this thing called sacred, part two

The doing vs. being concept tugged at me for quite a while. The dichotomy was extremely apparent between my very planned day job, and my open artistic life. I like the contrast, but figuring out how to make the two fit puzzles me greatly. Hoping to get a better understanding of the process I decided to do my healing altar on time. As the "Stealing Fire" article noted, "to harness the healing power of a stealing fire story, we have do the work". I felt like if I worked through the concepts, or at very least honor them, I'd have a better understanding. I'd steal my own fire back.

Part of the embracing of my fire story is to accept that I like organization....and that's good. Almost embarrassed to admit, but I set my timer in 15 minute increments to get things done. This routine gives me the structure gives me the sense of freedom. It allows my mind to stop thinking about the time (that's the timer's job!), and rather to concentrate of what I want. What I want to heal myself from is the obsession of time, and specifically, the stress of thinking that I have limited time.

The central element on my altar is a broken stove timer; the idea was to make time stand still. To honor the pause in between seconds, to understand that it's about seeking the joy in the moment. The roses are the reminder to literally stop and smell them, and the Mexican flags are for celebrating wherever you are. The candles represent past, present and future; as an understanding that it's all one. And the stones are symbolic of eternal life.

My favorite element on the altar are the purple leaf/branches. To me this represents the underworld, and the ebb and flows of time. I will be adding in pomegranates tonight once I go to the store. There is something about the myth of Persephone that seems to resonate here. As if the organizational part of me is the underworld: a sense of duty. If Persephone was raped and pulled to the underworld, I feel like my own dramatic event was my mother's alcoholism that lead to an unstructured childhood home. As an adult, I've learned that having structure can give me a sense of peace and order. In pyhc speak, it calms my inner child. This is my "planned work life" that I have created. The spring time is my opening up to my creative freedom, the going back to the peaceful life I had before being innocently abducted to the underworld. This is the myth that I'm living.

Pulling this back to the reading, I was really struck by the passage, "some Native American elders teach that any time we make a difficult decision, a part of us goes the opposite way, following the path of the choice we did not take". The myth of Persephone illustrates that she went both ways, splitting her time into two worlds....which ends up being a very comforting myth for me.