So as the Song Birds Sing: Cycles of Soul
There is something magical about waking up to the sounds of the jungle when it’s springtime.
It begins anywhere from 4:30-5:30 when the first rooster decides to crow and others begin to answer back. Then the song birds sing as dark shifts to dawn. The hens cluck, the chicks peep, the pigs grunt in return from their nighttime forays.
Sometimes there are unidentifiable noises that sound rather fantastical as if the jungle is also a secret world which masks wild things and strange beasts and mythical creatures from hidden realms.
It is a gift to live so close to nature and sometimes I wonder if, in these 3 years of living on Kauai, I’ve absorbed more of the jungle than I’m aware.
Perhaps she’s given me more permission to access the mythical, wild things hidden in me, to make more noise like her creatures, to take up space and grow untamed like her verdant flora and trees.
Perhaps she helps me keep trusting the soul song that’s been singing inside since I made the commitment to leave my old life, move to an island, and find my purpose in bigger ways.
Maybe she has taught me to live less restrained and to know that even when I feel lost and can’t see where I’m going, I can rely on my senses and follow my path through intuition, instinct and feeling.
Life hasn’t exactly felt lost lately, but then it hasn’t exactly felt found either.
It’s been in a strange nebulous space brought on by how quarantining through a pandemic is intersecting with my sense of purpose and vision. I rocketed into the year by making my choreography debut on the island, then putting on a successful event weekend in Alaska.
It was an auspicious start to 2020 and a time where I felt my light was finally being seen, valued, and helping awaken the light in others.
But that sense of bigness, brightness and movement has stalled during these strange days. Replaced by a forced springtime hibernation, which coincided with an urge and need to harness my energy, dissolve a prior sense of identity, and be in a space of quiet change.
It’s as if I’m gathering my essence and experience back into myself, preparing to alchemize, recycle, and upcycle my ingredients, so they can form into a greater sense of purpose and vision.
I don’t have a greater purpose and vision yet. Intuitively, it feels a bit further out. Like something that might come out in May. Or maybe even June or July when the pieces will click and the dots will connect and my heart will leap towards a new project, creation or opportunity with a resounding YES.
For now I’m being quiet, listening, trusting the shifts within, and thinking about the process of metamorphosis I’ve undergone on this island:
Each time I think I’ve left the cocoon and sprouted my wings, I am soon called back into the cocoon to grow bigger wings. Each time my wingspan becomes wider and I’m able to soar to a greater height than before, I’m asked to descend again so I can through another round of transformation that will then help me fly higher.
From such great heights to such dark valleys I keep penduluming back and forth, becoming more myself, more free, and more aligned with my dreams.
At present I’m somewhere in the middle of the curve. Not in a dark night of the soul, but not on the mountaintop either. More in a dip than a skip, but keeping faith that my life is still being guided by the intelligence of the light.
Last year I found myself in a similar dip.
I wandered and wondered through most of May questioning my vision and purpose after I returned from my first speaking gig without finding what I was seeking: I had been so confident that my next step on the path would reveal itself when I went to speak, and I returned to the island feeling confused and directionless.
By the end of June that feeling was about to amplify when my clients waned, new work opportunity didn’t show up, money began to get really tight and a deep sense of despondency overcame me. I didn’t feel I was fulfilling my purpose, and I went into a sinkhole wondering what I’d done to myself giving up a steady paying career, beautiful home, and well fomented life at midlife in order to follow an intangible call of the soul without a blueprint for how to manifest the dream into reality.
By summer’s end I realized I’d been cracked open again by the universe, and I was deep in my cocoon going through another shedding of an old skin.
No soul cycle lasts forever and the onset of fall began to bring rebirth and fresh vision.
I could feel myself rising up and standing on new legs that were more confident and connected to spirit, my heart magic, and trusting my journey.
I emerged with wings that flew me into new experiences of choreographing a musical and envisioning, planning, creating, and completing an event weekend back in my home state, which consisted of a book signing, onstage talk, and moon circle.
I returned to the island with a newfound sense of competence, capability, and creativity. I was finally taking strides, carving out the path to my dreams, and understanding how to ground a vision and create the steps that will travel me to speaking and teaching in bigger ways.
I thought this spring would expand on that energy, then COVID-19 arrived on the scene, all of our lives have been turned upside down, and I found myself contracting and going back into my shell.
This is where I find myself this season: Inwards.
Reflecting on my dreams and the authentic vision in my heart. Mirroring the jungle’s ways and trusting my timing. Knowing the hidden mosaic inside of me will alchemize, awake, and come into light when the time is right.
I have something within me now that I didn’t have a year ago when I wandered and wondered through May: A deeper trust that the universe is fully supporting me, my soul is fulling supporting me, my higher self is fulling supporting me, my intuition is fully supporting me, and my heart is fully supporting me.
And I know I can trust all of it, because these higher energies keep proving themselves to me over and over again as if to affirm—
Yes. Surrendering into your heart and the heart of the universe is going to take you in directions others haven’t trod. Perhaps your choices won’t add up on paper. Perhaps your bank account won’t be what it once was. Perhaps you won’t know where you’ll be called from one month to the next or how your life will look. But it will be beautiful. It will be magical. You will learn things you couldn’t learn any other way and you will grow in ways you couldn’t grow any other way.
Sometimes growth happens in mysterious ways. We spiral sideways and corkscrew upside down and the notes in our songs get mixed up until we realize we’ve been writing a symphony out of order and we begin to see our bigger composition.
We can go from feeling lost to found overnight. Realize we grew wings from hardship and strife. Not see our way through, and still be moving towards our light.
So as the rooster crows and the song birds sing, I trust I will know when it’s my time to rise.
