January 26, 2005

2005-1-26

"… In the winter of 2005 I am led to do deep elemental exercises in effort to clear the rage and agitation moving through my system.  Here, I create a vast labyrinth on the top of the mountain, feeling the emotions buried within me moving upwards through the action of the shoveling. …"

As part of my training at the Academy, I am led to do deep elemental exercises in effort to clear the rage and agitation moving through my system.  Here, I create a vast labyrinth on the top of the mountain, feeling the emotions buried within me moving upwards through the action of the shoveling.

It’s hard work.  Not just for the physical exertion, but the dealing with what comes up.   As I moved through the snow and the ice, I felt rage, incandescent anger, rising up from the depths of myself, where each shovel pushed on something deep inside.  I felt as though I was mining the very substance of myself, moving through the frozen waters of my own sorrow, my own rage and grief, my own sadness and outrage at the world.

I am thankful, so thankful for the fellowship and mentorship of LeFaye during these times.  For her graciousness and holding of space as I move through what seems like an endless process.

It is difficult, and I besieged by difficult sensations and emotions within my mindseye as I do the work.

Shadowbeasts in the Moonlight

To move into one’s inner darkness is no easy task.  It is to face the shadows, to face the challenges that lay within, the frozen emotions, the ancient grievances, the hurts, the pain and more.  And while I had been working for weeks, I wondered if I would ever be completed.  If the process of moving through those terrible sensations would ever reach it’s conclusion.

It was hard, yet in this there was still magic.  I stood outside the home of my teacher, steady of footing upon the moonlit snow, digging my way through the icy shards within my own heart.

The Light of Day

At last, the sun was breaking through the clouds.  Through my effort, I could see results, the feeling of helplessness abating just a little …

By this time, the passageways that formed the labyrinth of out the endless white had formed, and I was gradually coming to see that my work was paying off, that I was building a labyrinth of transformation within the substance of the land.

I looked at at the house then, at the place where I had shared so much magic, where so much space had been held for my endless questions and investigations into the energies that churned all around me.  A wave of exhausted thankfulness moved through me, the shadows within my substance melting away like ice before the Sun.

Characters

Cassandra Banks

Mike Witbeck