Good morning to everyone on the West Coast, and in all other time zones too! I’m spending this week in Gatlinburg, TN at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts enjoying some focused time to make and connect with other makers for the 2020 Winter Pentaculum. I had a fairly miserable time flying yesterday while recovering from food poisoning, but today is a new day, and I feel much returned into my body now.
I will be spending this week using embroidery as a form of witch-ly spelling - using writing as form of magical affirmation and self-actualization. Spelling as a form of activation. Spelling that begins with the first stitch, and continues on into a world outside my own process and out to the world of the viewer.
This brings me to the theme for this week: the end is the beginning. I receive ongoing nourishment from following into a second year of work with the 2020 Many Moons Lunar Planner by Modern Women, and today’s post title is directly inspired by the final illustrated page of their planner: the end is the beginning. What can I say? I like to skip ahead to the end of a book to learn the outcome. The journey towards that outcome will still be a fascinating adventure for me to encounter. One. Day. At. A. Time.
How is The end is the beginning coming up for me right now?
The end of hiding is the beginning of being seen. The end of grief is the beginning of re-creation. The end of doubt is the beginning of faith. The end of clearing is the beginning of welcoming in. The end of starving is the beginning of nourishment. The end of scarcity is the beginning of enough. The end of disconnection is the beginning of interconnectedness. The end of co-dependency is the beginning of interdependency. The end of fear is the beginning of a love for the shadow self. The end of activation is the beginning of grounding down and in. The end of being in pain is the beginning of being the agent of our own healing. The end of not knowing is the beginning of being okay with not knowing. The end of self-loathing is the beginning of self-love. The end of being lost to self is the beginning of the return to into self.
And these movements from end to beginning and back to end again all take place in a spiral as it is illustrated in the last page of the Many Moons Lunar Planner. Fun fact: the spiral pattern of the Fibonacci Sequence, or the Golden Ratio, began as a mathematical study in the breeding patterns of rabbits. I love thinking of many things in life as a spiral. Time. Movement. Navigation. Finding oneself. Losing oneself. Returning to self again. I also like to think about the illustration of a spiral as a dish of cosmic pie that you can slice into, yielding a vast window into multiple dimensions within the constructs of space and time. And then I picture digging my fork into this slice of pie, as one layer of life experience converges as energetic flavor bursts in my mouth, colliding against earlier, and later, moments inside and outside of time.
Writing often feels like my mind existing outside of time. And then it’s gone as quickly as it is flushed into being, and I’m back inside my time-body. The end of space-time is the beginning of cosmic connection. The end of the cosmic is the beginning of the corporeal. I like playing with creating varied meaning for the end is the beginning affirmations. It’s fun to play, and not necessarily feel precious about each affirmation needing to be perfect, whole, or correct. They each feel aligned within me when I write them, and that is long enough for them to exist as true. The end of certainty is the beginning of curiosity.
I plan to use this week as a practice in being open. What will happen if I allow my curiosity to follow it’s own natural course? How can I return to my self in new ways if I allow a reimagining of what it looks like to be in my self?
What will happen if you allow your curiosity to follow it’s own natural course this week? How can you return to your self in new ways if you allow a reimagining of what it looks like to be in your self?