Category Archives: Healing Reflections

Letting Go

It’s no great effort. It’s no effort at all.

It is letting other forces drift on, glide through if need be.
It is a sense of whisper movements, not sticking, as our gentle core,
more or less condensed, more or less whole,
remains in its own rhythmic movement,
the movement of life itself.

Melodies may pass near, around or in concert,
even altering our flow, but we always return.

We are made of our own song.

11th Trip to the Redwoods

When you come here,
you may be reminded of movies you’ve seen,
books you’ve read.
You may take impressive selfies.

While you are thinking,
your body will feel the weight
of the skyscraper-sized,
living beings who tower over you.
Your body will register the silence,
will sense the profundity.

You may want to run to your car and turn on some music.

You may see faces in the trees that make you laugh.
Dragons, hags, old men, spindly fingers pointing, goofy grins, drippy noses, penises and vaginas bigger than life.

You may silence yourself,
feel peace pour through you.
You may sit and wonder, why?
Why did my life come to where it is now?

You may see a shape in the web of patterns that surround you
and it reminds you of something important,
something you always knew, finally surfaced.

With every few steps there will be another, another.
You will want to fill yourself with all of them
but the wisdom here is infinite.
It cannot be done.

We are mere humans,
so small,
so small.

Sea Hag

Unfathomable,
ancient crone of the sea,
brooding
inexplicable dark silence.
Skies breathe above her.

Near the shore,
she boils over,
white foam spewing on black rock,

black rock which itself spewed
eons ago
hot, coursing deep from the Mother herself.

This Ancient does not use words.
She growls and foams and pounds.

The hill rumbles.
No one offers explanation.

She takes
in the flash of a sneaker wave,

and then under the morning sun
she floods the rocks
again and again
this time with frivolity.
Rivulets sing, streaming in unison
from every crevice.

Down the beach her moods gentle,
force turns to caresses,
ceaseless smoothing,
crooning,
whispers, whispers.

And in town, she lies docile
appearing domesticated
plain as day
in a way

as we forget.

Essence

Trial by trial,
stand strong.

Witness the layers peel
as you hold the mast of your being
your rock
your you
all stripped back
to reveal you
glistening in the light
unlike anything else.

It’s you.

There you are,
your power
completely familiar
and now impossible to forget.

Bow Down to the Power Within You

“Ah, yes. This one,” I said as I bent over the wide rim of my cauldron, bubbling in cool, thick liquid.

For months, I’d been charging myself with intention,
reaching into the goop, and pulling out instruments of power,
with voices of the age, crying, “Find your power!” at my back.

I took a good look at the fiery sword of righteous anger,
remembering the times we’d spent together.
My stomach felt dead. I couldn’t even pick it up.

For a few days, I held a sacred feather. It smelled of elder wisdom but eventually, I let it slip back under the surface. It wasn’t meant to invoke power. Wisdom doesn’t work that way.

I pulled out a full loom, so familiar! I gazed at the threads of community which stretched across the beams– but there was something missing in it. And then I saw something I had been entangled in, so I let the loom go too, and watched it dissolve into a primordial state.

The sword of charismatic ego rose out of the liquid,
hilt towering over the bubbling surface.
It was infused with a power of societal expectation.
It was sparkling and it hummed.

But I wasn’t moved.
Time stood between us, me and charisma – a desert of isolation and contemplation.

I told it, “I am no longer tempted or even angry with your presence, you old saber.”

I was safe. I have ridden the storms that raged inside me. I have turned my back on battles and building, to cultivate the precious seeds of goodness.

How will I be called to serve next?
What will it be?
What kind of power is my song calling for?

Finding the answer elusive, I passed my hand into the cool and felt something brush against it, falling towards the bottom of the cauldron. Instinctively, I reached and caught a strong humming thing, a rod, a staff, a wand covered in pearl sheen.

Yes, of course it would be pearl.

Kindness.
Subtle, permeated with a gentle power,
quick to shift if I grasped too hard,
or slip if I held too loose,
this benign quiet force.

My heart ached with need-fire.
How can I feel passion for a power that will not be mastered?

Because there is no other power, no other path.
I can learn to hold my spirit just so,
not let kindness fall through a grip too tight or too loose.

To Enter the Power of Kindness.

There are many teachers,
mountains to listen to.

We span these distances together.

Tasara Jen Stone https://littlelight.info

Sacred Found in Holiday Blues

If you are having a hard time today, whether you are feeling alone or actually alone, I extend my circle to yours, if you allow it. I do this because I have been where you are, many a year, hearing the inner screaming while the forces try to pull me down into a whirlpool of despair. I could be there right now if I didn’t maintain and guard my sacred circle.

So take my hand. Join me. I will show you how to get here.

First you have to make your own circle.

Draw it around yourself with your finger, perhaps a silly flapping sock, a butter knife, a piece of Lego. Dance a jig and say,

“This is my space, my place, my space!”

As many times as you want, but make sure you get the blood moving.

Light a candle in your space. If you don’t have a candle, focus on the lantern deep inside yourself and give it some room. Air it out. Let it glow.

Spin your arms and whoosh the circle out to protect your entire living space. Stamp on the ground or clap your hands and say it, with conviction,

“This space is safe! Only good cheer can stay near! And my kind good cheer, no other!”

Now, start naming the things you love in this earth. Say them out loud. Take your time. Let them embody you. Relive those wonders. For me it is always a particular forest, a time with a friend, looking at how far I have come in life, even when it doesn’t feel so great. What is it for you?

Good, now. Good. This is your good cheer. Not only do you have hope but you know what you have. Now you are strong enough to reach out.

There is a vast circle of people who hold sacred space together, consciously or unconsciously. Some call this space the web of light, some call it the Circle of Circles. It has many names and many interpretations.

Imagine your circle extending to this sacred space. Perhaps the edges will meet. Perhaps your circle will transport. You may get there by rattling or dancing, or maybe humming or rocking. You might close your eyes and feel the grounding cord from the divine above, through your body, to the divine below and know yourself there.

Just writing this for you is making me feel better. I will feel your presence on the other side. I will know you are there and be nourished in that knowing. We will shine upon one another, fueling our living rooms with the connection of tenderness and light. We will send out hope to others who are struggling, drawing them near, into the protection of our togetherness.

So.. join me. We are not alone. We are blessed.

Blessed Be, and fuck to the Christmas you didn’t want in the first place.

Tasara

(Modify if need be to make the most meaningful for you.)

How It Happens

Sometimes we wrestle with demons in order to show them -and ourselves – who we truly are. The demon is annihilated or transformed or disappears into a mist.

Sometimes the battle coming on is old and too similar to ones we have fought before. In these times, we kick ourselves and murmur, “Let it go!” after which we can simply turn the page and move on to a new chapter.

Sometimes change comes upon us like an avalanche, an earthquake, a tsunami. We are torn apart and have no choice but to survive it and later, languish on the road, waiting for rememberment. We may find a few pieces and put them back together but more likely, we encounter ourselves in new ways, finding our flesh growing back over our bones all on its own.

Sometimes we hear a click in our mind and the whole world changes. Old patterns are no longer compatible, old friendships drift.

Sometimes the need for change, it’s shape and the way to it have been sitting our doorstep for a long, long time. An event in our lives pushes us into a situation where we have to make a choice. Allow the change to enter or endure a suffering that has nothing left to teach us.

I heard somewhere that wisdom is not a collection of knowledge but rather a shift in perspective, again and again until all the perspectives fit together in a great flow upon the earth that sings under the cosmos. I heard somewhere that peace is riding the wheels of change.

You’ve Come So Far

And She said,

“There will be times in your healing process when you will be reminded that you don’t need to fight anymore. You don’t need to endlessly scan the land, looking for trouble, as you once had to. Each gate you go through, there will be a clear sign of certain dangers falling away. You will forget those signs and need to be remembered.

But here’s the clincher. In the lack of danger, there will be a void that will seem as frightening as your life was before. You will feel like you are floating out into space, into the unknown.

Remember your mantra, ‘If lost, return to self.’ 

There is always something to hold onto. It is you. The gorgeous light you have found inside yourself. Sing your song. Kiss the blessed earth and don’t forget to enjoy the garden you have cultivated within. Survival skills do not understand gratitude practices. They seem ..not very useful when things need to be done.

Walk into this terror. Feel it enliven your body. It is the first good terror you’ve come across. Remember the gates. You know what you have survived, what has left you and what is still to be mastered. Trust the truth of what you have accomplished. Trust the changes you have already made in your life. 

This work you have done – you have earned your own trust, so use it.
What does life have to offer when there is not imminent danger? It is not what they tell you. Go find out for yourself. Go make the life you wanted when you were held down.”

Unraveling the Curse of Original Sin

One of the greatest curses cast upon the human race in the last few thousand years is the concept of original sin. Some religions insist it is incurable. Others claim that it can be wiped clean with baptism. Regardless of theological interpretations, many of us who are laypeople carry a deep-seated sense of being an awful, rotten, bad person. Shame is the great motivator for many of our actions, often without our realizing it. This curse struck not only those who believed in original sin, but everyone else too, as it was distributed through the collective psyche. Too often, events, people and situations are qualified as good or bad, which traps them in a fixed state, not allowing them to be multi-dimensional. When we are good, we can look down on the bad, while still afraid of being bad. When we are bad, we can never be good. Either way, we cannot grow. I cast down this curse. You are not bad. There is no mark on your soul…. Tasara Jen Stone More in The Ancient Bones of Ceremony, found in paperback and eBook at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Audiobook in production.

The White Bird Rising

I am the white bird rising, she who rose in the sky over my body when my back was broken, whose feathery gust sent grace into my life.

I have listened to the cackling of crows.

I have risen from the cauldron with the white raven,

and now, I am told, it is time to be these things I so love,

to fly,

to bless,

to spread grace.