"We die into death, or we die into life."

“We die into death or we die into life. Dying into life always entails the death of the ego’s agenda, the habitual thought patterns, the scripted feelings we learn from our parents, our friends, our culture, need to be made permeable."

-Marion Woodman

This is really profound and moving to me. We are all the processes of life and death actively. We will all die one day, and everyone we know will die one day. It is being sensitive to this process, with the understanding of how delicate, tenuous, and precious life is that allows us to embrace each day, our relationship to self and others with a sense of wonder and magic. If you can remind yourself of how precious everything is, you can begin to live a life of alignment, gratitude, and sensitivity. Aside from the physical life process of death, I think of the duality of day to night as a life and death process. Each day we are met with the rising sun, a rebirth. A new day, a new opportunity to start fresh. Each night a death and rebirth of the cycle before.

Abalone Shells are believed to represent calmness, guidance, and the power of intuition and deep healing. Abalone Shells are a sacred symbol of the sea. They help strengthen love within relationships and foster harmony between all living things. When you look at an abalone shell you can see unique swirls of colors that are individual to each creature who lived in it.

“We must embrace the mystery of this journey or we run from it. And something within us always knows the difference.”

-James Hollis

“The more we align ourselves with our own individual paths, the less we can live strictly according to collective norms and values. To realize our wholeness, we must free ourselves from the suggestive power of the collective psyche and the surrounding world and be willing to appear useless or stupid.”

-Gary Toub

I always come back to the work of James Hollis who I believe leads a very examined and thoughtful life. As I gently forge my path and place in the world it feels increasingly hard to stay living in alignment with my true self. This is because consistency and care are key and paramount. This is also in part because staying true to your values, goals, and expressions requires constant tending to and awareness. In a world where technology is increasingly involved in our lives in an enormous way, society and its players traumatized, and the people around us all living in fear and instant gratification mindsets, how can we stay on our steady path to wholeness? The alignment of self to me is being true to your wonderful and unique spirit. The pressures of society bear down on us all, but that doesn't mean you can't make your life full of meaning. The most important meaning to pay close attention to is all in the mundane.

As for Gary Toub, this quote is a good reminder to embrace the uniqueness of your own being as you branch out from external pressures the world demands and places on us all. If you can free yourself from the pressure, free yourself from your own critical judgement, then maybe you can be liberated at the highest level.

When I look at my life from a Birds Eye view, or any one else's life for that matter, I have compassion for myself and others for regressions in all of their forms. Even though the trajectory is upward, we all undoubtedly face trials and circumstances that plummet us downwards.

I dance a new dance in the canvas of my life I am actively painting. And we all can do that.