The Sacred Pause: Taking your place in the family of things.

I’ve been feeling a little lost lately.

Not just in the past month or six weeks, but lately since I was in my mid-twenties. There are moments when I feel a glimpse of being found, but for the most part I find the feeling of being adrift or in limbo is a familiar one this past decade. I am always questioning decisions and wondering where I belong. Place, land and home all feel so important to me, and at the same time I love change and movement so much that I’ve lived on three continents in the past five years.

So, sheltering in place and returning from a dream town outside of Barcelona to a home I left four years ago in a very conscious way feels challenging. Berkeley is beautiful, and I am so, so grateful to be here, AND I am up against all of my most persistent challenges. Maybe we all are? It’s all that much harder to run to our usual escapes when we are committed to staying put.

I know this isn’t a new insight, but it just might be one that’s worth hearing again (and again). When you are lost, confused, frustrated, or generally tangled--stop. Stand still. Listen. Change something, change everything. Get still is good advice when facing spider webs, thorny bushes, bees buzzing close by, and the Devil’s Snare plant from Harry Potter. Give up the struggle; it only makes it worse.

During my priestess training, my teacher Holly talked about the sacred pause that comes on the High Holy Days of the Celtic Wheel of the Year and in ritual and ceremony. It is a time to slow down, zoom out, and gain perspective on your life. It is a time to re-orient and re-source to your body wisdom (and to earth wisdom) and give your mind a rest. Even if it’s just a literal one second sacred pause, you come back to the issue at hand (for example juggling work and kids without school or playdates) refreshed.

I love this poem and have let it write itself in my heart for this very reason. It is inspired by a teaching story indigenous elders teach the little ones about how to find their way in the wild.

Lost.

Stand still. The tree ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you

You are surely lost. Stand still. The Forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

--David Wagoner

Is the Forest trying to find you? Are you standing still long enough to listen?

I realize I am speaking from a place of privilege here, and it is not my intention to exclude anyone, AND I am beginning to feel this shelter-in-place as a much needed sacred pause, despite or perhaps because of its capacity for pattern interruption. Shifting perspective in this way awakens gratitude, a deep sigh of relief, and a lot more spaciousness around the giant looming impending unknown. Who really knows anything, anyway?

What are we being asked to ground into with this sacred pause? The wisdom of your body. The beauty of the earth, and the power of reconnecting to our place in the family of all things. If nothing else is clear these days, I have found the basics to be reassuring: we are home here, on this planet, and we are all in this together. We are a human family on a living planet, and there is love and reciprocity between us. Perhaps our relationship with nature needs tending, but we are absolutely never cut off. She is always opening her arms wide, inviting us back home, reminding us that we belong here. Wherever we are. All we have to do is notice that gift, and accept it. This is taking our place in the family of things.

Again, this is a lesson that is worth learning again and again. I learn it every day when I finally take a walk with my kids, smile at a flower, or make it to my yoga mat to breathe.

How do you remind yourself where you belong? How do you find yourself when you feel lost?

One of the most powerful life choices I have made to help me to arrive in the moment has been cultivating a daily relationship with nature. Grounding into an awareness of the elements: earth, fire, water and air, and how they are in a constant dance, has shaped me in immeasurable ways.

Maybe you are hearing the voice of nature calling out to you as well these days? Something in your inner knowing stirs and asks for you to pay attention to the waves on the ocean, the sound of the leaves, or the squirrel outside your window. This is an invitation to come home to yourself, to live in your body and to take your place in the family of all things. You belong here. Living from this knowing awakens the inherent capacity for magick in your bones. And you begin to move from a place that feels like home, no matter what is happening outside. Truth lives inside you, and peace springs from this place of connection.

If you are feeling this call to connect with our Living Planet in a more profound way, I would love to invite you to read more about the Foundations of Magick course I am offering. It is a year-long course delivered online that grounds you into the seasons and the elements in a way of celebration and embodiment. I have co-created this course with my dear teacher, Holly Hamilton (founder of Awakening Avalon), who has been teaching and walking her talk for more than twenty five years. It is my heart’s offering to you, now. For this time we find ourselves in. I hope it finds you well. And if it gives you the nudge you need to feel the things you need to feel to be who you are meant to be, great.

Take Care and Be Well,

Erin Kundrie

P.S. By the way, “the family of things” comes from Mary Oliver’s infamous poem, Wild Geese. If you have not yet laid eyes on it, it’s worth it. Promise.