[ feri ] Message I just sent to my training group

[kiya]

Today's amusing paradox that I am sitting with:

In order to maintain my power and selfhood as a Feri witch in training, I need to withdraw myself from training as a Feri witch for a while.

I am approaching seven and a half months pregnant. The birthing class I am taking has me focused entirely on complexes around pregnancy, childbirth, and the care of my baby; it has specific tools for that, many of which I am finding very Feri, but that work is tight within this egg of impending motherhood. This is my work at the moment, my calling, the place of my Self.

My psychic senses are painfully sensitive, making every little thing that might disrupt my nest or my child's development a spike of awareness that I need to negotiate around. It feels like going out without my skin on, all the intensity of everything turned up _so loud_, as if to remind me that birth in a state of alignment with nature is frequently a matter of finding somewhere dark and warm and safe and secure and encourage me to go there with every moment.

I am, like Bilbo Baggins, perhaps a bit of butter spread over too much bread, overstretched with trying to do too much. This is not respectful of Karina as a teacher; this is also not respectful of _myself_. My power is here, centered in my belly, and I need to keep it here rather than giving it away -- including giving it away to my desire for training. The desire will be there still when I am again able to pursue it without subordinating myself to the skills and insights that I want. What I *am* now is becoming-a-mother, and I need to be there and not all over the place.

This is my paradox. I knew that this time would come; I did not know what form it would take before recently, and it has taken me a while to wrestle the paradox into a form I could name and sit with. The clear next step in my personal Feri path is to take a step back. As paradoxes go, I find this one kind of delightful.

I wish everyone well, and I hope you all have an excellent next weekend.

Senebty (good health)
Blessed be,

Kiya.

Comments

[queenofhalves]

good for you. :)

[syndramise.livejournal.com]

It seems that many spiritual paths and training journeys (if not all of them) incorporate as a necessary and appropriate step the Time of Stepping Back and Focusing on Something Else. It's part of the experience, and it sounds like you're handling it well and going with the flow rather than fighting it.

Going out skinless with everything at painful intensity sounds rather like Asperger's can be sometimes. Interesting.

[labrys6.livejournal.com]

A hard time, definitely a stretch. But when I look for you in my mind's eye....I see a great, long flexible woman reaching over that baby-belly. You will find your reach.

[ivy]

I had something similar happen a while back with martial arts. Sometimes you need to walk your own road for a while to bring your focus back around to the larger work in the end. (We had lots of jokes about the master throwing you out of the monastery to wander the world for a while.) I'm glad you recognized it when you saw it, and hope it's amazing for you.