The Portal : days 7/8

Brave + generosity

Yesterday I did not show up — but I was showing up, trust me. Either I have an amazing ability to spin stories or I really do just trust deeply the ways of the world. I think it’s the later. So even though we don’t have day 7 alone, 7+8 are the lovers together today. I feel like the message is a big one, for this New Year part of the portal… what’s taking us closer to the other side.

Happy New Year. Happy happy happy New Year. Even if we aren’t sure 2025 is the best idea, we gonna do it anyway, right? Bless us.

This morning I began with submerging myself into freezing cold water in the bathtub. I did this yesterday morning as well. But today I got more of my body in and I stayed in about 30 seconds longer.

I was talking about this new practice of mine with a couple friends (going to try to do it daily)— although it’s not new, I just haven’t done it in about a decade— and my friends were like “I am not brave enough to do that” or “I don’t have the balls to do it”. Another friend who’s also a beginning cold soaker mentioned that maybe one day she will be “brave enough” to submerge her whole body in.

And I am thinking to myself — is this bravery? I am looking around this world and I am seeing people have to bravely fight for their lives. People who give everything up just for our collective to be forced into having very important conversations (thank you Luigi for that) about the rights of all people, to thrive, to be alive. I see a lot of bravery in this world — people doing things I am pretty sure I could never, ever survive or do — and I sit here in my warm little house and I don’t really feel like whatever I am doing is part of that. A cold bath?

But of course it is.

Of course it is. It’s practicing it at least, right? It’s a practice of being uncomfortable.

Anytime we do anything that is even slightly uncomfortable— and we do it anyway — because we know it will be helpful for ourselves and/or others — we are practicing some kind of bravery. When we push ourselves a little bit even — it can brave work.

This isn’t about taking a cold bath in the morning, but every morning that I say yes, even when my entire being is like fuck no, please, hot bath, please, but i know that cold water is doing something for my inflammation, for my joints, for my immune system, for my brain. I know that when I take care of myself, then I can actually tend to others in the way I want to, in the way I am meant. I know when I am well I can fully give.

This isn’t about cold bathing — it’s about practicing doing something that feels risky. Something scary. Something that pushes us to scream for about 30 seconds until we realize — we are going to be ok. And maybe because we are ok we can be more present to those around us. Again, this isn’t about cold bathing, I feel I have to keep saying that as to not sound like someone I am not, you know what I mean? I don’t think the act of taking any kind of bath is bravery per say — but the act of trying something out of the ordinary, and by choice for gods sake, not by force, is like an opportunity to practice bravery. You got me? Every chance we can get to practice choosing something that feels like bravery — we should try. I do not live in a war zone. My comfort level is high compared to so many. I understand this. But I also understand practice as necessary no matter what world we personally take up space in.

Every chance we get, in this comfortable zone we live in, we need to practice bravery. Maybe it’s making that thing and making it public? Is it sending a creation out into the world? Is it speaking your truth to someone? Is it undressing the weight of your layers and taking off the masks and allowing the essence of you to really be seen? Is it letting god truly move you— even if that creates a new kind of you, the kind of you that sheds old lives and old people and leaves so much space for you to expand? Is it standing your ground and creating sacred agreements and boundaries with yourself and others? Is it saying fuck them, they don’t have to like you or even see you for who you really are you are going to keep on doing the thing you love to do anyway?

Is giving everything you have, or giving everything that you can actually give — and leaving a scarcity way of thinking, knowing there is enough? Bravery, can be, and is, sometimes just being able to share yourself exactly as you need, but also as those around you may need as well. Putting ourselves out there in generosity — in a spectrum of ways — is a brave and right practice. Giving what you can, what you have, is brave in this world that tells us there is not enough.

I chose a card around this, from The Rock Star tarot, and Dolly Parton: 6 of pentacles has a little wisdom for us.