
It’s hard to observe the rubble and ashes of Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Pasadena, and not grope immediately for the Phoenix metaphor.
It seems to be human nature to get past a horrid circumstance as quickly as possible, since it’s just too painful to inhabit that space. If contemplating it from 100 miles north causes my mind to deflect, how much more is that so for the person looking in vain for the outline of where their house used to be silhouetted against the peaceful azure sky?
I’d be looking for a Phoenix to burst out of those ashes and shoot skyward, trailing a blazing message in its wake.
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When I receive bad news, I go through phases of thumping heart / jittery stomach, followed by sharing with a friend, followed by stewing about it, and so on. I was reading in Jenny Schiltz about how everything is accelerating. Apparently my crappy-news processing progression is speeding up along with everything else. Within an hour of the bad news, I was acknowledging the fear and sitting with open eyes and palms, asking, Now what? Soul, why did I/you set this up for myself?
I didn’t get an answer, no surprise, but a couple of intriguing suggestions. Suggestions that pushed me from fear toward curiosity: Do more drawing. Pick up that old sketchbook and start filling it in. Also, Forget this dictating-writing nonsense you’ve been doing. Grab a notebook and pen, human-friend-housing-our-soul. You/we are a physical being, and there’s no denying the connection that drops directly from heaven into brain into arm into hand, and flows through black ink onto the ivory page.
I wrote a page in my journal. How unfamiliar it felt! Unfamiliar, but saturated with a comfort and connectivity that speaking the words cannot provide.
My sketchbook awaits. The fear recedes, unable to compete with curiosity and the bigness of soul-self that renders what felt horrifically scary into a minor blip on the radar of the entirety.