Life is a great mystery that responds when you truly put your intention and desire out there. You may seek and struggle and strive, then all of a sudden options unfold with grace. Like flower petals unfurling from bloom to blossom, angels arrive in flesh from spaces and places you may never have suspected-- the trees part, the path is made clear, and you are left smiling in wonder at the magic of this world. Again, and again, I continue to live in awe of the way this happens... Miracles happen. I have seen. I believe. I continue to keep my face lifted to the sky, my arms open like a chalice willing to receive, willing to serve. In awe and gratitude I continue to walk.
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Life is not black and white,
yes and no. Life is a doorway with 360 degrees of options. ~Suzette Winona Summers I have this fire on my fingertips,
and all I want to do is share this light-- Stoke a humble fire, build a healing broth to nourish. But the wind keeps blowing, so, for now, I arch my wings to preserve the flame. ~Suzette Winona Summers  The landscape of the heart is vast and diverse-- luminous mountains of joy may rise toward the divine, while vast canyons of sadness seem to span miles. There are deserts of fear, and fiery pits of anger. And though, as humans, we tend to long always for the peaks, the various landscapes we walk through serve to enrich our human experience when we are able to navigate them consciously.
Several years ago I came to the conclusion that it was important for me to ground into my body. Ever since I can remember, it has been easier for me to live in my head--thinking, dreaming, planning, rather than showing up fully in my body--feeling, being present, taking action. Grounding into my body has been a beautiful challenge and lesson resulting in lots of long, slow inhalations, and long, slow exhalations that enable me to move through my emotions with more grace and presence. I don't think I am alone in this experience. For far too long our culture has collectively put value upon intellect, while simultaneously de-valuing the importance of feeling. As a result, our culture tends to have an aversion to experiencing and expressing emotions because most of us are not used to traversing that terrain. Interestingly, this behavior mirrors our collective relationship to the wilderness. Most of our society lives a very mechanized, sterilized existence in an attempt to remain safe from the uncertainties, inconveniences, and dangers found in nature. The landscape of the heart is wild territory too. And so being, it is also rich and good and healing in ways that can be compared to a gorgeous vista-- you just have to go there and experience it for yourself. It is not always easy, convenient, or safe to get there, but it is worth the effort. Sometimes the landscape of the heart is intimidating. It is at those times in the past that I have "checked out". The cliched deer in the headlights syndrome where I would freeze in terror. Afraid of what I might say or do if I felt too deeply into my heart. Afraid that I my fail or succeed. Afraid that I would never be able to walk through the canyon of sadness, or even worse, that perhaps there was nothing on the other side. In moments where my emotions seem too treacherous for me to journey into alone, I call upon a trusted friend to witness me...someone to walk beside me for a bit until I can remember that the canyon will not swallow me up, that I just need to keep walking, and that it is ok to take in all the gifts of my environment. And during those times when I need more than just to be witnessed, I call upon a guide--someone who knows how to ask the right questions to help me find the path I seek--be it anger, joy, sadness, or fear...because sometimes you know the fiery pit is there, you just do not know how to get to it. In a workshop recently, I was reminded that we do not get to choose which emotions we get to experience. We do, however, get to choose the degree to which we get to experience our emotions. If we only want to glide over our sadness from a distance in a plane, then our joy will be something we only get a glimpse of too. Conversley, if we choose to hike into the valley of our sadness, noticing the sharp corners of grief and the broken bridges of regret, then the luminous mountains of joy will shimmer and shine with a glorious light as we stand upon their peaks and drink in the fresh, cool air of pleasure that can only be found there. While the journey is sometimes intimidating, the payoff is extraordinary. And if the thought of hiking into this territory frightens you, I encourage you to find a guide, or group of guides that will help you navigate your way into a fuller, more juicy experience waiting to be discovered in the landscape of your heart. Take a deep breath and know that you are supported by the Universe. Deep bows and blessings of love to you, Suzette Winona Summers *As a side note I am feeling called into being what I would like to call a "Heart-Centered Living Guide." If you would like to learn more about this, or are interested in being witnessed and held in love as you journey through the terrain of your heart, please contact me: summershawksong@gmail.com The crows with their black wings gleaming
hidden rainbows. Their sharp beaks polished to a sheen pull at the flesh I offer them freely. "Strip me," I say. They pick and pick and pick tearing each earthly chunk filled with rockers on a porch, nested sleepers creating a rhythm of breath that runs through life, dead dreams, broken doors, bleeding heads. Cleaning the skeleton until there is nothing left but splintered bones bleached white and dry glowing in the moonlight like a pile of magic; waiting for breath of some unknown source to course back in and fill their hollow centers with rich, juicy marrow. Waiting for the cycle to begin again. I exhale and give it all away, knowing, this is the pulse of life. I am all. I am nothing. I am. ~Suzette Winona Summers
Each day I read poems
by authors whose language works its way like a foreign tongue into my blood and bones. Silently, growing stronger, their rhythm clinks around in this soul bag until I think it will burst. So, I plunge my hand into a sack of words, feeling for the right ones, and cast them onto the page. Like bone runes onto a stone table they clatter. My fingers dance across the letters. I read as they land, and weave stories through their placement until a picture forms that you will hopefully swallow, or view, like an oracle, or even, a fortune cookie. ~Suzette Winona Summers I want to tuck myself into all the memories that shift me like sand in the waves under my feet from the mundane to awe, from the compact to the infinite: the smell of papaya or sugar cane wafting on a warm wind; the clouds that look like mountains or mounds of cotton candy billowing higher, and their gusts reaching down to brush back my wild mane; the last push before the perfect release of a newborn baby--the smell of their head, their wails of desire diving into the depths of this swallowing eternity. As I fold myself into the dough of my life, I watch children rise past my stature, and love grows bigger than a marriage, or a dream lost. Love, the sea I am only now beginning to fathom, swells and ebbs, and its tide carries me along deeper into its center-less space, devouring me without my noticing. Knead me into your being, sweet love, envelop me into your message written in wrinkles on my skin, tuck me into the wind-smelled sheets where I can raise my tattered sails and drift higher on silver dreams, full of fresh bread, salty seas, and the messiness of common adventure. ~Suzette Winona Summers Coiling back into the warm,
dark ovate, each vertebra clicks into place. A million dreams shift and congeal and I wind back into the smell of humus--rotting leaves, rich loam, whispers. If the days grow colder, and light slips through my cracked fingers I will continue to delve deeper into the fire that flares below the surface of knowing. I will continue to surf the light ribbons of my mind and body until I touch the sun with my lips. Fingering it with my tongue, I will carry that blazing orb like a pebble in my mouth back to its source. ~Suzette Winona Summers She's so bright spilling her light all over my body, drenching me in her magic cordial, anointing me with her luminescent song that echoes from the sun through the night onto my skin though my bones to my soul through my feet to the earth. I am a vessel of messages, an incantated channel for blessings. I am a woman stirring in the wooing of her shimmering seduction. ~Suzette Winona Summers |
AuthorSuzette Winona Summers M.A. is a mother, writer, artist, and circler of women following the call of her heart to empower herself, her sisters, and the world. Suzette embraces her purpose of birthing a new world through one breath at a time, one step at a time, walking through fear, disappointments, and difficulties into the light of a new day. Archives
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