cedar_grove (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cedar_grove) wrote2011-05-29 05:22 pm
cedar_grove) wrote2011-05-29 05:22 pm
Eating the Outer
From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
It is the same in the human journey as in the natural world. As the center grows stronger, what once was protective turns into a covering, like tree bark or snake skin, that is now in the way, and, sooner or later, we as spirits growing in bodies are faced with burning old skins, like rags on sticks, to light our way as we move deeper and deeper into the inner world, where the forces of God make us one.
This reminds me of a show we were watching yesterday about butterflies… about how the caterpillar sheds its skin to grow, and how the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis ready to move on to the next stage in its journey.
When I got home on Friday I spend a bunch of time clearing up in my room. I was looking for something, and couldn't find it, so decided to have a clear out – eventually found a bunch of other stuff that I wasn't looking for as is usually the case – and managed to find what I was looking for, as is not often the case. I got rid of a whole bunch of junk, things that I didn't need any longer, and have ended up in an environment that feels less cluttered, even though there were a lot of things that I didn't get rid of.
One of the things I didn't get rid of was an old OLD, manuscript that I found, of a 100,000 word novel I wrote pre 2003. I know that it's from before that time because of the address on the cover. I started trying to read a bit of it today, just to see what – if anything – could be salvaged from it. I can't help but cringe. I've obviously grown since then. It would make good a good fire.
I don't mean that in the negative way that it sounds; I'm not meaning to rubbish it all, rather I mean it in a positive way. It has helped me to see that I have moved on, as a person as well as a writer, and as such it has helped me to move inward, to see my inner self; to see what needs to be burned away or consumed, as a caterpillar consumes its old skin in order to provide sustenance for its continued growth, and for me to step into just letting go and throwing myself with even more excited abandon (if that were possible), into the exercises that Mir started sending me today.
As a random thought – I need a butterfly icon.
Burning your way to center
is the loneliest fire of all.
You'll know you have arrived
when nothing else will burn.
It is the same in the human journey as in the natural world. As the center grows stronger, what once was protective turns into a covering, like tree bark or snake skin, that is now in the way, and, sooner or later, we as spirits growing in bodies are faced with burning old skins, like rags on sticks, to light our way as we move deeper and deeper into the inner world, where the forces of God make us one.
This reminds me of a show we were watching yesterday about butterflies… about how the caterpillar sheds its skin to grow, and how the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis ready to move on to the next stage in its journey.
When I got home on Friday I spend a bunch of time clearing up in my room. I was looking for something, and couldn't find it, so decided to have a clear out – eventually found a bunch of other stuff that I wasn't looking for as is usually the case – and managed to find what I was looking for, as is not often the case. I got rid of a whole bunch of junk, things that I didn't need any longer, and have ended up in an environment that feels less cluttered, even though there were a lot of things that I didn't get rid of.
One of the things I didn't get rid of was an old OLD, manuscript that I found, of a 100,000 word novel I wrote pre 2003. I know that it's from before that time because of the address on the cover. I started trying to read a bit of it today, just to see what – if anything – could be salvaged from it. I can't help but cringe. I've obviously grown since then. It would make good a good fire.
I don't mean that in the negative way that it sounds; I'm not meaning to rubbish it all, rather I mean it in a positive way. It has helped me to see that I have moved on, as a person as well as a writer, and as such it has helped me to move inward, to see my inner self; to see what needs to be burned away or consumed, as a caterpillar consumes its old skin in order to provide sustenance for its continued growth, and for me to step into just letting go and throwing myself with even more excited abandon (if that were possible), into the exercises that Mir started sending me today.
As a random thought – I need a butterfly icon.