Help me reclaim myself, because I don’t think I can do it alone.

Hold my strength while I sharpen my sword.

Cradle my tongue while my heart finds the words. Help me to say exactly what it is that I mean to say by offering your gentle empathy and compassion.

The process of reclamation is life-long. It’s our soul mission. It’s why we chose to come to this place, to this time, to these people. It’s why we consciously chose to walk through the nine circles of hell, enduring simultaneous scarring and singeing and purification and rebirth, so that we may continue to walk through the flame. The further we walk, the more immune we become to the pain, because the pain doesn’t hurt us anymore. It fuels us, inspires us, motivates us. We learn to play with it, create something new with it. We allow our calloused hands to become vehicles of healing—the vehicles through which we both crumble and awaken and venture out into the world after the scabs have fallen off, giving way to a new, shiny layer of protection. A layer offering both frailty and resilience.

Heroes and heroines move out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest; into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you’ve got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can’t. You don’t have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience—that is the hero’s deed. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

We come to understand the role of fiery annihilation, and we learn to feel deep, unparalleled gratitude for it.

We become fire. We become purification. We become unscathed through the process of being burned alive. We emerge fresh, untainted, stronger than ever. We become everything that we came here to be—we leave it all behind, but that fiery trail burning in our wake will always lead us home, because home is heaven and hell. Home is peace and destruction; home is solace and divine chaos. Home is everything at once, because we are everything, all at once. Home is the harmonious balance of yin and yang, forever supporting and swimming with each other, forever offering unconditional love and support, no matter how devastating the trials. Because home knows there is no beginning and no end. Home knows that time does not exist and love never really dies. It’s all part of the cosmic game of chess, moving pawns and knights and kings and queens, striving for an excellence and perfection that do exist, just not in the way we perceive them.

You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. ~ Herman Hesse, Ode to Trees

The cosmic dance is perfection in imperfection; the giving and receiving, switching strategy, experimenting and discovering that there is no concrete right and wrong, no absolutes. Whatever is right for us is right for us. Whichever moves suits the present game is the path…for now. All is subject to change, to transform, to die and live again.

It’s all focus. It’s all loving determination and easy discipline. It’s choosing a direction and approaching it with care and consideration and love; it’s learning that the way we treat ourselves is exactly how we treat the process of this life experience. It’s learning that no matter how much we don’t want to believe it because of the responsibility it entails, we truly are the co-creators of our experience.

The energy we bring to the table is in direct correlation with our journey and thus, the end result. But what is a true end result? Does that exist? Everything is always ongoing, always subject to change. The spiral doesn’t stop on its own—we stop it. Or redirect it.

Success is not being done; not being complete. Success is still dreaming and feeling positive in the unfolding. ~ Abraham-Hicks

There is no black and white; only the glorious, invigorating void of the unknown exists and persists. That is our constant—the unknown. And our peace comes from settling into that hearth, contentedly warming ourselves by the fire of mystery and unanswered questions, feeling at home in this sanctuary of nothing and everything. This boundless, timeless, non-physical space, where dark and light blend into one, adoring and caressing each other like the perfect lovers that they are. This is union. This is where our stillness remains; this is where we release, heal and breathe.

This is where…this is where.

We’re already there.

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Editor: Rachel Nussbaum

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