Sparks in Wisdom's Fire

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Life is a Journey (or maybe a highway!)

Life is a journey or maybe a series of journeys and way stations. Sometimes I am excited to be on this stretch of life-way; other times not so much.

Journeys can be well thought out, planned. We know when they begin and exactly where they end. We know how we are getting from point A to point Z. Other times the journey is more uncertain. We take that first step not even aware that we are beginning a trek. Only later do we realize where we are.

Even if we do not recognize it, each journey has a pivotal moment of beginning. That moment could have happened with a seemingly inconsequential decision. This beginning altered life in phenomenal, far-reaching ways. Each step on this journey comes with the opportunity to make a radical shift in your life.

Journeys offer a wealth of new possibilities. We may begin eager to make changes, to shift the path’s trajectory, and find a part of our self that we’ve never lost. As we edge deeper into the journey, perhaps the enthusiasm wanes until each step becomes less a foray into adventure and more of a lackluster attempt to sustain a path that just isn’t working for us.

We may find our self buried in the necessities of the daily and forget to revel in the joy, the wild tenderness, the fierce beauty of each moment. In unfolding, we don’t take time to celebrate the twists and turns and dips of the path.

Do we end the journey? Maybe. But maybe not. It might not be the journey that has us stuck but the illusion of what we should be experiencing. As we shift our awareness to the moment, what we experience changes. We consciously the next step. In doing so, we discover the slightest nuances of joy and curiosity and rightness.

This journey is unfolding, evolving. It invites us into courageous curiosity. We may not know where we walk or even when our steps draw us onto a different fork. Newness, oldness, the destination isn’t what is important; it is the journey…each intentional step.

I invite you to embrace the wonder of this life. Live with curious abandonment. Know that this journey leads us exactly where we need to be. Enjoy the twists and turns, the joys and curiosity, the being on your journey.

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, October 18, 2022

A Tale of Two Cats: Chaos & Change

Scattered meows heard

here & there when herding cats

best to be aware

My life passed in a haze as a pair of cats traipsed through my days. The pairs’ names was Chaos and Change.

Everywhere that I looked those recalcitrant cats slinked — in my life, in the lives of friends, throughout the world. Dancing to a frenzied tune they resisted any attempts to control or re-direct. So caught in the upheaval of these mischievous cats, I could not see the opportunities waiting to shift my perspective.

Finally I focused on that tiny whisper riding on the purrs of Chaos and Change. I heard the words of Pema Chödrön, “You can see the world as an unfolding of opportunities or just a series of raw deals.” An aha! An epiphany! Change and Chaos are opportunity!

Opportunity is an effervescent sparks that dances through everything. When I see possibility, I realize that while I can’t herd those cats; maybe, just maybe, I can change my perception of the cats and see them as opportunities to grow, to heal, to be peace.

I enter into my quiet and calm myself. In this place of peace, I invite the energy of possibility to suffuse me. I feel her ruffling breeze, and am drawn deep into her roots. I ask myself, what is causing my resistance to seeing opportunity instead of chaos. The answer is simple. Triggers.

As I expose my triggers, I gained a new perspective. I recognize that the cats weren’t chaotic. They were dancing to a song I composed and choreographed. To my chagrin, I realized I was the cat whispered who did not like how I was whispering to those cats! When I understood that I choose the song and the steps to the dance, the chaos once defined as raw deal became an opportunity.

Look at your frenzied cats. Let’s call them catalysts or triggers. How are you inviting the chaos of self-defeating triggers? How are those triggers manifesting in your life? Name the catalysts that stimulate the chaotic patterns. Once aware, you break the patterns.

You rewrite your script and move from a place of seemingly endless chaos to one of limitless possibilities. Those frenzied cats will always be in our lives. We can choose to see those cats as raw deals or as opportunities for growth.

Name those catalysts, befriend them, teach them your new song. As your song spirals from you, it twines into the hearts of others becoming a calming influence throughout world.

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

A Cornucopia of YOU!

We are edging closer to the last harvest festival — Samhain, October 31. What began with the heat of summer’s peak (Lammas, August 1) and reached it midpoint at the equinox, is now almost at the end of the reaping time. What have you been harvesting this summer/

This has been a face paced year. The icy storms of winter and the yearning for warmth don’t seem so long ago. Then came the bright, cool days of early spirng: we sowed seeds. During the heat of summer, we watched them grow. Now it is time to reap the harvest. Wow.

What did you sow? What grew? What have you reaped and will continue to harvest as we move into the quiet time of year?

Not sure? Try this:

Breathe deeply into this season. Surrender into the magic of your breath. Ask yourself:

What seeds did I sow? Then: Listen to the answers. Name whatever wafts to the surface of your being. Jot down the responses.
How did I nurture what I sowed? Then: Name whatever ways waft to the surface of your being. Know that this is about you. The answers are enough. Make a note of those answers.
What did I reap? You do not need to fill a cornucopia — naming one or two things is enough. This is about you and no one else.

