After discovering I'd been heading in the wrong direction with my life's work for the longest time, I was lost. I decided to write daily, without any preconception of what to write, in the hope it would become a map for me, revealing a path forward in real-time. I hope these little pieces of writing, are solace and support to anyone who is lost or flying on a trajectory they no longer want to be on.
20) Unpublish
I just unpublished my website; changed my bios on social media and the call to action in my newsletter.
Of course not necessarily a permanent decision and yet, despite just how absolutely weird and contrary this feels there's some kind of fresh wind blowing through me.
I want to tell people I cherish, the ones I share my heart with, to tell them I let go of that little girl's journey, for she is long gone and I am still here and I've been pandering to a ghost.
Innocently, of course, I had no idea I was doing it.
There's some grief here too that I will no longer be understood by others, I think it was my last hope at living a life the majority of people around me understood.
How to tell people still firmly caught in the misunderstanding of suffering that I'm choosing freedom, ease, stillness, space?
And the only thing I'm willing to commit to is my devotion to the sacred, to myself.
Autumn is such a perfect time for this. It seems as though everything is dying and yet for those who bear seeds it is their most fruitful and abundant time.
I saw the Sunflowers today, heads heavy with ripened and dried seeds, drooping to face the Earth.
I felt kindred with those magnificent creatures in that moment. For I too am at prayer, looking deeply into the heart of creation and willing it to accept my progeny.
21) Breathe
I'm so full of gratitude today that it slips over the blurred borders between ecstasy and joy.
Early October, the sun is warm and the air barely disturbed by the softest breeze that occasionally whispers through my hair. The precious heat seeps into every cell of my being.
I'm in awe of the clouds today. The impossibly blue canvas of the sky a playground for impish clouds, light-heartedly washing unconventional shapes across it.
Some cloud's edges, lit brilliant white by the sun, blend out like ink into wet watercolour paper.
This singular, never to be repeated day beguiles every part of me.
How could I ever doubt the true nature of my Life?
The noisy, clamouring, disenchantment of the society I live in is a deep schism from what lies beneath, from what it is built upon, from this dazzling reality.
A nun, a sannyasin, a bhikkhuni, runs not away from humanity but towards consummation with the Divine. I've felt that tug and pull from inside to devote myself to the quiet and peaceful truth.
The Oaks at the edge of the field are burnished with nutmeg leaves now. No longer solid to me, I feel their blissful flow.
Always euphoric, these beings are consciously at one with all.
I could colour this a dying world in my mind, with me dying along with it.
I could choose to see only loss, scarcity, hopelessness, the fodder of news outlets reflected in the falling leaves and withered flowers.
Or I can be here now, present only in my own experience - which let's face it is the only place I can ever be - in a state of rapturous and ravenous gratitude, breathing in and out with the Universe, mirroring and sharing its expansion.
The sweetness and preciousness of this Autumn day, sweeter than a summer one as it comes written with endings.
I never found endings this delicious nor savoured them more than in this moment.
Letting go of the burden of being productive, of getting somewhere, of being someone and opening myself to this golden day, melds me with silence itself.
I've fallen in love with writing. I cloister myself, supported by the still verdant green rolling Earth and roofed by the arching azure sky and embraced by both and trust I can invoke something, just a fragment, of their holy beauty with my clumsy words.
I write today to press this time, that which is already magically transforming into memory, like a jewel-hued leaf into a scrapbook, to cherish and remember, a momento of perfect brilliance.
---
The sun graced the clouds with pastel and intense shades as sunset spread across the sky, bruised and glowing.
Then the almost full moon rose, a peach soft light, mysterious and swathed in mist, in the now royal ink sky.
A perfect day.
23) Sunflowers In Autumn Poem
She has worshipped the sky,
Revered the sun
Bound to its cycles
Spellbound and entranced
With heliocentric delight.
The light has fed and nourished her to ecstasy.
The year turns
And calls her blessed body to a different way of being.
As if in prayer
She drops her head to face the Earth
To make an offering of her most precious wealth
And ask for its acceptance into the fertile soil.
Her seeds a whispered invocation.
I recognise this turning
In me.
An ache
To let go of all I carry
However beautiful and desired
And to hand it all over,
For Life to do with as it will.
For the previous instalment in this series, click here:
https://kseren.substack.com/p/last-quarter-to-dark-moon-series-ba3?sd=pf