The Art of Being Reborn
Making Art of the Experience of a Spiritual Death and Rebirth; because as painful as these are, they are intensely beautiful and empowering and needed for our Soul’s evolution…
When its time to die to the version of who you are in order to create space for who you are becoming….
Discomfort & Unease
I have been here before, which is how I know deep down somewhere that I will be ok. When I feel the complete dissolution of my Self approaching and there is nothing that I can do to stop it, divine destiny is sweeping in and carrying me away so that I can continue on the evolution of my being. Sometimes this is called the Dark Night of the Soul, the very first, often deepest dive, the biggest shock to the system, the catalyst of ‘waking up’. The death that springs you out of the slumber of walking through this life as a basic human, with seemingly shallow existence and purpose. You may have felt that something was missing, that there must be more to life than what you experience, you may have had repeated warnings to change aspects of your life that you ignored until disaster hit and everything came crashing down. This is a perfectly orchestrated creation that provides the fertile land that you may flourish forth from if you chose to take the opportunity presented to you.
The journey starts, or so it seems, when things begin to unravel. Areas of your life become sticky, or uncertain, people/places/things don’t feel aligned anymore and you begin to wonder if there is something wrong with you…..you feel like you don’t belong, that things aren’t working, it is uncomfortable to say the least. Somewhere around this stage you may try to anchor yourself into your current, soon to be old, reality. You may tether yourself to expectations, both yours or others, but the longer you walk, the further away you go, the strain on your tether is felt. There is a fear of losing your way, thoughts of “If I allow myself to stray too far from my comfort zone, will I ever find my way back?”, which in time will turn to “Do I actually even want to go back, because none of that is who I am anymore?” The lure of the familiar, the comfort zone is there, but there is discomfort in that space now, so what do you do? Ignore the discomfort? Deny that change is knocking? Or do you start listening to your body, to your Soul, to your destiny, and have curiosity about what is going to unfold…..
“Where are you coming from, human killer, and where are you going, space-conqueror?” (Mary 9:26)
“This passage is about the very real struggle for the soul to become free while in a human body. The ego, fearing for its own existence, confronts the soul, calling it “human killer” and “space-conqueror".” Fighting words. The ego resorts to name-calling because it knows that the soul has already won. Love has already won…..the ego dies when the body ceases to function; it’s an ultimate reveal of how powerless the ego was all along. the ego knows it’s impermanent, bound to chronological time. The soul knows that it continues to exist after the body ceases to function. The soul is not bound to time; it’s eternal.”
Meggan Watterson
Exploration & Seeking
So off you go, stretching the line behind you, getting caught up in it, until the safety of the tether is more hassle than comfort and you make the decision to cut it. Ahhhh, the abyss, the nothingness, the in between, where we no longer are who we were but we can’t yet see who we are becoming…Faith is needed. Deep surrender. And work. Just when you thought that letting go was the work, you are faced with a wall of self to break through..it can feel disorientating, prickly, we can feel like we are lost, and indeed we are, lost, in order to find ourselves. Whether you know it or not, your inner compass, your Soul, your eternal flame, will guide you. This deep, dark inner work is what we call shadow work. It is where we take a long, hard look at ourselves and all the ways that we have shown up or not shown up. All the wounds that are ours or have been passed on or down to us. All of the stories that we have told ourselves.
Gospel of Thomas
“If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you.”
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those that cannot read and write, but those that cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”
Alvin Toffler
Reflection & Empowerment
In this pause, there is room for research, we may be seeking guidance from books or other sources of wisdom, starting to form new ideas about ourselves, to be inspired. The pause is important, we cannot sprint to the end, growth is more like a marathon, with breaks. If we don’t stop to take stock of how far we come, we are constantly seeking, and never allowing ourselves time to be proud of what we have achieved so far.We also need to see how our old life will try to call us back. Our versions of us, or old identities that people associate us with, will keep creeping up for you to see and make a conscious choice of how you wish to proceed. Growth is not an over night change and then nothing from your previous life remains, though more and more I see this. There can be a time of dancing between the old and the new, so be gracious with yourself as you make new choices and practice new things and try to discern and decipher what is right for you. There can be a temptation to try and mimic someone else’s path, but remember that your task is to know yourself deeply and truly and to trust what resonates for you. And this may change, allow the ebb and flow of your evolution. An inner strength is building here, a relationship to self, a connection with the eternal soul, the inner compass is coming online and the more we listen to it the easier it becomes.
You may not yet see or feel or know, that you are surrounded by magic, that Light shines through darkness to guide the way. If we do not pause, to reflect, to be still and silent, so much of what Life is gifting us gets missed.
