SARAH WOLF | WRITER, READER, GAMER
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My Inner Worlds
Spring is just around the corner, night taking one more breath to whisper its final goodbye. With this last kiss, we can all wake from our hibernating selves and inhale the growing sunlight.
At this time of equinox, I shake off the cobwebs in body and mind, in hearth and home. The tradition of spring cleaning came from days of old when we relied on wood-burning heat sources and the light from candles to keep the darkness at bay during the long winter nights. I never really understood this need for spring cleaning until I had to light an apartment using candles for three solid days during a snowstorm (no power means no heat and no light). Afterwards I discovered black soot all over the beige walls, covering my white trash can and any other surface that smoke and its crud can cling to. It took a lot of scrubbing to get my home clean. That experience has made me incredibly grateful for electricity and the modern conveniences that come with it.
The past three months have been intense for my self-identity. I’ve cleared many old thoughts and beliefs that don’t work for me and probably never did. I’ve begun to abandon behavior patterns that destroy any chance that I’ll be who I want to become or accomplish the pursuits that bring joy into my life. There are some things that I’ve let in—that little creative girl who got stuck at some point in childhood, but now wants to join the game; that fearsome weird-looking part of me that others may not get, but that is essential for the work I crave to do. Now that dark and light will balance their energy in a moment’s passing, I also will bring equilibrium to those now-empty spaces and find more effective places for the new aspects of my self.
Every spring we have the opportunity to emerge from our winter caves and see the potential that quietly grows during the dark, still season.
What have you seen or experienced that you want to strengthen in yourself or in your home? How can you feel more love, joy, and gratitude for who you are and who you can be a year from now?
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This past week was a pretty balanced one. Yoga tired me and reminded me I need to take it slow as I build my practice back to what it was last fall. Work offered unique opportunities, but allowed me to stay in my quiet zen-like office for as long as I wanted. I felt good and in my flow.
My flow broke when I returned a call to one of our stakeholders. I’ve never truly interacted with this particular woman and regretted the need for a conversation after ten seconds on the phone. This lady was filled with spiky, intense, destructive mojo that absolutely destroyed my peace of body and mind. She argued and actually told me she didn’t care what I had to say (I was explaining financial policy that is out of my control). Ugh. After attempting to be gracious in a no-win situation, she finally allowed me to hang up the phone. But that didn’t disconnect the attachment that formed between her energy and mine.
I’m a Reiki Master, and I’m in tune with energy around me. It has taken years of practice and awareness to balance myself, body and mind, in different environments and tough situations. The effects of this woman’s lack of regard and stabbing intent sat heavy in my gut for hours. Even writing about it brings the feeling back. Eventually I found my equilibrium and went on to have the peaceful sort of day I love and enjoy.
Yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend and relayed this story. She and I met 16 years ago in Reiki Level I training and became fast friends, taking our remaining classes together to become Masters. She reminded me of one of the symbols we learned: Raku. Reiki is based on using symbols while allowing the universal energy to flow through the practitioner and into the person/animal/situation needing healing or wholeness. A Reiki teacher uses Raku to separate her energy from the student after attuning the student to a new level. Duh. What took me hours to accomplish on my own could have been done within minutes if I had used Raku to separate my energy and emotions from the woman-on-the-phone’s spite. I need to have this symbol on my cork board so I will always see it at work when I end a phone call. If something isn’t in front of my face, I tend to forget it. I trained hard to become a Reiki Master, but I’ve allowed some of that knowledge to fall into the cracks inside my skull. It’s time to dust off the Reiki symbols and see if there is a new and improved way to use them in my life. If I can rediscover a cool use for Raku, then surely more tricks await my creative spin. What ways do you find effective to keep healthy, safe boundaries with those who think they can intrude into your emotional space? Reiki is one way. I’d love to hear about others.
Spring seems like it’s already here, not necessarily because of the weather (although it helps). But because my job has eased up. I don’t have to run on pure adrenaline, and my body has mostly recovered from that spike that got me through the winter busy season. My creative brain is wakening. I feel it perking at the oddest times, usually when I can’t sit down and write. The frustrating part about art—my muse and my schedule don’t often align. But when they do, it feels like magic.
Magic, did you say? I haven’t gotten back into my stories or fiction yet, but my monthly Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game has burst with renewed fun. Captain Lia is not a magic-user, but her two best friends and pirating buddies are. The D&D world is steeped in monsters and enchantment and sends me to a place where I can play with aspects of myself. It’s not always safe to try something new in real life, but a fantasy setting where harm really can’t occur is the perfect way for me to try on different hats or perspectives.
Consider the pirate stereotype…salty, villainous, greedy, most likely missing some teeth. However, my friends and I have created a way to play pirates that doesn’t go against our real-world principles. Lia leads a ship whose crew is considered family. She would die before allowing harm to befall anyone aboard the Skull fleet. She also won’t allow raids on villages; instead, we seem to give our bounty to those in need. Definitely not a pirate thing to do. I get to be a barbarian and a bad-ass in battle. It feels empowering to kill two monsters with one swing of my mighty sword. Historically, I’ve played magic users and always had to stay in the background during fights due to my delicate constitution. Now I get to play a physically strong character and stretch those muscles within myself.
Do you have a space where you can experiment with who you are and feel safe doing so? I’d love to hear about it. This is my beloved cherry tree—the bottom picture taken this afternoon. Since Matt and I bought our first house, we have had a cherry or weeping cherry tree in our yard. Technically, we had a weeping willow at one of the many houses we’ve bought and sold, but I’m going to count it because it was beautiful with its languishing branches.
I prefer the cherry in full bloom, bright pink flowers decorating the outside view from our meditation room. Last year I developed a color blend of fountain pen ink that looks like a cherry blossom. I’m smitten. And I want those blooms back. Creating a color blend for “snow gray” doesn’t spark my creative muse. My journal holds a record of when I first spot color on the tree each winter (thankfully it doesn’t wait until spring to rise from the underworld). February 7 is the earliest date I’ve noticed, exactly three weeks from today. The latest is towards the end of February, but I don’t want to wait that long this year. Some part of me wants to make a philosophical analogy about our inner selves looking like this tree at different times and seasons in our lives. But the part of me that has been working non-stop since Christmas doing CPA stuff says, “Stop writing. Take a nap. Watch TV. Your brain is tired.” Like the cherry tree, I’ll be back in February…when my workload is more normal. |
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