The Portal: Day 4

Daily reveals: going within doesn’t mean we get to be small.

The Portal: Day 4

No need to get small when it’s time to go in.

These days, these portals, invite us to slow down, simmer within. But also, the invitation is more expansive than that. It’s not easy. I mean we can do it with ease, but we don’t get to just get off hunkering in and pretending there isn’t a huge portal carrying us.

This is why these days are called what they are called, depending on the culture or lands that practice within them. They reveal things. And that is not a small act or even a quiet one. They are days of preparing, yes. Not just the home and the pantry for the long winter, but also the body, the soul, the spirit — the creative self — the whole self— to open up and listen to what is needed, what is wanted, what is unraveling, what is being woven. They are here to reveal some larger truths and to bring us closer to the clarity of our visions.

I think of these 12 days as a perfect 3 part initiation process:

4 days of contemplation on what is needed, or what has been, or what you want. 4 days in the middle of the portal where you integrate it, practice it, distill it all into how it will become you, and the final 4 days is how to carry it forward. Forgive the basics of this but it works:» clean the kitchen and gather ingredients, make, tend to, stir the soup, and then eat it and share it about.

I started this practice very late today because I didn’t sleep last night and then when I finally did sleep I got up late, long after the sun rose and to be honest the magic did not feel as, well, “magic-y” and I have been so out of it and just not present and rather grumpy and hungry and of course I had too much coffee and I am bleeding for the 3rd time this month. It was a day of wanting to hide. There was nothing needed to come from me.

I had to really persuade myself to come here, sit here, write.

I wanted to just get small, pretend I didn’t devote myself to this practice. I wanted to go within and be silent. Tis the season, right? And there is an energy of these days that invites that in, obviously, but there is also a very potent portal that is asking us to breathe wide to fill up the space of the cave walls. To dream wide. To be seen in the fullness and wildness of our dreams, dreaming as breathing as wide as you can imagine. Taking up ALL THE SPACE.

Going within this winter cave portal to receive the gifts means owning this miracle of an epiphanic space. Not cramping yourself into a ball. How can you receive all the god things when we are all crunched up and scared to be bold and untangle our gifts? When we not only don’t want to be seen but we think silencing ourselves is safer?

I pulled a card to help me with this and of course, because I have questions, as always. Queen of Wands comes in for some answers for me. Maybe her wisdom will hold you today — to remind you: the stillness of this season is a space for your brilliance to bounce sound waves around.