Initiation
For the second time in my life, I am moving through the mysteries and initiations of chronic health conditions that are “not recognised” by Western allopathic medicine. (And, yes, entirely different illnesses.)
The first one spanned six years, one of those in a wheelchair, and stripped away all externals. The process was the irrefutable catalyst for my awakening journey, a journey that spirals and continues for each of us.
I am not going into the details (more in my next book) or of the pervasive, fundamental deficiencies and distortions of the medical industry. Not today.
What is striking me is the correlation with my soul’s initiatory path and that of many who are wayfinders.
Spiritually, I am a pathfinder and paradigm changer. Are not many of us who chose to incarnate at this time and to be part of the evolution of collective consciousness?
That can sound almost glamorous, certainly exciting. Ego can really get on board with a “specialness”, right? The realities on the ground are the challenges necessary to tear apart identity and confront norms.
The realities, in my experience, can be as brutal as they are beautiful.
In my work in embodied awakening, I cannot teach what I am not learning day after day. It makes sense that the ground of embodying consciousness in the body is the curriculum.
It also makes sense that I, and some of us, would choose to journey through a threshold that is less known, medically, culturally. Paths less marked, still being formed.
Forging unmarked paths can be lonely and daunting. All the more important to find fellow explorers.
We may be walking in slightly different directions, but we are all threads in the greater design of homecoming.
We hold pieces for each other - reflection and amplifications. And the field that is greater than any of us holds everything we need. (This is why my work centres on group meditation processes and is the field where my Resonance community meets. Live tomorrow on the full moon. Come join us for just $7 this month.)
Mature inquiry reveals that, in itself, having a life-changing experience does not constitute an initiation. The intensity of events does not in itself confer initiation. It is just the fuel. The enormity of an experience and the deconstruction of ego references are elements in initiation. A part that typically gets overlooked in modern spirituality are the necessary shifts in structures and capacities.
“In initiation, you move from seeker of truth to bearer of responsibility for truth. Until that line is crossed, there is often an identity moment of having gained something others cannot see, without the full weight of the consequence of that seeing.” - Sadee Whip
I know from looking at my own life how huge awakenings can move through and do not necessarily impact daily functioning. There is not usually an automatic conference of transformed state. That is, they are not fully metabolised and integrated. For integration to be successful, there requires a shift in the fundamental operating system. Integration of initiation requires different structural foundations.
“Crossing an initiatory threshold is an increase in load-bearing capacity being activated. The system does not place weight where structure cannot hold it. Crossing happens when heart-intelligence develops the capacity to metabolize loss, fear, and destabilization without collapsing back into identity defense.”
Social conditioning will continue to rain down upon us day after day after day. Without our equally persistent, relentless devotion to evolution, we will not develop and sustain the structures to support awakened consciousness and live and look through this.
Consciousness awakening has to partner with ontological reference, with body, with psychological re-wiring , with nervous system balance, and health.
We wake up, and we seemingly fall back asleep, weighed down by the incessant drip of social conditioning and the familiarity of our ego-created world. Doors which have been opened can never be closed as if unentered. Yet we are in the building of new pathways. The mind does not construct these. It is a vaster whole intelligence that demands all of us.
Love extends an invitation for us to show up as vessels of the Mystery, in stillness and vulnerability. We are the “ground crew” in this dance of union. We are conscious, active co-creators in the evolution of consciousness through each of us and our collective fields. Together we open to the Infinite, turn our listening acutely to Her call and offer ourSelves as conduits for the great wave.
As we deconstruct and plant new foundations, take comfort that That which has been tasted cannot be untasted. A resting can take its rightful place in the core of our Being, alongside the Cosmic pulse of evolution.
The nectar of the Divine drops silently, lusciously, watering every cell. All the seeking and striving and moving-away-from can cease, and we can fall all the way into the arms of the Beloved, who has always been right here.
~ Part of this piece is adapted from my first book, “Coming Home” which is available, while the second is being lived and written, along with a book of poetry.
~ I am an explorer and guide of awakening consciousness, soul companion, teacher, guide, mother, and author. My lifelong experience and dedication are in waking up and walking in this life, eyes and heart open, feet on the ground, connected to the stars. In other words, to come home. I guide in the incredible journey of embodying awakening and living in full-spectrum authenticity, and facilitating group meditation and transformational events and one to one work.