It’s been 16 years, today, since I hemorrhaged (see previous posts My Re-Birthday and Celebrating the Anniversary of My Rebirth), and I am just realizing it is finally time to let the past go. I’ve been celebrating this anniversary all these years and I think it was important for me to do that. Being an event which propelled me into a new life, it deserved to be honored. But I have honored it enough.
So very much has happened since—many smaller deaths and rebirths. As David Whyte says in a tape I’ve been listening to, “Life is a constant experience of being thrown out of your old place and going on to find the new.” It is time for me to mark and celebrate that.
Here I am in the mountains of northern New Mexico, living a life of deep solitude—nothing I ever planned or dreamed of, but I’m here none the less. And I realize that what happened to me on that day in March, 16 years ago, is that I came out of hiding. I came alive. I let life find me.
Today I choose to celebrate that.
I have never lived so deeply. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes I feel joy I have no words for. But always, always, this spiritual path I am on (and that’s exactly what it is—a path of spirit) is a revelation. And there is no going back.
Every insight brings with it added responsibility. I see myself more clearly. I don’t get to hide anymore. I am living truer and truer. Even when I think I want something, if it takes me off my path, if it stunts my growth, life rights my course. I don’t get to deny my truth—not for long anyway.
I want to celebrate that.
Today I honor the listening that keeps me clear. I embrace the struggles that cut away all things false. I revel in the wilderness experience my life has become. And I rejoice in the rocky path that winds me home.
Today I claim my life. I stand in the center of it. I make my home in it in larger and larger places. And there is no going back.
I open my heart to the wound and to the ecstasy.
Today I celebrate that.
And I wish it for all of you.
Love to you all,
Jeane
We can all celebrate that you chose life on that day. You chose the rocky path you now rejoice in, not knowing that it would lead you, day by day, to become a champion of truth who continues to seek it on deeper and deeper levels, and to imagine into reality an invitation to join the world’s “vibrant dance/of fire and calmness and final stillness.”
Thank you, Kathy. It is so meaningful to be heard and to be received with such acceptance. I am deeply grateful to be here and continually surprised by where the path leads, every step a revelation.
Bravo, it is a large step into new homages – you are of large things. The universe celebrates always ALL of your choices along the path to today and beyond.
And so it is…Much love and appreciation coming from Washington state.
XOXOX
Grace
Thank you, dear. This anniversary is always powerful for me. One way or another it seems to demand being marked. I just made a recurring monthly donation to the Invisible Children Fund in honor of my anniversary. Today, in this way, I again choose life.
Happy ‘birthday’, dear Jeanne. From Whyte:
“…Remember the way you are all possibilitiesyou can see and how you live bestas an appreciator of horizons,whether you reach them or not..”I have you to thank for this poet!
Thank you Terri. A lovely quote. So glad you’re reveling in Whyte.
Jeane, Happy Re-Birthday! So grateful that you have been sharing your journey with us! As always, you are such an inspiration to me. Sending you a virtual hug.
Thank you, Sylvia. Virtual hug received and needed. For whatever reason this 16th anniversary was very emotional–perhaps because I was releasing the experience and deciding to move forward.