It’s the season of building fires. In fireplaces, wood stoves, and fire-pits.
Every year I have to remember again, how to feed the fire and not stifle its first breaths.
Arranging the paper and kindling in such a way that air can come through. Carefully fanning and blowing on the small flames, allowing them to take hold and spread.
It’s easy to stifle a fire in the beginning stages. To pile on too much wood too quickly, to interrupt the flow of air, to neglect it too long without fanning the flames.
And poof, the flames are gone.
Today I remembered that many of life’s experiences follow the same rhythm. And that sometimes I’m so quick to want a robust, crackling fire that I forget those important, early stages.
Or maybe I’m afraid that if the flames go out, they’ll never come back again, so I have to rush to take control.
Have you ever been so excited for something that you stifle it prematurely? Or want it so much that you forge ahead with too much force and too much hard-control?
I say “hard-control” because long ago when I first started learning Tarot, I studied Joan Bunning’s website. She refers to the Chariot card as hard control, and the Strength card as soft control.
For some reason, that always stuck with me. The difference between controlling things with force and will, or through gentleness and influence.
There are things budding in my life that I don’t want to stifle. And today I took a step back and remembered how to establish a healthy fire.
I thought of life itself breathing into these beautiful manifestations, letting them become bigger. I thought of how I didn’t want to interrupt that process, I only wanted to help.
Sometimes helping means taking a step back and letting Flow ride freely around and through that which I want to grow.
I acknowledge my desire to control through force and will, and how that only works sometimes with some-things. And can be quite destructive with other things.
I don’t want these things to be hard won. I don’t want to think back and say, ‘I hammered that into place’.
I want to say, it started and it grew and I participated in a way that felt satisfying and joyful. And I’m thankful.
So now when I’m thinking of these things I want to grow, I say, “Life, show me how you want me to participate. Because I like this and I want it to grow.”
Or I feed it gently in my mind with simple thoughts of gratitude or by remembering something about it that makes me smile, and then letting go.
I’m still practicing BK Shivani’s affirmations, morning and night, and sometimes when I eat lunch.
You’re supposed to write them down, but I just recite them to myself now.
The first one is, “I am a powerful being.”
And I thought, powerful doesn’t mean overbearing. Powerful means knowing how to be gentle even if you have the strength to be forceful.
“Strong enough to be gentle.”
I heard that somewhere.
I am strong enough to be gentle.
I wonder if I trust life enough to grow a seedling into a beautiful, giant tree. Or if I trust myself enough not to destroy the seedling before it has a chance to grow deep roots.
I want to tend to these new beginnings with kindness and loving and gentle attention. Giving them room to breath, and letting life show me how it makes buds bloom into flowers.
I’ll try my best, and I’ll let you know how it goes.
🙂
With Love,
Heba
Love: 