Nox Amicus

Last Wednesday at 7:05am the moon was new again. I’m happy to be feeling better than I was last month and to show signs of having these posts back on track again. Last month’s focus was on a much needed Remedy. In some ways, it was a bit of a placeholder focus – but at the same time it was a much needed one – and it helped deliver the insight to “not lose sight of what may be right in front of you”.

Before I chose Remedy last month – or before it chose me – I had been experimenting with different ideas for focus. I had even thought I had chosen one. As I contemplated what this month may suggest, I drilled down to an even tighter focus.

It’s no secret to most of you that I grapple with bouts of severe anxiety. I have a whole box of tools and years of experience that help me cope and allow me to present in such a way that only the souls who know me best can see exactly where my brain isn’t. This anxiety is borne mostly by my reactions to perceived expectations – I have an innate (and unnatural) need to make sure everyone and everything else is okay, often to the detriment of myself.

I was about to relate a story from childhood that I view as the root cause of this need to satisfy global perceptions – but I erased the paragraph. Suffice it to say I know the cause. It was innocent and I have reconciled the intention – but I cannot just “undo” the subsequent years of my reinforcing it. It’s a process. Life is a process.

The process of my life right now is walking me down roads filled with choice and intention, and through these processes I’m beginning to understand that the more I am able to live my life in a deliberate state of choice, the safer I feel both physically and emotionally. Sure, there are times circumstances are thrust upon us and we have to just react – but if there are moments to stretch the muscles of choice, of listening carefully to our own inner voices and acting on their will, the more we build the habits that lend us feelings of Safety.

I had the honor of attending the wedding of an unlikely but cherished friend this weekend. I opted to go alone as the ceremony was up in the lands that my parents families had settled in and I wanted to commune a bit there. The ceremony was beautiful – filled with culture and reverence and inclusion and joy. Toward the end of the night though the dancing began. I have always said I’d much rather play the music than dance to it – and the gods have allowed that. I danced in my soul for my friend and her life – but not on the dance floor.

One day I will look at myself with a less critical eye. One day I will loose the shackles that keep my spirit smaller than it needs to be. For today though, I will focus on what it means, and how it feels, for my spirit to experience Safety.