Some days….

Psyche and Eros

Yesterday I attended a brilliant online workshop with Sharon Blackie ( Wonderful blog on Substack, “The Art of Enchantment” – and her website – www.sharonblackie.net ). We were looking at the myth of Psyche and Eros, the journey the soul takes to come home to Love. In the course of the discussion of Psyche’s despair at the seemingly impossible tasks Aphrodite demanded she complete, Sharon said,

“There is no growth without despair….through despair there is strength and resilience”.

And, we can/should/need to ask for help.

The tears came to my eyes. Yes, I know despair. Why do I forget to ask for help? Ants help Psyche sort seeds; a reed instructs her how to gather golden fleece; an eagle collects water from an impossible spring; a tower tells her how to enter the underworld and come out alive.

Right now, the tree offers solidity at my back; the river reminds me, ‘this too shall pass’; the falling leaves show me how to let go; and the path guides me to put one foot in front of the other.

And yet, this process of Psyche/soul/us coming to know our uniqueness and offering our gifts out to the world, while staying whole and at home in Love on the inside, is, in my experience, a transformation which demands every ounce of my strength and consciousness and then some. And in the end, so it seems, something cracks, a chink of light shines through, I breathe and soften. Where it will come from I never know.

Lit Lamps?

Some people would say, ‘Just be a lit lamp’. Yes, a lit lamp can light other lamps. Yes, I need to tend my own flame. But I, we, are human. Rough winds and storms come and sometimes our flame blows out. There is something about the need to understand what it is to suffer, which grows our humanity, our compassion, our empathy. And if we need anything in this world at the moment, surely it must be that.

Rejoining the river lower down it occurs to me: I don’t always have to be the lit lamp. Sometimes I can draw close to another heart alight and ask for their help. And that’s ok.

Take very good care of yourselves,

With love,

Nickie

News

FOR PEACE

I am powerless. Except – I have the power to choose my personal response. I have the power to choose opinion and outrage or I can choose Love and compassion – or quite likely one after other. I can allow myself to be paralysed and overwhelmed (bit of a theme this week) or take care of myself, return within and walk in peace. I can sing, pray, meditate and send my love on wings through the ethers. Airy fairy? Maybe. But here’s what the 16^th century mystic, John of the Cross, has to say:

IF YOU LOVE
You might quiet the whole world for a second
if you pray.

And if you love, if you
really love,

our guns will
wilt.
Translation, Daniel Ladinsky, from Love Poems from God, published by Penguin Compass

I can also dedicate a page of this website for Peace. And I have done so. Here you will find images which evoke a sense of serenity, and the first of a few guided meditations (feedback very welcome). Take a look here

I would deeply appreciate your contributions of images, poems and prayers. I would like this page to be a ‘lit lamp’, a place to remember and come back to the peace within, both to keep ourselves resourced and to hold the light of possibility for humanity in our hurting world.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King