Initiation: Go Into Your Wilderness
We have forgotten how to initiate ourselves. We have forgotten why we even would want to. In this age of expansion and technological progress, we must pretend that it all makes sense. And yet… we long for magic.
New Year, new beginnings
Today is the lunar new year. I've never really noticed it before. And yet this year, I can feel a force of beginnings that is far more powerful than our 'human' new year.
What is missing? Something has been removed and we did not know to miss it. Like Gerda in the Snow Queen - we have lingered in the garden too long, distracted by the blooms, our deep longings and the powerful desires that we came in with have been lulled to sleep by the powerful magic of the visual age.
We have forgotten how to initiate ourselves. We have forgotten why we would want to. We have forgotten what it means to truly belong, to occupy fully our space on this Earth. To be danced by the energies that were present at our beginnings.
“One who bathes willingly in cold water doesn’t feel the cold”
(Tanzanian proverb)
What happens when we commit?
When we choose to fully commit to something - be that to live from these deep forces; to seek to uncover a fuller knowledge, or something else entirely (I trust you, and what you desire) - then we begin a process of initiation. And what is that?
It is a space from which there is no return, only a moving into something new. It is embracing the perilousness of a quest from which there are no guarantees of success, or even survival- even if it's a psychological death we fear. It is walking with failure and shame by your side; as your ally. It is a letting go of the age of reason and ushering in of….what? I can’t tell you. It has never existed before, you, just little you, have the most important of tasks…to become all that it’s possible for you to be. In every moment, with every choice. Not to save the world, not to fight for right, but to embrace your own initiation.
Go into the wilderness
In this age of conquest: mining, reaping, scouring and civilising there is precious little wilderness left. The dark places where mystery lurks. The ancient magic of bones ‘thocking’ in a leather bag; to read the meaning of the things that make no sense.
For now, in our age of expansion, we must pretend that it all makes sense. And yet…and yet… we long for magic. We long for guidance but no longer remember how to TRUST. How to LET GO.
So where do we go? Who can we ask? Where is our wilderness now? The plain of initiation, the place we may not return from (or at least return changed)?
For me, until recently, all of those definitions of ‘wilderness’ could apply to my body. Uninhabited, neglected, abandoned, badlands (great word!). This is no bad thing. We are looking for a wilderness, and here it is. The last great mystery: the body. Our intimate link with the planet, with her rhythms and tides, and the destruction that occurs- present in our cells in each and every moment.
What simmers there between the molecules of our body? What can you learn? What can you receive? Can you begin to stand in the ‘not knowing’ today, to immerse yourself in it? This is the beginning of receiving the miracle of you. The colossal every-day miracle of your being. It is the start of magic. It is the start of living from the sweeping majesty of DESIRE. Without your body what are you? With your body, what are you?
We must increase the wilderness on the planet. Start with you.
With love
- Jessica, January 2023 -
further resources
Jessica Summers Hypnogenics
Hypnogenics™ combines the glorious energy you're being, with the energy we are being together. It has evolved from energetics, empathic coaching, and hypnotherapy.
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