Phoenix Rising

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."  ~ Marianne Williamson

Ever since I was ten years old I have simply had the desire to write in my journal. I now have thousands of pages of stories, poetry, lyrics, notes, letters, memories, and miracles. I have volumes and volumes of journals from throughout my life. Recently, I have asked myself why this desire has been planted in my heart to keep such an extensive history of my life. For what purpose has this work been wrought?

The miracle of the modern-day invention of the blog is that a story can remain unfinished, current, and ongoing. I don't have to understand why I am doing this, I don't have to have a thesis, and I don't have to know if things are all going to tie together in the end. Besides, there is something miraculous that happens in the very act of story-telling. In recounting the past, we rewrite the stories of our lives as we tell them. We see the past and the future from a perspective that we create.

"George Banks and all he stands for will be saved. Maybe not in life, but in imagination. Because that's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again." --Saving Mr. Banks

The story that I will tell is the story of the Phoenix. This archetype reappears again and again in my life. It is a theme that at first I denied, but now I deeply cherish. I have feared my light because of the awesome responsibility that I must embrace with greater wisdom and knowledge. But now I fully invite death and dying that I might more fully know life and living.

The Phoenix is a Greek mythological bird that dies in flames and resurrects in ashes. Many people dislike the desert for its desolation and say that the sun scorches and kills everything. This may be true, yet I find astonishing beauty in the desert. The barrel cactus that holds a month's supply of water in its spiny little tummy. The refreshing, minty shade of the juniper tree that gives relief midsummer to any passerby. Delectable wild onion bulbs sprouted all over the top of a mesa, plucked just in time for supper. The warm, mothering canopy of a Palo Verde tree's branches during a cold winter's night. Residual pools of mountain runoff, perfect for swimming holes and 20-foot landing pools in summer.

In Phoenix, I was scorched. In Phoenix, I was reborn.

                                        http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=183774