I know I shall be revisiting my spiral several times throughout this course, hence the post is titled Spiral 1 :)
Yesterday was the one day of solitude I'll get this week, so I started by listening to Tuesday's call, choosing my pictures, and generally getting in the sacred spiral zone :)
This may be a long post, so bear with me...
First, I wore my yellow jasper spiral necklace given to me by a dear friend several years ago - it's perfect for protection during spiritual work and stimulating the solar plexus chakra.
Then, I placed my Mary statue, who I found on ebay from a French seller a few weeks ago. She is Mary Magdalene, rather than the Virgin Mary - she's the only Magdalene statue I've found with her hair covered - usually she's portrayed as a fallen woman and her hair is loose. But having read Cynthia Bourgeault's The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, I wanted a Mary who looked like Jesus' 'Tower' (magdala in Aramaic), and I just love her authentic Semitic features.
Then I lit a soy candle given to me by another dear friend for my birthday - I'd been saving it for a 'special occasion'...
...***...
Now, I pause here, just to say, I wasn't looking forward to this exercise...
I had a difficult childhood...a very fraught relationship with my mother... and as I laid out these pictures, I bawled - long and hard!! I just let it come... all the work I've done with my own grief has taught me, grief is a spiral...
... you do revisit the pain of loss, but you're never in the same place on the spiral, you're never stuck in one place (no matter how stuck you may feel), and you can let the grief come, and you can know, you are in a different place on the spiral.
This is a new moment in time, and this sorrow will pass... and it did, after a while...
...***...
So, when calm and composure returned, I laid out the photos.
Taking Janet's advice, I chose as many pictures of just me, as I could find, especially the 'formal childhood portraits' :)
But there aren't any really recent photos - the downside of the digital age :(
I just worked with what I had...
As I laid out the images in a spiral, I paused to jot down any thoughts as they came - I love the idea of these 'soul fragments', and I trust, in time, they will coalesce into something more solid...
So I wrote:
unfurl like a fern
like a baby's fist
As I paused to ponder each picture, I wrote:
open eyes
open hand
open heart
peace from chaos - shalom
And as Janet advised, I focused on the eyes of my young self, the wide-eyed, toddler Claire...
... and here's were the wonder happened... my soul gave me her name!
I have never liked the name Claire - too short, too abrupt. There's no song in it...
I did consider changing my name to Clara, or Clarissa, when I was at college - much more lyrical, more musical than boring Claire!
But as I looked into my own wide eyes, I heard,
Hello, my name is Cara.
And as I type this, I'm crying again...
I have been waiting for my Soul's Name since last year, when I started soul-writing for the first time. Janet's 'Dear Voice' never sat right with me, so for months I've conversed with the gentle, yet impersonal, 'Dearest', as I've written to and with my Soul.
But now, I know her precious name, Cara, and as I've since learnt, Cara means 'Friend'...
... but I already 'knew' that :)