The Way Through the Fire

Greetings all,

Late again Mooneagle is what some of you may be thinking.  Well better late than not at all.  Please bear with me though I've had an eventful week.  So much crammed into one space in time I can hardly believe it.  I'm wiped out today, but I have my commitment to you and so I am writing as best I can.

The week began with glazing my pots for the kiln.  This continued for a few days.  My sprayer seems to be broken.  Once more I have hit a roadblock with firing.  It is the process which turns the impermanent clay into long lasting stone (providing you don't drop it).  This last phase of translation from idea to fully formed reality has always been a challenge.  Chemicals and clay interact within the heat and fire forming the surfaces and colors that will seal the form into coherence.  The fire changes the form and look of a glaze.  The color of the glaze doesn't match the color in the mixing bucket.  The red looking glaze turns yellow in the fire, the brown turns blue, and okay the green stays green but it is a different green than you see going on the pot.

I was in a frenzy to get this done before the weekend.  I was on the road once more this time to Bardstown for the final weekend retreat of the shamanic 2 year program.  This has been my journey through the fire.  The heat of the spirits'  kiln transformed the structure of my life.  My relationships melted, fused, cracked.  My concepts of myself and my fears (yes my dears I do have them still) shifted.    It was sometimes smooth and other times a storm of emotions.  So I have come through the fire and here I am transformed, more coherent,  full of color.

As I unloaded the kiln this afternoon (I did that before I unpacked) I noticed that the lids on some of my jars were stuck.  I wasn't worried.  My first teacher showed us how to take something heavy and lightly tap the surface of a jar listening to the vibrations.  They change tones right before the lid pops off.  It looks like a magic trick when you do it and who is to say it isn't one.  So I sat down and tapped my jars, lightly striking them,  shifting the vibrations of the vessel until the lid freed itself.   I got to thinking that is what these initiations did.  They struck me lightly (it doesn't feel light but spirit knows how hard to hit to change the vibration)  to get the vessel of my spirit "unstuck".  The vibration must change before something is freed from within.  Sometimes it is jarring to the self, okay most times it is jarring  (haha pun jars, jarring).  However it is the only way to become unstuck, to open.  I've seen people in their impatience strike a vessel too hard or too soon, and it shatters.  Spirit knows what we need to grow and free ourselves.

So my dear readers how about you?  What is shaking you?  Is it shaking you up or shaking you loose?  I can tell you I had my heart broken during this time of initiations, and I can also tell you it has come together more whole than it was before.  So before you label something as a setback, tragedy, or loss (and it may be all these things) remember to ask what is being freed in you?  What has passed through the fire?  What remains, and what is yet to become?

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle