Have you heard the term coming “full circle”? Well I don’t like it! Full Spiral is so much better because we don’t ever come back to exactly the same place we were before. Even when we’re repeating experiences or patterns of behavior we are not in exactly the same place. As spiritual beings we are always evolving and shifting even while doing things we have done many times before. We may be circling back around to something familiar but we are at a different level of consciousness and priority.
This is especially true when we’ve been through really intense, life-changing experiences. This past weekend John and I went to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival for the first time in just over a decade. We met some old friends there who hadn’t seen us since we came out the other side of our multi-year series of big challenges. As a group we used to get together in Ashland every year in July. It was so curious to note what felt similar, what felt new, what was no longer interesting and what newly so.
Even the things that stand the big tests are changed. I am immeasurably grateful that my relationship with John made it through. It’s different. There’s a little sadness for the suffering we saw in one another. It’s much deeper. There’s a level of empathy we couldn’t have known and respect for qualities we’d never before shown.
Those Full Spiral moments, when you reenter an old arena after major loss, change and transition, are powerful opportunities to get a sense of just how much you’ve changed and grown. Sometimes you lay new memories down over certain places and events. Sometimes you realize old familiar places and people no longer hold your interest. Sometimes you look upon one who has been through the fire with you and see them as older, more scarred and immeasurably more beautiful.
Through all of it, the letting go, the going deeper, you spiral a little higher and step into the new you. An evolving spirit on a sacred spiral journey.
This is John and me the very first time we did the Ashland trip and this is us many, many years later. Not as young and shiny but a little the better for wear I’d say.
Have you had a Full Spiral, reentering the arena moment? I would love to hear about it.
Peace,
Cylvia
Wisdom is very beautiful…..and sexy….rock on, you two..dw