Circle Around like the Moth

Ever find yourself in deep anxiety or emotional pain? You find yourself feeling trapped, overwhelmed and looking for the escape hatch? Recently I found myself in this deep suffering over my relationship with some close friends of mine and I was wondering if the Goddess was going to change it for me, if she was going to offer any sort of relief or support.

My mind lead me down this winding garden path and I wondered how long this pain was going to last. My inner shrink weighed in and I began wondering if I was causing this pain myself, wrapping myself up in something that wasn't necessary. I was antsy enough and felt displaced to such a point that I wondered if I was going to have trouble sleeping.

Then, I started feeling this nagging concern if I was going to be resentful if I prayed and the Goddess didn't answer or cause any change. How would this lack of change after prayer affect my belief in prayer and my belief around whether the goddess answers prayers. This softer concern voiced a true concern which made my skin crawl: whether prayer worked and if I believed in it. It was at that stunning moment that I realized that not only had I not prayed and asked, but that I was afraid to for fear it wouldn't be answered and I would be left holding the bag alone. After some deliberation, I stepped up to my inner prayer mat in a decision to choose to the best of my ability to allow the prayer to be answered any way that she saw fit and not try to control the outcome.

I moved into my soul, and very quietly, deeply and with intention started praying over myself and the situation. Through that offering to God, I began to see that I was asking for relief from pain. The spirits showed me that I needed grace as I went through something very difficult. I started perceiving grace as not a rescuing of myself from my pain, but instead more like a state of spiritual being that relieved me from having things attach to me, like lubing a pole before it went into a slot.

My prayers followed this flow, asking for grace to surround me and uphold me. And after my spirit had a good lube job, my inner eyes glanced to this energetic idea that was hovering over my spirit: that when I did prayers over something, that I was really hoping that God was going to be appeased enough that she or he would grant what I wanted. I was trying to BUY God with my prayers. I looked at that for a moment, felt a wave of remorse, relief and embarrassment. Good Lord, really?!!!! From there I began our traditions chant to offer remorse and then ask for it to be changed from that place of understanding or deep soul knowledge.

It's strange how invasive it is that you want to buy or earn your way somewhere, as if your soul were for sale so we can obtain respect, care for or honor. We cannot earn the love or grace of God. The Universe's love, relief or joy cannot bought and sold. Often we are seeking to "cure" something by prayers, chants or rituals instead of moving into presence with the holy and allowing it to impact or change our spirit. In reality, to cure is a misplaced goal because it is based on the assumption that something is broken or in error. In reality, we have no idea if this is true. Spiritual tools are like mechanic's tools to work with our "soul bits" functioning to clear, clean, feed or uphold the soul. We have to be careful not to try use them to obtain love, grace or the respect of Divinity, because the tools do not function like that and then we will find our spirits feeling resentful, betrayed or abandoned!

The real medicine for our soul's wound is to move close into the Goddess and allow her presence which is love to imprint our spirit. No child (young or grown) petitions or conjoles our Mother to *make* her make our owy better. Instead we love the Goddess, come closer to her and open ourselves to her as deeply as we can and like a mother who gets to see our owy, ask her to kiss it and make it better. She wants nothing more but to do this kindness for you, but our Goddess is a Lady and she won't force you to open the place where the owy is to let her kiss it.

I had dreams about Cerriadwen's cauldron all night. She was kind to me even as I struggled with this deep soul wound that I have to earn grace or love or compassion from the Universe. People often say that this work is unforgiving and brutal, and soul deep it is, but the Goddess loved me deeply that night. She spent the whole night standing in the deep place with me and as I changed, the inner sight that she is always standing there came open to me.

Great Mother Great Father, let me be open and guided by the highest and most noble inspirations and aspirations: You. Let my feet not stray from this path.

But by the Grace of Divinity go I.