A Fleeting Life, A Canyon of Grief
After a solid week in a sea of orange sandstone and pale sagey green, my body and soul were ready for a cooler, more verdant experience.
The overriding intention for my quest into the unknown was to practice tuning in more deeply to my intuitive guidance. And when my body said no to another day of heat and wind, I steered the spidery van towards higher elevations.
I visited the lovely town of Monticello, Utah before heading east into Colorado. Prompts from Spirit led me to Dove Creek, where I turned off the highway and onto the very steep road that would lead me into Dolores Canyon.
With brakes smelling quite hot, I finally pulled off the road to find a boat launch ramp on the river. My body wanted out of the van. I wondered what on earth I was doing at this place. But I promised to follow my instincts so I milled about, wondering where the increasingly bumpy road might take me, had I courage to keep driving.
The canyon was spectacular. I had spent a few nights at Gooseneck State Park in Utah, 1000 feet and 300 hundred million years above the snaking San Juan River. Now I found myself at the raging river’s edge, looking up at another 300 million years of erosion.
At this boat ramp I met a retired Mesa Verde park ranger who lovingly invited me to walk down the road with her, whereupon I found the most beautiful BLM campground to park for the night.
However, it wasn’t until much later that I realized why Spirit had led me there in the first place.
Back at the boat ramp, I struck up a conversation with a young man, a river rafting guide, who shared the most incredible stories of his rafting expeditions on sacred Native lands throughout the Southwest. About pictographs and petroglyphs that can only be seen by boat. About singing stones used to summon the gods.
And when he felt ready, he shared his heartache over the death of his co-worker, a woman who had drowned in the raging river just two days prior. The day before her death, he had been asked – and refused – to go out in conditions he deemed unsafe. He felt somewhat responsible for her death, knowing rationally he was not. He was stoic, but I felt his heart. I felt his sorrow. And I held him in that space as tenderly as I could, being a stranger to him.
As the edge-walker, this is what I do. I sit with you in your fear, your sorrow, your joy, your confusion.
I am no stranger to death, real or metaphorical. No stranger to heartache, to loss, to grief that feels like it will drown you in it’s raging river.
In my work, this is what I do best: create a space so tender, so safe, so sacred that you feel able to navigate the waters of your experience to find the shore of your soul’s authentic being. To find that place where peace, calm and neutrality allow you to create the Spirit-led life you imagine is possible for you.
To walk your own edges, weave your own destiny.
Even so, there have been many times in my life that I wished I wasn’t alive. I feel no shame in sharing as I know I am not alone in this.
The truth is, no one really knows (despite what they may say) what happens when we die. One thing is fairly certain, we will never have THIS exact experience again. This morning breeze as I gaze west at the Jemez Mountains. This one-eyed soul companion, Luna, at my heels. This set of experiences to mold a life.
I was reminded of all of this in Dolores Canyon that day. And so grateful to that young man for sharing his heart with me.
What a gift it was to follow Spirit’s nudges to be blessed by sacred human connection and the flowing waters of your soul’s inner knowing.
My wish for you today, whether you are on your mountaintop or in your own canyon of grief, is to remember, or rather, embody, the truth that your life is precious, your soul gifts are priceless and that the river of your connection to All That Is flows and flows.
Big, Flowing Love,
Anné
P.S. If you have people in your life to truly witness you and hold sacred space for your unfoldment, I invite you to send them a blessing from your heart this very moment. If you seek more of this, reach out to me please. It could be that you are seeking what the Sacred Sanctuary offers: safe & sacred witnessing in a loving container of soulful sisterhood.
