So, I got to stay home from work for two days with the annoying, and highly contagious, pinkeye Thursday and Friday.
The dogs were enchanted, as is their way, to have me at home, although my partner was not so charmed at having a source of bubonic plague so close at hand. I washed clothes and floors, watered the garden and restarted Thorn Coyle's excellent Kissing the Limitless, with great concentration.
I also got to stay off the internet.
I've been stepping up my spiritual practise recently, and this work has inevitably taken me to the place where I confront my own demons.
Not that I've never done this before - ten years ago my demons almost overwhelmed my living soul. Then, a little while ago, I made a reconnection with my shadow totem - the black panther. I'd suffered nightmares of big cats for years, especially after I came through my dismemberment, and sure enough, that great, graceful, powerful being was trying to get my attention. Fear of my own power. What's that? A common enough pathology. We don't truly start to heal until we've met our monsters and reclaimed them.
A couple of moons ago, it was the demon I name Anger I went after, with some success. Now I'm facing the one which is perhaps key to all of them - Dependence.
Sure, it's shown its fearsome face in many ways in my life - and not just substance dependence. In fact, that's more of a side shoot of the true demon. Dependence on things or people to get me through, to form a buffer between myself and the world, can take many forms. Relational dependence. Dependence on a delusion of my own superiority. Dependence on forms and ritual, places and people: comforting habits of thought and of action.
The demon looking at me from out the triangle is almost as old as I am, and thus a pretty basic, integral part of Who I am. Surrounded by words of power, by my knowledge of my own divinity, ringed by my allies and ex-demons-turned-allies, the Aspect didn't exactly collapse into a heap and run whimpering away. Nor did I wish for it to.
For this is an important part of Me. Treated with the compassion I am rediscovering for mySelf I can now absorb it. It becomes another ally.
Slowly, softly, I progress on the spiral of healing.
The dogs were enchanted, as is their way, to have me at home, although my partner was not so charmed at having a source of bubonic plague so close at hand. I washed clothes and floors, watered the garden and restarted Thorn Coyle's excellent Kissing the Limitless, with great concentration.
I also got to stay off the internet.
I've been stepping up my spiritual practise recently, and this work has inevitably taken me to the place where I confront my own demons.
Not that I've never done this before - ten years ago my demons almost overwhelmed my living soul. Then, a little while ago, I made a reconnection with my shadow totem - the black panther. I'd suffered nightmares of big cats for years, especially after I came through my dismemberment, and sure enough, that great, graceful, powerful being was trying to get my attention. Fear of my own power. What's that? A common enough pathology. We don't truly start to heal until we've met our monsters and reclaimed them.
A couple of moons ago, it was the demon I name Anger I went after, with some success. Now I'm facing the one which is perhaps key to all of them - Dependence.
Sure, it's shown its fearsome face in many ways in my life - and not just substance dependence. In fact, that's more of a side shoot of the true demon. Dependence on things or people to get me through, to form a buffer between myself and the world, can take many forms. Relational dependence. Dependence on a delusion of my own superiority. Dependence on forms and ritual, places and people: comforting habits of thought and of action.
The demon looking at me from out the triangle is almost as old as I am, and thus a pretty basic, integral part of Who I am. Surrounded by words of power, by my knowledge of my own divinity, ringed by my allies and ex-demons-turned-allies, the Aspect didn't exactly collapse into a heap and run whimpering away. Nor did I wish for it to.
For this is an important part of Me. Treated with the compassion I am rediscovering for mySelf I can now absorb it. It becomes another ally.
Slowly, softly, I progress on the spiral of healing.
Wow, amazing picture. Hope you're over the pinkeye; it's no fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminder to return to Thorn's excellent book. I got derailed by recent life-battered house guests, and must resume...
ReplyDelete