There will come a time when resisting your life, your soul, and the one you know is possible for you becomes more painful, more intolerable, more devastating than whatever fears you might have of beginning to align your life more towards the one you want and the one that is waiting for you.
There will come a time when a threshold will emerge. Demarcating the life you’ve been living and the life you’re here to life.
Behind that threshold, all you’ve ever known. All you’ve ever loved. All who’ve ever loved you. Every accolade. Every raise and promotion. Every ribbon, trophy, grade, degree, doctorate, discernable achievement. All leading up to that emerging threshold.
Behind that threshold, every love you’ve ever experienced. Every way of being that you’ve learned to keep people close. Every posture or contortion or mask or persona you’ve ever donned to stay safe, alive, in love, protected, secure, relevant, regarded, and reassured.
Behind that threshold, every inheritance. The inheritance of world view, religion, culture, orientation to others around you, political affiliation, affiliations of all kinds. All behind that threshold.
Beyond the threshold, darkness. Darkness and upheaval.
It is inevitable.
Beyond that threshold, the inky in-between of life moving in and out of discernable organization.
Beyond that threshold, shadows and fog and a loneliness unparalleled.
Beyond that threshold, dizzying disorientation to very many things of the human realm: relationship, ambition, self concept.
Beyond that threshold, mystery.
Beyond that threshold, the liminal space of initiation, becoming and transformation.
Beyond that threshold, your life.
Your true life. With your true desires. With your true clarity. Clarity that might cost you. Cost you a discernible career. Cost you a secure but unsatisfying relationship. Cost you standing, status, recognizability among the eyes of the day.
Your life, the one coming for you and you for it, will cost you.
Dearly.
And nearly,
Everything you have.
But.
As consolation for experiencing your life dissolving around you, you will emerge as yourself evermore again.
But as a self much bigger. Much freer. Much more alive and aligned and animated by something wild and free, powerful and unmistakably trustworthy.
Your Soul.
And enjoy. And also, be prepared. Because it will happen again. Your next wave of becoming. And when it does, remember you’ve done this before.
You’ve shed skins before. You’ve encased in chrysalis before. You’ve gone into the fever dream before.
Remember, that every summer has a winter. Every spring has an autumn. The seed cannot come without the fruit’s flesh falling away.
We are cyclical.
Just like nature.
Just like a wheel.
Just like a life lived in harmony with its own true path.
Between Two Altars
One altar, the life you’ve been living.
The second, the life that is coming for you and you to it.
Take yourself somewhere beautiful, out in nature, and build an altar for the beautiful life you’ve been living, the one that got you here, this far, with so much beauty intact.
Build this altar to the life that has carried you over the ocean of experience from your birth to now.
Build it and speak to it and honor it and say thanks and say thanks and say thanks.
Some ways away from this altar, build your second altar, the altar of the life coming for you and you for it.
Build it and speak to it. Build it and speak to the trees towering overhead. Build it and speak to the earth underneath. Build it and speak to the waters nearby. Build it and speak to the day-blind stars. Build it and speak to what you know of this new life.
Build it and feel the delight. Feel the reunion. Feel the alignment already cohering.
Once the two altars are built, stand and play in the space between them. Feel the pull and call of the familiar old life. Feel and smell, the scent on the wind of the new and approaching life. Feel the gravity of each. Feel the fears associated with each. Feel the tension.
And practice being with yourself. As the gravities of each pole pull you and stretch you. Feel your grace. Feel your power. Feel your courage and bravery. Feel your compassion and patience. Feel your understanding. Feel your conviction. Feel your gratitude. Feel the queer nature of the inky in-between and how the maps are upside and compass needles spinning. Feel the curious ground of the liminal in-between. And feel the earth under your feet. The wind in your hair. The birdsong in your ear. The breath in your lungs. The starlight falling on your shoulders. The moon wheeling around you. The daylength shortening. The temperatures cooling. And somehow. Somehow. Somehow, feel the promise of Spring. Even in this moment of seasonal descent. Feel the Spring. Feel the promise. And as you feel all this earth and wonder and beauty, feel yourself. Standing, walking, waltzing, kneeling, keening, crawling, bawling, braving. Feel yourself. And your companionship. Your unbreakable companionship. And your loyalty. Your friendship. Feel the pal of you, warm and loving and alive and always with you. Feel all this. As you find yourself between two altars.
Feel yourself between two alters.
Love yourself between two alters.
Honor yourself between two altars.