Interestingly, just one year ago I posted a blog about navigating Hurricane Irma. Now my muse is Flo, and she inspired this expression of my inner contemplation. We keep getting the opportunity to face life’s challenges and to see how we have evolved.
Painting: The Vortex, oil on canvas by Beki
Sept. 16, 2018
Years ago I stopped watching TV and especially avoided mainstream news sources. My choice to do so was a response to my own Inner Guidance System (IGS) that is always sending signals of what actions to take and decisions to make. It is tailored for me. Indicators are offered by how I feel and the only way I can get an accurate read, is by removing myself from the outside hurricane, and enter into the stillness and quiet of my own inner connection to the Divine. Long ago, my IGS sent me the message that I was to remove myself from the outer storm in order for me to find the Eye/I of my inner being, which is Peace.
I trust that I will receive the information I need to make an aligned and wise decision, without entering the fray of media and its unsavory approach to sensationalizing the facts and science with way too much extraneous data. The media is emotionally manipulative and I simply do not want to put myself through that mental/emotional storm, especially in the middle of a literal one!
Hurricane Flo(rence)just passed us by. She whirled and danced out at sea for many many days and the mental storm began as the reporters and politicians built up the emotional drama that obscured so many of us from the simple facts of an unfolding track of when and where the storm would hit the Southeastern coast of the United States. As a resident of Charleston, SC, I am accustomed to the threats of hurricanes, and we often sit and observe the possibilities of the forces of nature heading our way, like the slave ships from the middle passage. I always feel this eery awareness of the track these hurricanes take, following a profoundly painful storm of emotion from captive African people past, traversing the Atlantic, not knowing what lied ahead. Could it be that these wild and powerful winds that take this path, are cleansing the auric field of the waters of our earth, to release the pain and trauma held in this part of the body of our great Mother?
As a vibrational healer, that uses the healing modality of Reiki, a form of healing touch, to help shift blocked energy in the body of the client, I have experienced how people store trauma in different parts of their physical and etheric bodies. The energy needs to be moved, shaken up, acknowledged, and felt, so that is can be released, transmuted, transformed. Could it be that the winds of nature are cleansing the blocked energies that are held in the earth and in the consciousness of humanity?
What I am most interested in contemplating right now, is how we can weather the emotional mental storms that come our way. How do we navigate the assaults that seem to come from outside of us and we have no control of? How do we find the peace in the chaos, and find our inner Eye/I of the hurricane?
Charleston was virtually untouched by the physical storm for the most part. A mandatory evacuation was ordered on Monday September 10th, which truly was too soon to really predict the path of Florence. Today it is Sunday, almost a week later, and we have barely gotten any rain. Hysteria began and the inner storm in the minds of the people on the coast raged, especially as they sat in front of TVs for hours of non-stop coverage, that espoused emotional language that would undoubtedly incite fear. Words like a “Beast of a storm’, ‘ a monster’, ‘the storm of a lifetime.’ I got glimpses of the onslaught. I retreated the best I could, and attempted to meditate, and listen to the Divine Guidance within me that never steers me wrong. It was challenging, but I managed pretty good, to still feel the Peace of my soul. I consulted sources that were offering information without the drama, so that we could make decisions based on fact, and not the fear-based emotions that whirled around me.
The dance of Flo was unpredictable and as it is with most forces of nature, she reminded us that we are really not in control. We can do our best to try to predict and control the world around us, but the deeper lesson for me from Flo is that I best learn to go with the flow, or I will be whirling around in a mental storm that robs me of the very Peace that I AM. Flo is a reminder of how we are always navigating these mental storms and that with intention and consciousness, we can commit to the Peace that resides at the center of all hurricanes. The peace that resides at the center of our own being. If we cultivate this commitment to Inner Peace then when we embark out into the whirling chaos of the world, we can bring this powerful force of Divine nature with us, and we can indeed have a positive influence on the climate around us.
I am grateful for Flo, and all the hurricanes of life, that prompt me to practice Peace with deep intention and focus. I am grateful that I did not need to experience the Eye of Flo this time but received her gift in a gentle way. Each of us affected by the presence of Flo whirling towards our coast, had our own personal experience. Some lives were impacted in very profound and tangible ways, with physical loss involved. More of us were pulled into the mental and emotional storm to weather in our own way.
How did you weather the storm? Can you see the gift she left at your doorstep? How will you BE the next time you encounter a storm, whether it is literal of metaphorical? I encourage you to seize this opportunity to contemplate these questions, so that you may ride the wave of the alchemy that is offered by all of life’s challenges.
In Love and Oneness and deep gratitude,
Beki