![]() I want my mother." She tried to tell her daughter that in time she would have to teach her how to shed her own skin. But as she went back to her family, her teenage daughter saw this beautiful young woman and said, "That's not my mother. One day she went to shed her skin as she'd done many times before, taking it off and putting it in the river. ![]() In the story, Ul-ta-marama, which literally means Change-skin of the world, was a chief of a tribe in the New Hebrides. There is a creation story in The Book of Awakening from the New Hebrides where it was believed that humans maintained their immortality by shedding their skin like snakes or crabs. The original definition of sacrifice means, giving up what no longer works in order to stay close to what is sacred. We travel vast distances to see cliffs that are beautifully worn and hollowed by the sea over thousands of years. I think that through suffering, human beings are eroded to our beauty. Through shedding, we are worn down, just as nature is eroded to its beauty. If we're unwilling to shed, then we will be broken open. Nepo: There are many ways that we grow, but there are two major ways: We shed what no longer works, or we're broken open. The underside of that is addiction - believing in the striking and not the light. We constantly need to strike against experience, and each other, and the world, to release the light that we carry within. Just substitute "first love" with anything, and our deeper listening practice becomes, "How do we honor both what is awakened in us and the things that awaken us, because we do need each other to become awake?" Plato said, "We're born whole, but we need each other to be complete." Think of it like a match: It has the capacity to make light, but that can't happen until it strikes something. I can never be away from this person." It could be the same feeling for a teacher, a worldview, or a set of principles. The first time we fall in love, our heart is opened and we say, "Wow, it must be this person. It's like the romanticism of early first love. But we often confuse the longing, which is sacred, with the object or experience that prompted it. Longing is often the thing we feel when we're awakened.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |