Open and Shut.
The lesson of my year.
When this year got started I looked at it and just knew that it was going to be transformational.
Now I am not an overly superstitious person or one that listens strongly to “hocus pocus” sorts of things, but I do pay attention to energy and take it all in.
Born in the year of the fire dragon according to Chinese astrology, the year of the dog that we are in typically brings in relationship transformation items for me.
You can call this bogus, and I often do myself in my own head.
Questioning things as they do not line up to my logical, scientific, realist thinking and understanding, however there are times that I see that these “mystical, spiritual” sorts of things actually do shine a light on potential energy of the moment.
This all being said, the year of the dog has proven once again to be a year that is reorganizing my life in ways I never anticipated.
The last year of the dog I told my now ex-husband that I wanted a divorce.
This year both my over 6 year intimate relationships came to an end suddenly and friendships are changing right before my eye’s as well. My family is growing in number, orchestrating itself, I feel pulled away from my mother and I am questioning some relationships that are lingering.
The year of the dog is all about relationship.
Loyalty.
Family.
Brotherhood-sisterhood.
And for us dragon’s it reveals the truth in these areas.
Change is always difficult.
The feeling of loosing those who have been closest to you is never easy and is painful at a level that I do not believe I have words to express.
Yet I am reminded in these times of relationship transformation, the wisdom and comfort of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
” To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.”
As I move through this year,
I feel my ego wanting me to shut the doorways on life,
to fully retract from things that I enjoy,
form the relationships that I do have,
or to shut down from the people that I am in a relationship transformation with.
I have observed that as these changes occur that my fellow transformation warriors often choose to shut themselves down and out.
Making what seem’s like a public display of their pain by closing the doors to what not is, but what could be.
The pain of transformation effects everyone differently,
and I am not proclaiming that there is any right or wrong way to go about it.
It is nothing more than a noticing of these times.
My way has always been about opening.
Just because a relationship is evolving,
just because new boundaries are being established,
just because truths have been spoken,
lies broken,
and hearts revealed,
that in my humble opinion does not mean that one must shut down to the relationship and close it fully out UNLESS,
Unless….
That is that the vibration between souls is so great of a difference that they cannot co-habitat in any fashion or sense.
Then a full closing must happen.
At least for a time frame.
In this case, I am reminded of the wisdom ,
“Time heals all wounds.”
I use to say this was rubbish.
But now in my 40’s I know that it is truth.
I have had my heart broken in many ways,
by those I never thought would and I have done my fair share of breaking of other’s.
This process will never end,
but what I have learned is that over the course of time,
Time will heal the woulds.
Time allows for us to move if we desire from a state of closed to a state of open.
It allows us to educate ourselves about the lessons that we practiced in these past relationships and to expand ourselves more, yet always offering a deeper realization of ourselves.
Relationship is all about us meeting ourselves at a more intimate level.
Our relationships with others reveals to us our internal relationship with ourselves and with God.
As we step forward on this path of transformation,
we find our guidance here.
The steps we are to take will be lit by blessings that will guide us and desires that will call to us.
Do we choose to open or shut to them?
The answer to this question makes all the difference on our path of understanding and healing.
We are always being offered a choice.
It is always ours to make.
What manifests in our life experience comes from these choices and the energy of opening or shutting in any given moment.
It is truly only by leaning into love,
and remaining open through the pain of the transofmration,
that we expand to our deeper self.
In loving gratitude for all those relationships through my life that have offered these lessons and I have been able to take part in. May we all move toward a deeper union with our truth.