Where self-improvement is a trend, deep self-transformation is a milestone. Pema Chodron talks about the squeeze, “where we are caught between a rock and a hard place, caught with both the upliftedness of our ideas and the rawness of what’s happening in front of our eyes—that is indeed a very fruitful place.” What she is describing is the place where our ideals and ethics are challenged by real life situations. The place where heart and imagination meet action. The place where personal integrity meets everyday decisions. Where our microcosms meet the macrocosm. The juicy places of opportunity for real life transformation to occur, on a soul level. This is the stuff we leave behind and the stuff we take with us when we die. All else is an illusion, a finite game, a pretend place to float the show boats of our egos on.
Fronted Wisdom
Wisdom is hard earned. Let’s face it, we can post quotes all day about it but the real wisdom only comes from digesting real life lessons. Lessons that don’t come everyday. They’re wrapped up in things like loss, betrayal, malevolence and shame. We learn and earn through the squeeze. Our moment to invert darkness and shine. Our moments to breath wisdom into life. To suck up all the experience and knowledge just gained and birth forth hard earned wisdom.
Wisdom isn’t truly wisdom earned until it’s applied back into our everyday challenges. We need to use it to make choices about optimizing our health, managing our trash, both our literal garbage and unwanted emotional baggage. We want to squeeze its nectar into how we interact with our children, lovers, friends and community. It’s very easy spending a life-time learning or writing about wisdom, but attempting to weave it into our interactions with the people, places and situations around us, now that’s a whole other level of masterful transformation. It’s real life magic.
Transformation from Beliefs Dismembered
I recently organized a drumming circle after being called to make a traditional Native drum with Sonia Cabana. She’s from the Algonquin and Mi’kmaq lineage and offers a consecration ceremony to initiate your drum with the vibrations of our ancestors’ drums. Vibrations past down from generation to generation, from drum to drum, during a sacred ceremony which honours your unique contributing song in the world.
In the drumming circle I organized we decided to do a shamanic journeying session. The way the brain is induced into a theta state is by beating the drum at a rather fast pace. The shaman of the group then observes the journeying taking place in the quantum realm. When the dreams have satisfied their purpose, she/he will bring the group back into the present moment. They do this by changing the beat of the drum to return you into a sensorial experience of the here and now.
I have dedicated the last two years of my life to my personal healing journey, after having had an impactful kundalini awakening which pushed to the surface all of my childhood wounds and traumatic events. Healing is messy business and integration not so cut and dry. After two years of toiling with all the issues that arose, I was faced with having to piece together the puzzle my mind brought forth in order for me to integrate the knowledge and spurt forth the wisdom. To finally embody the transformation my awakening was calling to life.
Dismemberment Initiation
During the journey I found myself in various scenes where the insides of my body were exposed and being eaten by various spirit animals, first doves, then snakes and insects. Lurking in the surrounding forests were my enemies of awakening. Represented by those people I had unknowingly called into my life to assist me in integrating my pain. The people whom I had preordained soul contracts with. People whom threatened me, betrayed me, bullied me, raped me, neglected and discarded me. Situations which represented my deepest core wounds.
During this time a Great White Polar Bear appeared and had a good laugh at me. Playfully rolling in the snow before me as I crawled half eaten towards my new destination. He licked me and accompanied me as we walked forth towards the great horizon. All while breathing Polar Bear wisdom and strength into my spirit. When I returned from my journey, a wise woman who had joined the circle explained that what I had experienced was called a Dismemberment Initiation in Native tradition.
Afterwards, upon doing the research I learned how this vision commonly comes to shamans at one point on their journeys to mark a rite of passage into a new way. A symbolic vision of the death and rebirth process and the integration that follows. The symbolic ritual of being spiritually dismembered from the inside out. Every idea, belief and foundational thought structure within you is being destroyed. During the weeks that followed, the visions continued each time I went into meditation. Visions of being eaten by sharks, wolves, lions and vultures all persisted until I finally let go. Until I finally let go of all the pain, the hurt, all the things that created the beliefs holding me back from presence. It was a process of forgiving not forgetting. A process of embracing not denying. A process of expanding out from a very new focus point.
Embodying Wisdom as Responsible Co-Creators
Embodying wisdom is a process, transformation is a process. Nothing in life comes without first taking responsibility for where we find ourselves and what we wish to experience moving forward. Self-care on this level becomes about meticulously planning, crafting routines, cultivating dedication and consistency to chase your life goals. With one foot in the quantum and one foot in the material world, we can align our visions and knowledge with action, which become embodied wisdom, inner radiance. It’s a deliciously arduous process. The process of becoming who we’re meant to be, on all planes of existence. From the inner-self to our extended family life, moving outwards to friends, lovers, co-workers and the global community. Balancing work, pleasure and home to create a symphony of alignment that keeps us on our paths to truth, love and our most cherished immortality projects.
Yes, immortality projects! The big bangers we came in with that drive our very breath. The most profound wisdom we can embody is attending to all these levels of our multi-dimensional experience with personal integrity. Assuming as much responsibility as we can muster for its synergistic success and failures. Especially as Jordan Greenhall states, “To keep finding a better way to be Ethical as we do it. How does our power affect the world and in turn how does that power affects us?” No one lives on an island, we’re all in this together. Embodying our wisdom is the only true path to Enlightenment.
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