This exercise is about listening to your intuition. About being in the rhythm of that listening to the voice within. As you listing to the looking back, reflect upon the many ways that you responded to your intuition without really knowing that you were.

Intuition. Instinct. Listening to your gut. That which propels you through this mad, uncertain world. When you listen to your intuition, your worries lessen. Your path become more clear — or at least you take the next steps with clarity. When you follow your intuition, no matter where you find yourself, you will never be led astray.

So during this time of harvest, reflect upon where you sowed this year and how your intuition encouraged you to be a master gardener of your soul.

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Where You Are Is Where You Should Be

So last week the wheel turned — completing the 61st cycle for me. On to number 62! Wow! I don’t feel 61. Sometimes I ask myself what this seventh decade of life should feel like. Have you ever questioned how you should be acting at a certain again? Or what should be happening? After I asked these questions, I realize that there is no should, no living into expectations, no mirroring the life of another. Where I am is where I should be.

You’ve heard it before: age is just a number. Wherever I find myself is an invitation to live into who I am. I hope that you are discovering the same.

Sure, I look in the mirror and see a few more wrinkles, some sagging…you know the effects of age. In those moments I am glad for my stint as a beauty advisor. Not that I look younger, but I have the tools to outwardly age more gracefully. And, aging gracefully is important to maintaining a healthy body/mind/spirit/heart!

Aging gracefully is all encompassing. The past two turns have me reflecting over and over again on what this means. When I look at the physical, it is easy to name. Taking care of my physical includes using lotions, practicing tai chi, eating healthy, exercising — those are just a few.

What is your gracefully taking care of you list?

Aging gracefully within the other three aspects of self are a bit harder to live into. What does it mean to show up gracefully mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? For me, it begins with the spirit. Breathing into the silence, finding time to rest in my solitude, strengthening my connection to the core. When I focus on my connection to the sacred through my spark, I tend to be more graceful in aging mentally and emotionally.

I have a not so well kept secret: I am a strong woman. Aging gracefully mentally is learning to be okay with the assertive part of me while discerning what needs to be gentled and, in some cases, let go. The real question for me is, “How can I be true to myself without contributing to the tumult in the world?” When I act in peaceful ways, I find grace mentally.

Emotionally: I am going to use that word tumult again. The world is filled with so much upheaval and uncertainty. As an empath, I can find myself overwhelmed and reactive. Grace calls to me, invites me into the solitude where I can clearly hear the tumult. Grace helps me quiet the unsettled and blow it out of my being. Being graceful emotionally means I can hold the space for myself and others to be calm.

We cannot stop the wheel from turning, but we can decide how we show up in that turning. For me, I want to show up with grace. What do you want?

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

in the messiness

Surrender into life, be in the messiness, live within the wonder — that is all, that is enough

Sometimes we run so fast — away from or toward, who knows? — that we don’t notice the slippery mud that splatters our shoes. Maybe we even think, “If I stop, I will be sucked into this quagmire.” Or, “I’m almost there, I can’t stop now.” We run and run until we drop from exhaustion right into that slimy quagmire that we feared.

Now what? Well, we can no longer ignore our circumstances. So, we stop. Survey the landscape. Maybe point out the positives, you know, those things that we like. At some point we realize that in order to avoid falling into the messiness, we’ve got to do something. That something is to realize that while we do need to identify what is going on, we don’t have to like where we find our self.

What do we do with what we know?

Be in the messiness

Seldom can we say, “I am done with this mess. I am starting anew.” First we need to be in the messiness. Unless we resolve the mess, it follows us. If we ignore it, the mess grows into yet a bigger monster. So, be in the messiness no matter what is happening.

You don’t have to like your current situation. That is a given. Accept that within the messiness are gems — challenges to meet and lessons to learn. The messiness invites us to be this courageous warrior that braves the messy not to slay dragons but to befriend them. Once befriended, we use the dragon’s strength to bolster our own as we surrender into the messiness.

Surrender into the life

Surrender is not an act of giving up. By surrendering, we objectively enter the tangle of the quagmire. We witness what has us in knots and what is unraveling. We see how we slip through some loosened knots and what needs to be untangled a little bit more. All the time we breathe into the moment. Find our calm. Find the courage and the strength to work our way out of the messiness.

The more we surrender, the easier it is to see what calls us out of the messiness. We become part of the magic energy of transformation! That magic energy is the wonder threaded through the messiness.

Live within the wonder that is your life

Messiness does not exist in a vacuum. Where there is messiness, there is wonder. Sometimes we have to dig deep to find the wonder tangled in the threads of messy. Trust me, it is there. Sometimes this discovery means asking yourself where the wonder is and then holding on to those morsels of hope. No matter how difficult the situation, the light of ourself — when we believe in our self— glints off of challenges and brings us through the other side.

