patterns

Cora perched atop a massive boulder, a natural throne overlooking the Ionian Sea. This rock was her sanctuary, her daily pilgrimage site in the light of dawn, before the sun scorched the land. Her favorite rock, sculpted by time and tides, cradled her form like a hand-tailored garment, making her seated pose most comfortable. She had been cultivating a spiritual practice with color, mantras, and intentions that acted as passwords for a higher inner landscape.

Yet, the previous evening, Cora had weathered a familiar storm composed of conflicting desires – a desperate thirst for love coupled with a paralyzing fear of its loss, leaving chaos in its wake. This emotional maelstrom was an old dance pattern that taught her strides of flight, rhythms of rationalization, and the horrid waltz of self-destruction. In those moments, her life hung by a thread as fragile as a spider's silk.

In meditation, however, she could dissolve her personal identity and become the vast sky of Awareness, where even the most turbulent clouds of panic could drift and disperse. These feelings could be offered up like smoke to the earth or sun, love or God, but in the eye of the emotional hurricane, such surrender seemed impossible.

And so she sat, her heart as heavy as the boulder beneath her, realizing she had stumbled on the path once more. She had inadvertently pushed away the very oasis she feared losing, the cycle repeating as an endless loop stuck in the records of history.

Cora's heart harbored no blame, only a bittersweet regret and defeat coupled with an ever-familiar blossoming of hope. She clung to the belief that her favorite person would see past the cracks in her facade, like one appreciating the beauty of a mosaic made from broken pieces. She returned to her rock, her meditation a balm for her wounds and a ladder to higher consciousness. Her teacher's words echoed like a lighthouse beam in the fog: as consciousness rises, it illuminates the deepest shadows within.

This time, Cora didn't retreat to the familiar caves of isolation. The morning sun, a cosmic alchemist, transmuted her sweat of grief and fear into golden droplets of perseverance. As she basked in golden rays of love, she allowed the light to facilitate her remembering. A unity with divine essence that bore silent witness to her metamorphosis.