Tuesday, February 19th
I adore Hestia, preparing for next Sunday’s workshop where we’ll be looking at what she represents archtypally, I am in love with her all over again. I see that she has been part of my foundation always and that even when I’m unaware of her influence, true to her nature — moving between the seen and unseen world –she’s always at work weaving her web of connection. She is the one that makes the unconscious conscious that gives depth to our perceptions that would otherwise see only the surface of physical reality. It is she who’s at work when we gain a deeper understanding. It is also she who frightens us with dark possibilities, with eruptions from the depths that can cause havoc in our otherwise orderly lives. She is not always a friend to the ego that wants to believe it’s in control over things it is most definitely not. Her symbol is the moon and it’s madness—not popular with today’s high value on tidiness to the point of an obsessive/compulsive kind of disorder!!
The line between what we are meant to at least try to control, and all the rest that we cannot, is a moving target. I’ve yet to find it stable and predictable and even when I think I’ve finally understood, oops, dear Hestia pulls the rug out from beneath my feet and shows me once again that the truth I thought I’d found is false and that if it takes that to bring me to my knees, which is the position she prefers that we be in, so be it. I surrender, and frankly, once I get down there where I can rest my head on the ground and smell the sweet earth, I am glad beyond measure to give in; it is the place of peace and of true connection where I’m returned to the larger truth that I am one indivisible cell in the body of the universe; that my experience of separation is an illusion and I’m returned home, which I never left.
This life of separateness is so hard and so sad and confusing—and it’s that way only because of the illusion — that I can’t help wondering why we must do this. Some days I feel punished, on others I accept it without question ( that because I’ve spent so many years questioning to no avail; as this is obviously the situation my questioning has become an empty exercise and loss of energy) and do my best to get through it with some grace and care for all the rest of us who are suffering the same fate.
It’s raining today, and new leaks have sprung open in my living room adding to the growing number in my sweet redwood house. It is now more outdoors than most, but dear to me none the less.
