Phoenix Rising

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The Phoenix

by Rebecca Wiles

Beautiful , glorious and sacrificing self for renewal,

you build a pyre and set yourself ablaze.

For the sake of self.

Red bird of fire come forth through your ashes a new bird

shedding the old self which no longer is needful.

You embrace your new strength and fly to new heights of the sky

to the city of the sun and give the ashes

unto the alter of the sun god for your immortality.

Embrace yourself for you are a child of the sun

and will live eternal through birth, death, and renewal.

The spirit never dies! 

The phoenix is a mythical bird richly embedded in Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Chinese, and Phoenician mythologies.  We've all heard of her...  the legends tell of her colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet... she is well-known for her spirit of fire.  The story goes that this mysterious creature has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, and as the Phoenix nears her end, she builds herself a nest made of twigs that ignites into flames.  Both she and her nest burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes.

The glint of hope that emerges from this myth is that from the fired ashes, a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again.  In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of her old self in an egg made of myrrh, and she carries it to the Egyptian city of Helipolos (which means "sun-city" in Greek).  It is said that her cry is like a beautiful song.

Lovely mythical creature so bold and heroic and free.  So cyclical and eternal in her death and rebirth.  She strikes a deep remembrance in me, a connection... a hinting that although our worlds reside in different realms, she and I are more alike than we know.  

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The last two weeks have been difficult.  I have been forced to re-visit a place deep in my emotions where I don't like to go.  A place that cuts me deeply.  Like a physical wound on my body, I have bandaged my emotional wound many times in the hopes that it will heal without me having to tend to it... out of sight, out of mind.  Sometimes, though, I have no choice but to tend to it.  So I peel off the protective covering and take a new look at what lies beneath it.  As I peel the bandage away,  I cringe at what I see... still not healed yet... perhaps too much time under the cover of darkness.  So I begrudgingly begin the process of cleaning it, nurturing it, airing it out to heal... a sometimes painful process.  Very painful indeed.

A time of sadness, anger, confusion, fear, and a wallowing in my rawness.  Don't feel sad or sorry for me.  You have been there too.  It is part of the human experience.  I throw my hands up at the world and curse it.  I scream loud and long, and I weep.  I plead for spiritual guidance.  I feel exposed.  I feel ugly in my ungratefulness - knowing others have much worse fates than mine.  I feel my deepest fear exposed, just like that raw open wound. I close down my connection to my Source and fall into myself... collapse into myself and curl up with all those very real and unlikable emotions.  I feel as if I am burning from the inside out. 

I don't want to think positively.  I just want to look at the world through "why me?" glasses...  As I go through life's motions, my mind's self-pity grows and morphs.  But, what was that?  Did I just feel a tinge of hope?  Could it be a will to gleam a new perspective on my situation?  Nope, I'm going to wallow a little longer and coil deeper in my emotional nest.  I've got my fingers in my ears, and I'm not listening!!!!!

But what's that?  A sweet moment of joy sneaking into my experience and opening a door to a better emotion... a slender knowing that I can handle this situation?  Okay, I'll accept it... but only for the moment.  I like being raw and exposed for a while.

Then slowly, another better thought... another happy moment... another guiding inspiration... a friendly smile... an angelic answer to a question... and before I know it, I am standing up and dusting my self-pity to the wind.  Hope and will cannot be deterred for long.  My heart opens to the possibilities of my situation.   

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With the support of God's power behind me - the same power that creates the galaxies - and the undying hope and will of human spirit, I am back...  but different.  I am renewed.  I am changed.  I am not completely healed...  there will certainly come more cycles of changing the bandage and tending to the wound, BUT  I am most surely in a higher place than I was.  I realize a new sense of clarity and perspective, focus, an open heart, and a new and stronger connection with my source.   I know without a shadow of a doubt that I can look closely at my wound and not be afraid to find peace in it. 

I know that even if I want to, I can't ever go back to that place I was before because I am transformed to something more now.  And I know that because of my wound and the "firing" of it... the cleansing of it, I have risen out of the ashes a stronger woman...  And my cry is a beautiful song... just like the brilliant phoenix who came to the end of her cycle and fell into the bundled safety of her nest, then burned in the flames...  I too am recycled... over and over...  through the flames...  out I rise...  better and better... freer and freer.

Sometimes we are renewed in the small instances of life, day by day...
Sometimes we are transformed in the fiery moments that drop us to our knees...
Sometimes we are evolved in the simple passing of time...

But always cycling, always renewing, always moving upward, carrying the ashes of our old selves towards the sun.   

Thank you for visiting today,

Stacey