & after talking to your boss
before & after exercising
before & after grocery and/or other shopping
before & after ??????

You can check in before and after any thing that you do. If the activity is taking your energy, ask yourself, “How can I either let go of the activity or modify it to make it more life giving? If you cannot do either, what can you do to better protect yourself?

It is a lifelong process this letting go and gathering in. But, each time you make the decision to take care of you the mystery shoots up through the cracks of your brokenness giving birth to magical newness.

I am a work in progress. So are you.

Van Hurst, ms, is an intuitive-coach-catalyst. As a contemplative coach, she uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for navigating the mundane and extraordinary. The result of time with Van? Being the change you want to see in the world by creating a blueprint for your life through a deeper connection to your intuition and contemplative nature.

Van is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Vanessa for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

It's Within You

Are you aware? Did you know? The world is a wild, wonderful, magical place. Sometimes I forget. Maybe you do, too. If you are like me, you get stuck in the chaos, the drudgery, the unexpected. You forget to see what is just beyond the surface.

As the uncertainty angels into us, we become imprisoned in an illusion of futility. I know, you don’t want to hear that. Neither do I. But, within us is the power of awareness, the ability to meet the uncertainty. In the meeting we dissolve the tangles.

I am not saying calling upon our awareness and abilities is easy. What I am saying is that we need not stay in this place of despair. It may not even be as hard to climb out of it as we think.

Like everything in our life, meeting this challenge is an inside job. Within each of us is a kernel of curious, of daring, that calls us into the wild, the wonder, the magic. But, how do we get there? We begin to nurture that kernel with our breath.

Inhale. Exhale. Feel your breath flowing through your body. Ride the stream to your heart. Sync your breath with your heartbeat. Be in the rhythm. Feel the calm permeate your being. Feel the curiosity, the promise twining into your awareness. Ask, “What promise is resting in between the heart beats? How do I need the promise to manifest?” Hold the answers gently in the palm of your heart.

With the promise tucked into the heart of your spirit, re-enter the stream of your breath. Ride the flow to your soul spark — that which connects you to all. If you dare, dive into the darkest depths, enter your place of wonder, of mystery, of magic. Listen to the mystery. Breath in the magic. Feel the wonder twine with the vibration of your promise.

Connect to your internal GPS — that which can make your promise real. Ask yourself, “What one thing can I do to realize my promise?” Start small, go big, land someone in between. It doesn’t matter where you start…just begin the process of making your promise REAL. Connect to your Velveteen Rabbit power!

Maybe you know how to channel your inner Velveteen Rabbit. Maybe you are without a clue how to make the promise real. Breathe deep. Breathe wide. Travel to your core — that place that shines within you. Trust in your innate wisdom. Know that the way is forged step-by-step. Listen with all of your senses. They call you into an incredible lightness of being.

It matters not how far we go on the journey. What matters is that we walk the path step-by-step and meet our challenges along the way.

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Grieving Into Hope: Communal Hope

We are a couple of weeks past the longest day of the year, yet it feels like we are in the darkest of nights. I am not even thinking any more, “What else?” We all know what happens when we anticipate a question like that.

Instead, I am reminding myself to be in the moment and to take life as it comes. Not as an act of complacency, but as an act of defiance, an act of hope, an act of transformation.

I take life as it is so that I can be the light wherever I find myself. To remind myself that in the dark, grief can festers. I don’t want to be part of the festering…as my mother would remind me: no good can come of that.

Last week I wrote about grief as a personal act. This week I am writing about grief as a communal act. Want to learn more about personal grief? Check out last week’s blog.

Communal grief ricochets off each of us and burrows deeply into the collective consciousness. This is the grief that becomes a living palatable, gritty thing. Untethered, it takes on a life of its own. It festers until we are overwhelmed. Lost in the dark, we cannot articulate the question, “if not now,” much less answer it.

How do we grieve into hope as a community? Within each of us is a kernel, no matter how small, of hope. Each of us has the potential to be the change even if it means moving through the quagmire of grief. That is the energy each of us brings — the energy that will sustain us through the grief into a new way of life.

Surrendering through the collective grief. So, how do we start? It begins by being with one another. Talking. Lamenting over what is lost. Purging grief through your tears. Being present to grief.

When those tears fall upon the ground of our collective soul, magic happens. Those tears compost for the collective garden. Within them is possibility. Drop by drop they change the landscape of our collective soul.

They feed our hope until collective hope pushes its fragile stems through that composted soil. If we pay attention, we discover how hope manifests in the words, actions of our self and others.

Because each of us in community are in different phases of grief, we share different energy with one another. Through our differences, we raise each other up. We move through our grief into hope.

I am not going to kid you. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. It takes community. It takes each of us. The African proverb says that it takes a Village to Raise a Child. It takes each of us, together to grieve into hope and in doing so, change the world.

This is an invitation to join in collectively grieving through hope.

Watch Grieving into Hope through personal and communal grief.

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Grieving Into Hope: Personal Grief

It feels like life has given us a barrage of one thing after another. Each of us can reflect upon our life, and I invite you to do that to pinpoint when you began in earnest to grieve a loss. The loss can be something personal. The loss of a loved one, a joy, a pet, something that was uniquely yours.

Recall a grief — it can be one tempered by time or one that is still poignantly fresh. Sit with the grief. Breathe into it. Which of the stages of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross calls to you? Are you in denial? Are you angry? Do you need to bargain? Are you depressed? Are you accepting the loss?

It doesn’t matter where you are. What is important is that you identify the grief and where you are in your relationship with the grief.

Sit with the grief and how you named it. I am going to ask you to use your five senses to create a multi-sensory image of your grief:

What does your grief look like?

What does it sound like?

What does it feel like?

What does it taste like? (yes, grief can have a taste!)

What does it smell like?

Create a multi-sense image of your grief. Hold it gently in the palm of your heart. Ask it, “Grief, what would you tell me?” Listen to the response. Tuck the message gently into your heart knowing you can return to it over and over again.

Grief has always has a message. When we converse with Grief, we are given a kernel of hope. Always.

How do we move through grief? Grief in all of its grittiness has a companion. That companion’s name is Self-Compassion. Self-compassion is the gentle reminder that we cannot have life without loss. It is not here to erase the suffering. No, it calls us to find ways to alleviate suffering. Compassion, like grief, is an inside job.

ISelf-compassion is caring for you. Self-Compassion says, “I may not change the trajectory of your actions, but I can minimize your suffering.” Open yourself to me and watch what happens.

And, that is important. Because as individuals, we grieve. Self-Compassion asks us to surrender into the messiness of our life instead of ignoring the grief. Compassion asks us to face the grittiness with courage. When we get to the final stage of grief, acceptance, we accept the loss not because we want to, but because any other action would not have us being true to our core.

This acceptance is not an act of complacency but an act of power. Only when we listen to the voice of loss do we discover the possibility of hope. Within grief, within loss, is hope.