A Circle of Hope

I woke up yesterday morning with a clear voice coming through me saying… 

The Circle of HOPE

Unaware of what it meant but more aware that my awareness was firing up again. The past 2 days I was in a time warp of being within my body, listening to my body being directed by an alien space ship- muscle spasms, tingly hands, and heavy joints, and the strange headaches where the alien puppeteer just kept pulling my eyelids shut while I tried to place where the pain was in my head while falling asleep. My bones ached like a rusted Tin Man not even able to roll on my side without cringing. Whose body is this?  I do #yogaeverydamnday - gosh darn it! Where did my body and my brain go?  My felt sense took over and I knew I was not in any sort of  “normalcy” or was I?  

I had to surrender into the bed with the cats because it was the path of least resistance.  I was now in the field of having a ton of resistance in the physical body. Only awakening to sip lots of fluids through a copper straw and then to settle in and out of sleep trying to find some resolve in this weird limbo state about a circle. What I found was …again and again…  I was taken back to this dream circle …  seeing the circle being drawn with my breath. Seeing hands connected swinging making a circle like a ring –around- the -rosy …  then the in and the out  … the up and the down … the round and round not knowing who was the leader and what to follow.

Awakening, I starred at my fat cat Santy (the only one you’ll ever see in my house)for a moment to watch he was on my belly with his round big white belly breath and mine become in sync. I realized how we share our breaths and our circles of life, in a square house. Why is it that the most connected earth-based cultures spend their living in a roundhouse like a Yurt or a Teepee?  Maybe we are getting signals to come back to the pulse of the sacred circle. Wholeness.  Back to the cycle of the earth. Back to the value of every breath in and every breath out. I’m hearing, feeling, and heeding the signal!

Change our ways from being in a box to be one with a circle.

In Angeles Arriens book Sacred Shapes, she writes “In every culture, the circle symbolizes wholeness and the experience of unity. When people are engaged in the search for the wholeness they aspire to independence and individuation. What they need most is space, a room in which to find themselves and develop their own identity while being connected. What they fear most is entrapment, being caught in a situation that will restrict or restrain them.”  Yet, how long have we been entrapped with materialism and consumerism? Funny how material items mean nothing when you aren’t healthy. And how we are forced into this state right now with COVID --- to be real, human, kind.

Those who are undergoing the process of turning inward into the circle of finding themselves with this restraint and feel loved and trusted when surrendering to the circumstances to the allowed time and space. When this process of individuation is resisted or not allowed to come to a resolution, it may become intensely frightening and self-absorbing. We might try to claw outward to be a farther reach away from the center.  All of us are going through different phases of facing ourselves now.   Forced to look deeper into what I am here for?  Or how can I help others?  What do I need in my sphere for a real living? What’s essential and what’s not? How does my circle of life connect, intersect, and divide with someone else’s in this moment?

And what impact do I have for upholding my space within and out of my circle?

The thrust toward this individuation is illustrated in many heroic myths describing the process of reclamation of Self. The centered hero’s stories recount simple beginnings, initiations, identified strengths, victories, and struggles with powerful forces causing change and resolving hubris pride. 

So much to think about when reflecting on the Sacred Circle of finding oneself in today’s’ circumstances. 

The circle of hope is also represented and illustrated in Eastern cultures by the circular form of the mandala, a Sanskrit word for circle. As a matter of fact, the Circle is found in the art of every culture throughout time. We can travel through this spiral lesson of art history and archeology to another time and you can always share your comments here about your connection to the circle of hope with me.

I used this circle of hope as means for drawing ourselves inward for a sense of stability and reflection last week in my Heartful Yoga  - art-making session.  We worked on making personal mandalas to be in the process of being connected to ourselves while in the process of drawing and coloring.  We drew large circles and doodled ourselves to its center reflecting and sharing with different prompts about colors and motifs in the creative flow process. Nothing fancy. Just getting lost in the process of going inward and sharing outward. Exploring both spaces within and space shared out.

In this tough time of change, I look towards the circle to give me hope as it continues around and around as a doorway to a new awakening. 

Where there is a circle… There is hope!