Phoenix Rising…
It’s a grey February morning outside my kitchen window, a day before another predicted snowstorm that will derail life again!
This doesn’t diminish my good mood and optimism, for I have a splendid new plan for the centre: take all the wonderful things we have learned over the last two decades and offer them through the format of a holistic college. It would use all the facilities that are sitting empty right now, channel the gifts of our current staff, create local jobs and take the competing strands in my mind and weave them into an organized whole.
The focus will be primarily on health care and education with introductory courses on other subjects from a holistic point of view: agriculture, gardening, construction, politics, recreation, social issues, business, culture and spirituality. I’m ecstatic. This is what I want to do when I grow up; this makes sense of my recurring dreams of schools since childhood and pulls together all the things I am passionate about in an orderly fashion.
The facilitator of this transformative idea is Sandra Mark, a community developer with decades of experience in helping people, groups and communities. Having seen in two short weeks what she can do with astonishing ease, I realize that she, or someone like her who is fluent with regulations, systems, government, business structures and much more, was absolutely necessary to my being successful. I just didn’t know it. I was starting to despair that I would ever find a way to enable this centre to thrive and it was keeping me up at night worrying. Now I can see it clearly and am very grateful, even awestruck at how differently I feel.
On a more mundane note, my personal life is still as messy as ever since retiring from private practice in summer 2014, moving into the clinic and then having my sister diagnosed with cancer. My papers and miscellaneous stuff are sitting in boxes waiting for me to organize, downsize and move forward. Now I can finish those tasks with a clear purpose; complete the book on German New Medicine; dust off the curriculum for training Healing House hosts; collaborate with Sara on a program for nature educators; and make my home neat and beautiful—finally!
My sister would be proud, she had such faith in me. To celebrate her life and as part of my grieving process, I’m creating a memorial skating solo for our annual ice show in Carp where Felix and I figure skate. My coach’s mother passed away on the same day as Lili, so we will be commemorating two wonderful women. Lili and I had planned to skate a duet together with upbeat music and wild costumes—I think she’ll be pleased! (The show will be at the Carp arena on Thursday, Mar 10 at 5pm if you’d like to come and it’s free.)
On still another note, speaking of strands, my inner healing is continuing in parallel to all this outer excitement. But this strand is not exciting, at least not in the same way. Of course it’s wonderful that it’s actually happening, it’s just…difficult. Mood and energy swings, more sleepless nights, reoccurrence of violent visions, days when I want to bite everyone’s heads off for no reason (with huge apologies to my family and staff). My conscious mind fights these phases tooth and nail, making them worse than they need to be and rendering me exhausted and dazed at times. I keep forgetting that healing often looks like this and instead of taking more rest and acknowledging this emotional detox, I make myself and others miserable. Maybe now that I’ve acknowledged this in public I can better remember to slow down and breathe when the next layer of pain is released, sigh…
Help with my inner healing comes through all the activities that have landed on my doorstep—in our meditation room to be exact. When I took out the reception desk, painted the room lilac and declared that we need a sacred centre for our centre, teachers came to fill it. We now have a Reiki community Monday evenings with Reiki Momma Sylvia McGee; delicious Kundalini Yoga on Tuesday noon hours with Lynne Jenkins; intriguing Light Body classes on Sunday evenings with Alun Goodger; meditation, talks and tea on Wednesday mornings with yours truly; and weekly staff meditations with check-ins on Monday mornings.
Many of the same people attend these events, creating a sense of fellowship and community that is in itself healing for this long-time loner who is “never good enough”. It is relaxing and soothing to be in this group of gentle souls who want to deepen their spiritual journey and we are planning several offshoots such as doing a spring cleanse, building a sweat lodge and exploring the process of a vision quest out in the woods. Most of the events are free, by donation or at a reasonable cost and you are invited to join us. There is the sense that this core group of people is developing the centre as it has always meant to be…
My final dream is that my family of two young adults, their partners and my grandson will benefit from all this lovely energy to find our hearts and feet together…just as the phone rings and I book a session with the social worker at Felix’s school…more help on the way!
Wishing you well on this last leg of winter with the pre-spring light bouncing off the snow…
katherine
