Narnian forests and the risk of being awake in the world.

The process of waking up that I described back in September stopped as suddenly as it started then, I think it was just a taste to remind me of possibilities and keep me hopeful. 

It is back now this wide awakeness. I have done a lot of healing in the last year and dealt with old old stuff from my teenage years. I have dug deep and peeled back layers upon layers.

I feel whole for the first time in my life.

I am seeing and feeling life and people again in all their brokenness, beauty and glory. And accepting it.

The burst of life that has arrived has not been without its complications. It has elicited some big emotions and my heart has been aching with the fullness of it, again I have to dig deep. 

What I acknowledge about myself is that I am relational, my romantic core which I have kept well hidden for years for fear of being hurt, is back. Coming to own these things about myself has been huge and its taken time. 

I saw a time lapse movie when I was a kid where it rained in the desert. The filmmakers showed the effect of this. Greenness came and frogs dug their way out of the soil. Birds arrived and whole communities formed overnight. They were just waiting. It was the most impactful movie of my childhood.

I have spent the last five years learning about life and what matters, through caring for and being with Gary in the brutality of his illness and the loss of him. I don’t want to live being scared and not try things or make the most of opportunities. I want to live a good life and that means being brave, taking risks, speaking my mind and asking for I want even if it doesn’t eventuate. It feels good to speak truth and know it for what it is.

Last night I went to church for the induction of our new minister, there was a lot of good talking and singing.

One person who talked struck a chord with his lyrical way of describing was Andrew Norton. 

http://moderator.presbyterian.org.nz/blog

I have been thinking about forests again as I navigate my way through unknown territory and open my heart up to life’s possibilities.

Andrew talked of a forest where there are two roads divided and suggested we take the one that is not groomed or spacious but the one less travelled and stick with that. It is richer. 

He talked of gifts that are given to us and named Love as one of them. This made me tip my head to one side and think. I consider love to be the most important but had not considered it as a gifting.

Yet the past few years have shown me this more that any thing else. 

Love is it, it’s the key to everything not only a deep fierce abiding unconditional love for those who are dear to you, but a love and an openness for others. 

He said the only way to hell is alone. I don’t think of hell as a physical place just to be clear, it a place we take our self with our thoughts that keep us anxious, isolated and despairing. I know this place well and I aint going back.  The importance of relationship was touched on not only with God but with each other. By connecting with others and reaching out we heal. We are not designed to travel alone, our companions may not be who or what we expected from our life, we may have seen our life in a particular way and need to reframe our expectations of what it could look like and start living expectantly not with expectations. Our companions could turn out to be satyrs, fauns or talking rats (tiny with huge hearts).

My companions who have stuck with me through my tears and despair are so very precious to me and there are many new people who have come into my life  this year with such good hearts, I am a bit in awe. 

This week my heart is aching but I am filled with gratitude for the experience of it even though it is painful and so grateful for who is in my life and what it is becoming. I will practice the braveness, keep open to life’s possibilities and acknowledge the position of vulnerability that comes with this. It may not make for the easiest or safest life but definitely one worth living.

                                                                         Journal page Kat Taiaroa