Hoping you find the wonder during your time in the messy!

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Tricky Coyote Words: I Am Sorry

Tricky coyote words casting us into a healer’s world of realization, responsibility, recognition

I am sorry — three poignant words. Within them is the power to defuse suffering, quiet anger, create peace. Three words. When I use them, I find less is more of an apology.

How many times have you received or given an apology that begins with “I am sorry…” and ends with an excuse or a lack of responsibility? Some of my least favorite tag-ons: I am sorry IF/I am sorry BUT. I find myself wondering where the heck is that all about? I remind myself, “less is more.” In the less I show up humble and vulnerable.

I am sorry are tricky coyote words that cast us into a different realm. When we say these words humbly and vulnerably, we truly believe that we have hurt another and believe we need to give voice to our sorrow. In those words, we gain the opportunity to make amends. We form those words within the realm of realization, responsibility, and reconciliation.

Realization

Each of us is imperfect. Inner imperfection shaken, we lash out, we hurt another, inevitably we cause suffering. I do not believe that we want to be hurtful; our actions come from those deeply wounded parts of our self.

Being sorry begins with the realization that those wounded parts of our self were triggered. We lashed out and hurt another. Once we recognize our hurtful actions, we are able to name the hurt that we caused. We recognize that this hurt is less about how we were triggered us and all about our reactions. This realization is the beginning of responsibility.

Responsibility

Taking responsibility pushes us deeper into the cracks of our imperfections. Without courage, we continue to be stuck in our stuff. It takes both courage and fortitude to enter that place of imperfection and accept that our shadows are as much us as our light.

We accepting our triggers is a way of standing in our power. They are challenges to meet and lessons to learn. Being responsible means shifting from reaction to response. We realize that we can remain in a state of status quo of being hurtful or we can use these three powerful words, I am sorry, to bring us and others to a place of healing.

Reconciliation

An act of reconciliation is a holistic practice of healing. We show up as who we really are. It is disconcerting to show up authentic, humble, and vulnerable. As we reconcile our hurts, we cast our light into the dark of our actions. In doing so we make amends.

Saying I am sorry is saying, I screwed up. This is not who I want to being. I want to be better. Please forgive me.

We act knowing that the other person might not be able to accept our apology. But we know that we are willing to gift another with our apology. In this gift-giving, we transform into the person that is no less wounded but more healed.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

I Got No Words

Someone experiences the death of a loved one. An unexpected illness. A disappointment. A perceived failure. What do you say? How do you respond in events like these? That is a tough question for which there are no easy answers.

Often I think to myself, “I just want to make this better. How can I do that?” Yet, I feel impotent as I admit to myself that I’ve got no idea how to put my empathy and compassion into words. I so want to alleviate their suffering, make their world a little less uneven. Even for this writer, words seem a paltry response.

I’ve come to realize that sometimes there is nothing I can do, nothing I can say, to make the situation better. Sometimes the only thing that I can do is to do nothing. Show up in wordless solidarity.

Okay, maybe this doing nothing sounds counterintuitive. This isn’t the nothing that ignores the pain and suffering of another. This is the nothing that asks us to surrender into the moment and open to our intuitive whispers. This surrender is found by resting in the silence, breathing into our core, and igniting the sparks of our empathy.

While this nothing has no words and, at times, no noticeable actions, it is filled with the energy of empathy. This energy is found within the silence at your core. Breathe into your core to get an inkling of the emotions — the despair, agony, suffering of another. You hear not words but feel the current of another’s energy.

Identifying this energy that is not yours is empathetic understanding. This understanding often has no words. It reaches out and tangles itself in us. Only in the tangling do we give it words. Those internal words bring us to wisdom. With this wisdom, we discern the best way to compassionately respond to another. Our tendrils of compassion reach out to the other in a variety of ways.

Maybe we find words. It may be gently saying, “I’ve got no words, but I am here for you.” It might be a gentling of your eyes as you look at them with unconditional love. It may be a non-contact embrace through body language. And, yes, it could be a physical hug. Your respond is gentle, unassuming, with no agenda. It is as varied as your compassionate response.

No agenda. That one is tough because we all want to do something to make the person feel better. Yet we might struggle to know what that it. We do not need to know. What we do need to do is to show up for other other person. Be present in ways that they need. That means listening with the whole of your body to their cues.

How do we we listen with the whole of our being? By listening with the ears of our heart, holding another in the palm of our soul. Offering them the unconditional love beating within our hearts. Showing up humble and vulnerable. Being a vessel through which compassion and empathy flows. Those are ways of showing up as you but not for you.

Maybe you believe that “I’ve got no words.” But, words are not always spoken. Sometimes words are best said through the unspoken compassion in our heart.

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 Van for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Van had certificates in Reiki, Quantum Healing, and medical intuitive training. She has a master’s degree in Natural Health and is a certified coach. She is currently being certified in spiritual direction.