Thursday, July 19, 2012

Beautifully Messy Transitions: Adventure Packed White Knuckle Ride

   I wrote an entry entitled "How to Evolve the Old Into the New", where I wrote about a clay sculpture which I fashioned on a Sinai desert retreat some ten years ago.  It became a symbol of creativity, authenticity and my dream of reviving the ancient tradition of healing and transformational music. My cat smashed it, and I felt moved to revive the statuette by adding Israeli clay to her Egyptian soil foundation.
We tend to throw the old out, opting in for  "let's get a new one" mentality.  I decided  to keep her, to see what evolvement might come from merging the two soils. Perhaps a symbol of creating something totally new from the merging of ancient and modern energies.
Repairing this  goddess is symbolizing the messy part of change - that unknown part of  being in transition -
where the old doesn't work anymore, but you have no idea what the new will be, and there is no guarantee that it will be better than what was.
The fear often warns that things will grow worse.
I was warned that when you mix 2 foreign things (in this case 2 types of clay) together they could explode in the firing oven.  For the last two weeks, I have returned to my pottery class anxious to learn of her fate? Exploded bomb or bomb shell of a gorgeous model? Positive thinking had me hoping for the best.
Good news is: she didn't explode.
Bad news: her shiny lacquer coating was all cracked.
Miriam Statuette,The gold beads cradled in her bosom - fell out. Empty nipple shells in lack of juicy milk. I had coated her with a lovely light fleshy shade. The color came out ashen white, like Miriam just before she was sent off to the leper colony.    just cracked. there are stages of transition, slow is fast, less is more
I am choosing to trust this process. Instead of throwing her away, I am staying open and curious as to what the next phase will offer.
I  liked and preferred - how she looked before. I secretly felt disappointed when I received her back. She was all cracked and not at all the inspired beauty I looked forward to encounter.
My spiritually correct response, would not allow me to show it though. On the other hand, the ashen white cracks give her an ancient look, although unintentional.
The goddess went through change, yet I'm looking for what she was like before.
That's fruitless.
It is much more fruitful to learn to love  for how she is now (in that cracked, ugly stage).
I can't look for her how she was - she's undergone change, transition.
What she was not longer exists.
As I love what there is, it will open the door for loving what comes. Then the white knuckle ride of transition, becomes a wild adventure and  I love the ride.  Excited to see what will evolve, knowing that as I go with the flow of the sudden turns and twists of fate, I will learn to enjoy even more.
How can the Goddess' white knuckle transition support you in yours?
What does it remind you of?

1 comment:

Seal swimming said...

this reminds me of a time recently when someone attempted to scrape off a beeswax creation from an ancient tree near here where there is a bee's hive (they had blocked the bee's in, but i removed the board). she was a tree deva/goddess or looked like one. now, she is, i have found, a crone, a symbol of wisdom. your's too, could be a crone symbol. we also look different as we grow older, more in wisdom and beauty that is deeper than we can see.