Honouring your progress is key, signalling to the Universe that you delight in the changes and anchoring you into the next timeline. Know that not every day will be the same, growth is like breathing; expansion and contraction.
“Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.”
Nelson Mandela
The Inner Child
The concept of the inner child can be both overwhelming and a relief all at once, when we understand that while we had no control over what happened to us, we are fully responsible in how we live from it. We are responsible for going back and meeting with the child inside of us who carries many stories and beliefs from our childhood, and for rewriting them as needed.
It is worth noting here that not all stories that we believe, are actually true. And can be a product of distortion that we have created. With that in mind it may be worth re visiting some of the stories that we spun as children to see if we indeed trapped ourselves in webs of illusion and have been playing them out ever since. Whether we painted a brighter or darker picture of our childhood still means that we have been living an illusion and one we need to escape from so that we are firmly in the here and now of truth.
We can only expand our consciousness to the depths that our inner child is healed. We can have all the desire in the world to grow spiritually, but if our inner child doesn’t feel safe, it won’t be able to hold the expansion that we seek. Going within, to the depths, creating a secure foundation and deep roots, allows for vast expansion.
Taking everything back to this baby girl, what does she need right now, how can I care for little me in order to write new stories and create new beliefs? Dear One, if only you knew then what we know now….or maybe you did, and you just forgot..until now.
The Bridge & Surrender to Dissolution
With so much shifting and changing inside and out, it can become very uncomfortable. As much as we are shedding layers, we are adding things too, until they become embodied and we no longer need to rely on them so strictly, then the shedding continues, on repeat. Until all layers have been removed revealing our God self centre. We find ourselves at a point of no return, where staying in the ‘comfort zone’ is more uncomfortable than moving through the fires of purification. There is a point too where we realise that no matter how supported we are, no one knows our truth, can feel our pain or bear our load, we must do this alone, while feeling the support nearby. Once we make the conscious decision to step into that abyss, many a gift await, including the complete dissolution of who we are..
Let nature hold you in the depths of your unravelling, seek the refuge of Mother Earth whose elements will support you in all ways, the spirits of the directions will carry you and give you strength if you allow yourself to receive.
Can we practice non-attachment, especially to who we are, to the versions of ourselves that we have been, in order to gain freedom?
“What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and ignorance has died.” (Mary 9:27)
“This is the experience of surrender. All the seven powers of the ego have died, and what remains is the love the soul knows completely.
Surrender is the sweet and potent ecstasy of returning fully to the Good (God) that we already are.
Surrender is never a giving over, a disempowering resignation of who we are. Surrender is never a giving away of our truth. Surrender is an effort of radical trust, of turning inward, and releasing every egoic idea we’ve had of ourselves…”
Meggan Watterson
The bittersweet knowing that while others may walk along side you, they cannot walk for you.
The bridge that magically appears as you step in faith into the abyss…
I created this ‘Earth Womb’ in which to bury myself for a figurative death and dissolution, so that there was ritual in allowing myself to completely fall apart and cease to exist as that version of me. From the depths of this surrender I could rise like a Phoenix from the ashes, or some form of new me if the Phoenix wasn’t quite ready to fly! The womb portal was made entirely of leaves, with gaps left in all 4 directions that were honoured with a shell (water), stone (earth), feather (air) and lamp (fire). It was decorated with branches and boughs, sticks and ferns from the land, which much gratitude for the bounty that allowed my vision to become reality.
Rest & Integrate
When you finally emerge, or birth, from the womb of destruction and dissolution, it is important not to rush, instead take the time to rest, gather your energy, allow integration. The journey has been long and taxing, there is time for a pause and sweet rejuvenation. It is time to reflect and connect, to go within, to be with yourself and learn again who you are and who you aren’t. Don’t underestimate the pause before the celebration.
Lao Tzu
“Be still. Stillness reveals the gifts of eternity.”
Hermann Hesse
“Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.”
Celebrate
“Life should not only be lived, it should be celebrated.”
— Osho
Even the water is feeling the love
“Celebrate endings - for they precede new beginnings.”
— Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Meggan Watterson
“And if we see the resurrection narrative as a metaphor, the anointing ritual becomes the passage from the death of the ego, the limited egoic-self, into the expansive realm of the soul….Anointing, then, in its original context, is the act of consciously acknowledging that the physical body passes away, but the soul within the body does not. And each time we consciously die to the ego, each time we allow ourselves to die to what we were, in order to rise more aware of the soul of who we are now, we are anointed. And we do this in memory of her (Mary Magdalene).”
