When I read you, I know that I have found a kindred spirit. I live the life of a hermit, a Christian Hermeticist. My fool’s journey is 75 years in temporal terms, most of it lived in Arkansas. I was a leader most of my life, but now I have taken to the woods,alongside the river. Silence and contemplation are mine for the asking here. I crave the kinship that your reflections provide. Thank you.
It’s always so helpful to have our dark nights and inner winters validated as our culture has tended to focus always on the light and to demonize the dark. But I have come to embrace it as a nurturing and necessary time for my creativity to be renewed. Certainly dark and perilous times are fraught but I am learning patience and waiting with some little hope for what will eventually emerge. Thank you, Jan, for all your beautiful work on our behalf.
I love my inner realm, and find it desires balance with the outer realm. As a young adult, the outer world was my turf, until one day I found myself alone in the midst of a poignant winter storm--my inner world colliding with the "idea of who I was" in March 1983.
It was one week before the vernal equinox, the reactivity potentiating through the end of that summer in frightening waves of daily panic (attacks) that relentlessly followed me around--screaming for 5 more years.
Slowly, I became critically aware of the discrepancies, and slowly I learned to ground and center, unwittingly collaborating with my soul's intention for truth in expression--"as within, so without."
Why oh why is the true self so elusive--even when we know we are being inauthentic? 😂😂😂
It was a long and sometimes excruciating haul, an imperative commitment to the course, without short cuts, modifications nor exceptions. My body was the messenger in more and even grander ways than those panic attacks. Now, many decades beyond, the line between those two realms is almost non-existent.
What a gift! And wow! How grateful I am for this adventure, awakening inspired every day, no longer wondering or asking for an end.
Much appreciation for your deep expression of the flow of the seasons; their intricacies and alchemical relationships with our human evolution which is and always will be about both descension and ascension.☀️💐💛
Jan, I'm fairly new to Hedge Mystic, but your art feels so familiar after years of seeing it in QuestPath. Right now my inner life is being affected by the world of nature that is more cold and snowy than is typical for where I live. And happenings in the broader world feel so heavy. Being called back to the Soul and the Self is just what I need. Thank you for your wise words. I will come back to read them again.
Thank you Jan! This really resonates with me on many levels. In a season of False Springs and extreme cold my hope is still high and I know in my heart that the real Spring is coming soon. I see it in the tiniest of signs around me. Nature knows her job and the Divine is still very much present!
When I was quite young I chose to live this inner life. I didn’t realize it at the time but now at 75 I see my choices clearly. I’ve come to realize the inner “me” is the authentic me even though outwardly I may appear otherwise. And internally February is like being 75. I’ve done this trip sooo many times! Will spring even come this time?!! But walking my doggie in the cold rain I cannot miss tiny bright green sprouts earnestly looking for light.
I take comfort in this writing of yours as it reminds me to bear witness to the full cycle and not just the bright flowering part. Thank you!!
When I read you, I know that I have found a kindred spirit. I live the life of a hermit, a Christian Hermeticist. My fool’s journey is 75 years in temporal terms, most of it lived in Arkansas. I was a leader most of my life, but now I have taken to the woods,alongside the river. Silence and contemplation are mine for the asking here. I crave the kinship that your reflections provide. Thank you.
Gosh, yes this lowest ebb of winter has been so hard this year. I really resonated with this post. Thanks Jan. There is good medicine in sharing.
Thank you Jan, that was just the medicine I needed today!
This was much needed for me today, and so eloquently put. Thank you.
It’s always so helpful to have our dark nights and inner winters validated as our culture has tended to focus always on the light and to demonize the dark. But I have come to embrace it as a nurturing and necessary time for my creativity to be renewed. Certainly dark and perilous times are fraught but I am learning patience and waiting with some little hope for what will eventually emerge. Thank you, Jan, for all your beautiful work on our behalf.
So beautifully written and evocative, Jan.
I love my inner realm, and find it desires balance with the outer realm. As a young adult, the outer world was my turf, until one day I found myself alone in the midst of a poignant winter storm--my inner world colliding with the "idea of who I was" in March 1983.
It was one week before the vernal equinox, the reactivity potentiating through the end of that summer in frightening waves of daily panic (attacks) that relentlessly followed me around--screaming for 5 more years.
Slowly, I became critically aware of the discrepancies, and slowly I learned to ground and center, unwittingly collaborating with my soul's intention for truth in expression--"as within, so without."
Why oh why is the true self so elusive--even when we know we are being inauthentic? 😂😂😂
It was a long and sometimes excruciating haul, an imperative commitment to the course, without short cuts, modifications nor exceptions. My body was the messenger in more and even grander ways than those panic attacks. Now, many decades beyond, the line between those two realms is almost non-existent.
What a gift! And wow! How grateful I am for this adventure, awakening inspired every day, no longer wondering or asking for an end.
Much appreciation for your deep expression of the flow of the seasons; their intricacies and alchemical relationships with our human evolution which is and always will be about both descension and ascension.☀️💐💛
Jan, I'm fairly new to Hedge Mystic, but your art feels so familiar after years of seeing it in QuestPath. Right now my inner life is being affected by the world of nature that is more cold and snowy than is typical for where I live. And happenings in the broader world feel so heavy. Being called back to the Soul and the Self is just what I need. Thank you for your wise words. I will come back to read them again.
Thank you Jan! This really resonates with me on many levels. In a season of False Springs and extreme cold my hope is still high and I know in my heart that the real Spring is coming soon. I see it in the tiniest of signs around me. Nature knows her job and the Divine is still very much present!
When I was quite young I chose to live this inner life. I didn’t realize it at the time but now at 75 I see my choices clearly. I’ve come to realize the inner “me” is the authentic me even though outwardly I may appear otherwise. And internally February is like being 75. I’ve done this trip sooo many times! Will spring even come this time?!! But walking my doggie in the cold rain I cannot miss tiny bright green sprouts earnestly looking for light.
I take comfort in this writing of yours as it reminds me to bear witness to the full cycle and not just the bright flowering part. Thank you!!
Your mention of the “tiny green sprouts” puts me in mind of the poet, Mary Oliver.