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My Leap of Faith

By Durdica Maderic

Visible Again

🌼MY LEAP OF FAITH🌼

What is months of waiting for a thing that might bring physical relief and welcoming breakthrough into ones life? It is nothing and it is everything, considering one couldn't anticipate its existence in the first place! Perhaps, what is meant for us is finely tuned and alligned with sacred timing despite our human tendency to forget that. Our lives are unraveling and manically spinning as our world is in flux facing unprecedented desyruction of our planet. Evidently, our planet is been violently moved through the birth canal of mother life by the force of something beyond our comprehension. At the same time opportunistic invitation has been extended to all of us to grieve what has been lost through our lifetime, through the cycle of one age of Earth. Wherever we turn we encounter demolition that encompasses all of us, our bodies, our minds, our spirits and yet necessary for travelling we need to undertake in one lifetime time to create new. There is no external map we can really rely on these travels. Sooner or later we come to realization that external measurements of time although pervading world seem less and less of consequence as faith and sacred timing take over. One event can end in a second and yet one single moment may present itself as eternity.

Our lifetime appears as just a brief moment in time. With no certainty and a sense of definite direction we collectively face the reality of saddening and devastating deprivation of real human contact. Million virtual hugs on our social media platform will never be able to replace the deepening loneliness of being human and feeling the absence of physical connection with others, our human family. Perhaps this is happening to teach us something we may have forgotten. Looking back, my solar year began to unfold with maximum dose of disruption in all aspects of living. Processing feelings about my dis-ability and how to ride the restrictions of my physical mobility is ongoing challenge. Adding to that restrictions imposed by external structures can turn to be overwhelmingly emotional for me. Those absences of human contact tend to take me to the deep ravine of loneliness and grief. And while I am often presented with the welcome opportunities to turn inward and listen there is part of me that feels as if this grief will reign for good. It is the part of me that has to take grief as my daily companion and needs validation of that grief as a natural response to the losses I am facing personally and collectively. While on the other hand the mantra "It is, how it is" allows the mind to go quiet, body to slow down to repose and the soul to intuit. It needs to come naturally as a result of homing my feelings first and making them welcome. My own internal compass of self connection has been equally slowing me down intentionally so that I may be able to function optimally. I am aware how the pace of my days is descending gradually to conserve my energies.

When limited mind resists this, inevitably and somewhat naturally come various disruptions. One of those come with feelings of recurrent disappointments and hence suffering. The wet and dump days from continuous daily rain and persistent ravaging winds tend to challenge my patience when all I want is to be outbif the house, out of my bed. I get hungry for nature I can sink so deeply and so suddenly into the spiraling depression. Living closely with nearest and dearest can be for me source of both joy and sadness, pain and pleasure, peace and anxiety. While the sense of absences take me into deep ravine of loneliness, missing the physical connection with others, equally, the rebelious part of me, fights fiercely to stay out of a rut, longs to get out of anything it sees as restrictive. The spirit aches for sweet freedom to be one with the wildness of nature. But being housebound and often bedbound remains to be my abode. One sunny spring day following a long weary months of social isolation, I turn to day dreaming. Reaching 50th birthday seems both blessing and a curse. It is a position of being in the middle.

As year marks significant anniversaries of my life, the one cycle of work, relationship, partnership and motherhood seems to be ending. Yet I am unsure what is going to be replaced with. Dreaming of celebrating this significant marker, literally the middle point of life cycle, begins by envisioning myself in local woods camping with my tribe around warming fire, simple yet nurturing company, sharing of our wild spirits. I catch myself in the middle of this fantasy, very quickly being reminded of a present reality: besides being physically unfit to to attend to my daily basic needs I also discover how organizing this is not an easy task. How am I actually going to do this? Responding to these changes of plan with the new curiosity rather then ending in spirals of old dissapountments and frustrations shifts my perspective. That tiny voice reminds again gently: "you may want to consider the circumstances aren't ripe yet"maybe something else is waiting to take that space" Feeling like a naked tree exposed to violent storms I keep hanging onto my fragile sensitive branches.

There is no way of knowing if I will make it day to day without breaking the shell that is me. And the shell does crack exposing the fragility and softness on the inside. In this fragile state I am suddenly being summoned by my muses and spirit guides, called to pray for strength and perseverance. And I soon become showered with their blessings. The writing is flowing, the focusing on the creations in the moment is soothing my nerves and relaxing my limbs. I am still here. My online women's community physically distanced yet close holds me in my darkness and I know we are somehow in isolation together. I hold myself in that anchor as we share our own unravelling of endless spiraling circles of showing up and hiding, waxing and waning like our Moon. And a stillness becomes my shelter and a loving blanket I wrap around me comfortably while passing daily through darkening void , seemingly alone. In some bizzare ways, the "groundhog day" we had found ourselves in, facing wide social restrictions delivers peculiar safety and comfort- we know to expect the same.

One day in May the unexpected wave arrives to my shore as I find my application for disability benefit being rejected. After a year of long waiting for any signs of decision, filling of endless paper forms, attending to draining and soul destroying encounters, I let myself drop into surrender. Not fitting the boxes of qualifying , being deserving of social support, is my story. But is actually a story of many choosing to be free sovereign beings. We are repeatedly failed by the crazy bureaucratic , robot- run and heart- absent so called Benefit and Health System. They are the symptoms of capitalistic values still held widely and pervading our lives. I am beyond the exhausted of this old narrative, beyond trying to work out which way does it actually benefits us or deliver health. It doesn't serve us on the whole. It needs large injection dose of some heart, of some soul. My family has turned to benefit system for almost two years since my partner, who is the sole income provider, lost his job . A month later the covid arrived and off we went into the tumbling machine of disintegrated system already facing deep crisis. Our lives became stripped to bare necessities entering survival mode. Basic groceries, basic purchases, no travel, no transport, no work, no adequate space to live in. Our overcrowded home space, due to my health needs , is simply inadequate for all our different living needs, and brings additional stresses. My entitlement to financial support became quickly reduced to a minimum.

Like many, we hang on the precarious edge, relying for a while on local community support to deliver a basic groceries to our door. We rollercoast dizzily into the unknown while someone, somewhere switched the pause button. Our hope in System remains fragile, continues to be tested. One thing is for sure, taking away the human"s ability to provide for themselves has dire consequences. A truly testing times. A shift that is taking place in the deep shit!, and no way back as pushing towards exit continues on. And the shadow character of life won't let one see what is on the other side until one has passed through it and really get it what has been asked of you. Almost every social structure we turn to to fulfill our needs are now exposed to the bone. As a dysfuntional entities, they largely operate on the basis of capitalising on our insecurities, making us believe they are there for us. They want you to crawl on your knees until you bleed and reduce you to begging ,if you are naive to believe in their innocence.. Furthermore, the emphasis on surface reality is no fit anymore to address the needs of our vulnerability and our internal worlds. If you look good on the surface, that is important. It doesn't matter that you are wounded deeply on the inside. It plays on your anxiety, it reinforces the small you, it wants to reach you through your insecurities, your problems, your issues. Because they are profitable. I know many including myself whose humanity had been merely reduced to a number on the list. Experiencing emotional distress due to humiliation and pain caused by the unconscious acts of the system.

People employed by systems of false power feel equally powerless (hence we had all come across the line: "there' s nothing I can do here!") and like pons thrown around the chess board while big players are taking calculated moves in this game. The balancing of our basic needs against the needs of those who take more then they need is paramount. While financial loss is hard thing to bare, the loss of our human dignity and our own power is costly. The world as we know is crumbling and we are the flying debris of this rubble. The portal of global grief is intrinsically part of global demolition we are faced with. The wheel of ignorance, blindness and greed is turning faster. How much longer, when will we come off? We can't. Not yet...! Another unexpected wave arrives to my doorway a month later. A hand written letter addressed to me while Inside reads in a large font: The Janavi Held Endowed Poetry and Art Grant. I had applied for this grant a year ago hoping it might lead to new opportunities. I was dreaming of nurturing and reinventing my creative ventures and possibly investing in extra space to do that. "this privately endowed grant has been awarded to you ....for answering the call of the goddess through your devoted honouring of Mother Earth and the spiritual interdependence we have with her, via your beautiful medicine poetry, visionary art, nourishing of natural environs and keeping alive the ancient indigenous wisdom ..." As I read through, I feel a sudden tender and joyous embrace vibrating through these words. I sense as if many broken shards of my spirit had been lovingly restored and brought together into a new mozaic. This letter arrives not only as a sunshine struggling through heavy clouds but also as a loving gift from soul sisters. It announces itself as a healing visitor, a soothing balm for the damaged wings. It says to me"you are still on your path"!

The feeling of gratitude and love overflows my heart thinking about poet sister who has departed this realm few years ago after suffering devastating incurable illness. Yet she left behind the legacy of grace and purity of generos heart, enabling other sisters to continue weaving their life creative journeys. I see letter as a sign, as I dare to keep faith. A healing voice, somewhere within me calls to me to consider this serendipitous reward as a new way forward. It becomes an enabler to begin the journey of raising funds to purchase a much needed mobility aid for myself. And so I call upon support of my community and the universe answers. An momentum takes place. The fundraising projects supported by community for community begin to take off. The love begins to pour in from everywhere, from community of people I know, the places I had put my love into, the creations I had been nurturing for a decade. As the funds begin to flow I am being showered by love and support from seemingly small yet infinite universe. We are all gifted with ability to give. When we choose to give others the blessings of our own giving, the economy, the energy of gift circulates naturally, easily and uninterrupted. To me, this could actually mean a goodbye to greed once and for all and creating the new world we are being invited to manifest. I feel astounded when I see the abundance and prosperity that we are capable of creating when we simply choose to unite together and share our love and resources generously and without fears. And I am deeply convinced that my deep trust in the community as an agent of positive change and potency has actually manifested my very own oasis of abundance I had experienced. Our ability to co-create with spirit and nature is also calling us to consiously reevaluate all our acts of creations. As a self thought artist and a writer I feel called yet again and initiated into greater appreciation of mother earth and all her earthlings. It means taking seriously and yet joyously my guardianship and my duty of care.

When we choose this way and allign ourselves with our heart I really believe there can be no limit to how we create prosperity, harmony and beauty, be it personal or collective. So here I am placing my offerings on this sacred altar of life. To committ to continue guardianship of nature and to create from a place of deep care and honour for blessings received. As I allow unfolding of new into this present space I sense I had already taken my leap of faith without fully knowing where is the mystery taking me next.

https://www.wildmuserising.com