Is this the end.... or the beginning?

I don't know about you, but for me Easter has always had a unique feeling about it.

In contrast to the consumerist frenzy of Christmas, as a child I could actually perceive there was something liminal about these days.

I remember feeling deeply moved the first time I heard Jesus’s story, not necessarily by its “historical facts” but rather by the deeper truths it seemed to hold. 

For me, the myth of Jesus beautifully captures both our humanness at its rawest (the pain that comes from having a physical body, the rejection for being different while standing up for your truth, and the grief of separation/feeling abandoned by a higher power) AND our divinity at its purest (being an alchemist, experiencing union with all that is, and being a channel of unconditional love).

It is rare to see someone embody both so boldly and vulnerably.

His myth also reflects the cycle of life: birth - death - resurrection.

As we may (or may not 😅) recall from our physics lessons, the law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed - it can only be transformed.

I'm no scientist; however, this would seem to imply that energy (reminder: the universe is made up of energy, including us) is always in a process of renewal, if you will. The shape in which it manifests may change, but the essence (energy itself) stays the same.

This is the mystery of life & death, the illusion of separation, the illusion of “I” that is relinquished in death, the letting go of a specific expression to then take on a new shape. The paradox of impermanence AND the eternal dancing simultaneously ∞.

This has felt particularly relevant lately, since I find myself (once again 🤪) witnessing almost every aspect of “my” life slowly unraveling through a series of metaphorical and literal deaths.

This has led me to meditate on the Sufi concept of fana (“ceasing to exist,” or “annihilation”): to die before one dies. 

In a lifetime, we're invited to hold thousands of funerals for old selves, beliefs, behaviours, expectations, hopes, fantasies, relationships, jobs, etc.

How many lives have you lived so far, my beloved?

How many “identities” have you moved through in your existence? 

Do you recognise how all those "deaths" led you to the life you have now? And how through all of those iterations something has remained the same?

Being fully alive is being in a constant state of change, embracing our cyclical nature of dying and being reborn again and again, like the seasons (we're part of nature after all).

If we're fortunate, we may use the world as a mirror that is continually at our service by pointing out where there are wounds to be healed, opportunities to grow, places to claim more of our freedom and ways in which we may learn to love better.

This process of refinement, pruning, and purification is one that demands a constant surrendering of parts we thought were “us”.

Often, we long for a shiny renaissance and yet resist giving ourselves up into the offering that is required to get there.

However, resurrection is only possible through crossing the threshold of death.

As we walk into the fire of transformation, we leave the familiar and step into the unknown. We leave the world as we know it, and enter the darkness of a chrysalis where everything known disintegrates into goo. 

We have no idea of what we are dissolving into, of what may be on the other side, of who we might be on the other side, or indeed if there is another side at all (!!!)… which is, of course, terrifying to our survival-driven ego mind (rightly so! a part of us won’t survive the process! that’s the point!).

Thankfully, we don’t need to "know" or have answers - how could we? our old ideas and paradigms don't apply in this yet uninhabited space.

The mercy of this experience is that life’s cycles have a wisdom of their own, and we can allow them to carry us through.

I look at nature, which is and will always be my biggest teacher, and I feel flowers winking at me with their ancient knowing.

What if we trusted, even in the dead of Winter, that Spring will come for us?

What if we knew that we will feel the tug of bloom at the perfect time? (*not when we feel like it, but when the moment asks us to do so)

What if we realised that perhaps death (life's most faithful servant) is not the end, but a beginning? Indeed, who would we be if we were no longer afraid of death?

The journey of life - death - resurrection has its own intelligence. We know what we need to know, when we need to know it.

The best we can do is get out of the way, and let it do it’s thing knowing a new becoming is taking place. It’s not for us to manage the timing or the stages.

Just as we wouldn’t ask a caterpillar to hurry up with becoming a butterfly, we must practice patience and tenderness as we morph into something we have never been before.

May we remember, when we are being licked by the flames, that nothing true can be burnt away: who We are in essence could never be destroyed, only transformed. 

My dear one, if you are currently in the goo of dissolution, consider softening into this holy moment.

Nothing for you to do; nature has you.

You are being worked on by life.

A magnificent rebirth awaits you.