This morning I freed myself of something. I had been struggling for weeks, perhaps all year, perhaps even longer, to keep up with all the many projects I felt I had started and not finished, or was working on but felt bad about not doing more. It’s been such a strange year and I have often felt a bit lost. Plans I had for my life in the past had to be reworked and reshuffled in order to make sense in this new way of being. I found I started a lot of new projects but often found myself feeling so overwhelmed by the amount of things there were to do, that I was incapable of acting at all. In a way, feeling strung up and pulled in many directions by various different ropes of interest, calling for my energy, to the point where I felt like I was caught in a web, unable to move in any direction. I had been meditating a lot, trying to work it all out, but it wasn’t until today that it’s started to come clear.

After a lovely Summer Solstice ritual at our community gardens yesterday, spending some lovely time with friends, and an insightful reading of the Raven Coins from my friend Danuta, I have realised I needed to release myself from some of the ties I was feeling held by with all these projects. There was a pressing need to minimise, cutting away energetic ropes that have been tying me down and pulling me in many directions, to find a focus for my intention. I needed just one single rope to pull me in a single direction.

It was simple too. I need to focus on something I can actually finish.

The insight came gradually. In our summer solstice ritual, we meditated on the resilience of the land in the summer, the fertility of the earth with the rain, the way the land had bounced back after the drought and fires last year. In this I felt renewed enthusiasm to find what I needed to move forward. We meditated on cleansing away what was holding us back, and bringing in the energy we needed for the next phase of this life cycle, feeling that energy of growth and abundance of this high time of the year.

The insight then came again later in conversation in discussing the solstice and the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction and its meaning in bringing in a new phase of our lives, and then in divination as I was guided to concentrate on choosing a focus for my energy. Spiritual work like this is always so powerful and there’s a clarity that comes from group work and sharing ideas with others that can be so much more influential that work we do alone at times.

Through all of this, I ended up being able to chose something. Something really close to my heart and in choosing it, I felt like all the other interests were not lost, but simply that their demanding energetic ties to me fell away. I could focus on this one project, and when the others fell in line with it, they could be reawakened, but they would not hold the same exhausting energy that I associated with them before. The important thing is that the direction was there now.

I was reminded of a time when I felt like this in the past. I was feeling a bit lost and lacking direction and focus and noticed a millipede walking across the carpet. Its many legs moved in neat and complex sequence, yet it didn’t trip up or get confused, because they were all following the head of the insect. The head was the focus of the energy, the legs the many projects that help us work towards that focus.

I feel like I’ve found my focus again. I know what is leading me, and guiding my many projects into alignment, and as I cut away those ropes and focus on the one I have chosen to lead the way, I feel it’s like a single rope that pulls me and I can swing away on it, into the future.

The beautiful thing about it, is that in that simple decision, all the other activities feel less urgent, less pressing, less demanding, and it has opened up new energy for them, where before there was stagnancy caused by the pressure of feeling I had to choose. Now, knowing what my main goal is, I can even look at those other interests with less stress, knowing that they fall in with the main goal, the way that the legs of the millipede follow the head. It all comes together in the end.

The association of this with the summer solstice for me is poignant. This summer is quite mild – certainly in comparison to last year’s intense fires and drought. But nevertheless, we remember the fire. The fire is always there in potential. this is the time of the year when the sun is at its peak, and it asks us to remember, to prioritise what is most important in our lives, being willing to let anything else fall away, and to know exactly what we care for most, standing strong in our willingness to fight for it and protect it, finding that fire of life within ourselves.

Many blessings to you for the Summer Solstice.
May the fires of the sun shine bright in your heart.
May the fire in your head bring you the blessings of Awen.

Julie /|\