ELAN VITAL: stop your limiting narrative
It’s taken my whole life to truly appreciate and accept my suffering. I just had a heartfelt conversation with my sisters, older and younger, as we shared our feelings and our soul’s wisdom around our dad’s 30th year death anniversary. I see the strength in us and our inherited tenacity.
My siblings and I collectively value the generational grief and pain we inherited from our father, and all of our ancestors. We saw a history of bargaining the limitless bounty of one’s soul for limiting narratives, blocking the only real duty had when blessed with life: to radiate in the loving beauty of one’s personal nature.
It is suffering itself that is like the potter’s wheel shaping us each into vessels to receive aliveness, grace, pleasures, and valuable meaning. The more the mind and heart fill with self awareness through this dichotomous experience, the more the spirit glimmers in affinity with the light of day that saves us each from the darkest night of the Ego.
You emulate the sun with your own shine. When you say yes to what brings you joy in spite of the challenges that erupt along the way, your light shines generously like the sun. I wish with my whole heart that people, including myself, could relax in this simplicity.
Alas, the suffering prevails, perhaps by divine design, and we can forget this. I know I do. Let’s make a pact to remember: We behold helios, the fierce force rising and setting with an exquisite predicability, providing a layer of comfort like the skin holding our earthly form, helping us trust the natural rhythm of the human condition.
Like a rod of certainty in an uncertain world, the sun gives life effortlessly, infinitely, and unconditionally.
It’s no wonder why ancient ancestors worshipped this cosmic shine. Aside from the obvious quality of providing plentiful bounty, the sun, completely generous in its simple and essential function, is infinitely giving and giving and needing nothing in return.
Without the sun, there is no life. Even on a grey day, I connect with the sun, imagining its rays being absorbed by my body into the very heart of my cells, my mitochondria. I feel solar energy feeding my personal geography- my blood, my bones, my eyes- my vitality.
Reiki connects us with chi, the same elan vital pumping through the whole universe, including the ball of nuclear fire above us now. In fact, this primordial energy is flowing through all existence.
A profoundly powerful practice and source of wisdom, Reiki has shown me how to tear the curtains of self doubt and self condemnation that can block my own soul’s light.
With Reiki, I trust I am worthy to receive the abundant life force, love, and kindness from the sun, and my own soul! I feel my nervous system absorb the vibrant breath exhaled from the sea, the mountains, the trees - resuscitating me from a weary place so I may once again persevere, and trust. I feel the love inside me uplift my dad, and all of my ancestors, and support the one’s around me here on earth.
As I write this, I’m looking out at the Salish Sea. It’s morning, and the water is like glass. I intuitively know the early light is a holographic signal from all of our loved ones on the other side. I hear my dad through their chorus saying “Shine, kiddo. Shine. Through the mess. Through the doubts. Through the fury.”
I want to; I will. I do.
