Tonight, my partner and I finished our eighth week of navigating the magical tree of life, also known as Kabbalah or, in my learning experience Qabalah. What unavoidably came up in discussion during class is our current worldwide pandemic and what it is serving us on a level of understanding. The challenges of these recent days have given us all an opportunity to count our blessings and plant new seeds for growth. We are "working in the garden" as a community and within ourselves. "Working in the garden" is a reference used in class which is represented by the hanged man of the tarot. The hanged man is visually suspended and he symbolizes restriction, sacrifice and letting go. I think we can all related this "suspended" feeling during this time of uncertainty. As a whole, we are all making great sacrifices as we learn to let go of the lives we are accustomed to living and adjusting to all of the restrictions that are being set in place as an attempt to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
"What does this have to do with love?", you may be wondering. Everything!!! As I write about this, I think of how ironically the first song to play on my Spotify "Discover Weekly" playlist was Strongest Medicine sung by Kevin Paris and Casey Kalmenson. It's a beautiful song! Please check it out, if you haven't heard it already. The chorus sings, "Love is the strongest medicine." and it was a medicine that I was not receiving four years ago today. About a week before my first Reiki attunement and before all of the energy healing began, I wrote this in my journal...
4/20/2016
Could the most valuable things in life be time, practice and love? I mean they are, after all, three key components to healing...and yet I can't seem to hold on to one for too long without losing the other. I never seem to have time...and because I don't have time, I don't practice. At the root of it all, I desperately need to practice love. I can't help but replay a conversation that I had with Colorado (A nickname for a previous lover) during my last trip there. He'd asked me had I ever been in love...and before even thinking about the question, I began to ramble about every long-term relationship that I had and how great each had been (despite the outcomes). Then he asked me, "Are you listing the number of relationships you've had?" and that is when it had hit me. I've never been in love. Not with anyone, not even myself. The realization of this hurts terribly because I am 28 years old (soon to be 29) and I have yet to learn how to be in love with myself. I've always wanted to be accepted or have a sense of belonging to the point where I've never really been comfortable with who I am, as I am. I always behave in a manner to get not only attention but the approval of others...and when I don't I am upset. Why has it taken me nearly 30 years to figure this out, I don't know...but most importantly, what do I intend to do about it? Well, I say the first step is to create time and with that time, I should practice love. Practice loving me. But that is usually easier said than done, right?...or in this case, written.
On April 26th, I attained "the FIRST DEGREE in the REIKI method of Natural Healing" (this is how it is inscribed on my certificate) with the same wonderful person that I chose to teach me about the Qabalah (coming full circle, I suppose). Since then, I've sacrificed a life that I was once accustomed to living in order to enter into a life of peace, love, and light. Learning to allow myself to receive the miraculous medicine of love is what has guided me along my healing journey and it is what drives me to encourage others to do the same, especially NOW. We have so much time to now more than ever to give ourselves the time and attention that we deserve, so my question for you is, "What do YOU intend to do about it?"
Namaste.
April 1, 2019