Taken from my course Nature's Rebel and the Subtle Art of Discernment,
This lesson is called Lake of Longing.
Working with Fragmentation,
Dissatisfaction,
Envy,
Aging,
Self-Criticism,
Self-Sabotage,
Nostalgia,
Addiction,
Distraction,
Distortion and Dysmorphia.
Calling in,
Self-Acceptance,
Self-Worth,
Belonging,
Home,
Permission,
Truth,
Inner-Outer Beauty and Connection to Self,
Colour,
Aqua and Silver,
Animal Medicine,
The Sparrow.
There is a part of you that has become untethered and is underwater in the Lake of Longing.
You have been looking at your reflection for so long at the water's edge longing to see something different that eventually your reflection stopped knowing that it was yours and so it came apart.
You see this longing had caused a distortion to the image on the water's surface.
You stopped seeing your own face and with each growing moment of dissatisfied gaze the image coming back to you became less and less familiar.
It grew further and further from the truth of you until it was no longer your reflection at all and then it left.
With your reflection no longer there you forgot what you were looking for.
So you too wandered off back into life but with something missing.
The reflection of your longing has been under the water's surface since then frantically searching for that something else that you wanted to see in its place.
It wanted so desperately to please you because it felt your dissatisfaction,
It felt the shame.
So it wanted to be able to return to you and say I've got it,
Here it is,
Are you pleased with me now,
Are you proud?
But it just couldn't find that thing.
He or she is still looking in every part of that lake and becomes more and more lost with each desperate move.
Your reflection has been looking for so long but it is also forgotten what it is actually searching for.
And it is forgotten about returning to you.
This type of separation can cause challenges in your physical world.
Have you found that time often runs away with you?
That you've been struggling to keep up with the demands and constraints of everyday life?
That you get somewhere but you're not sure what you were meant to be there for?
Do you feel like you cannot focus on the task at hand?
As if there's something else that is distracting you and needing your attention but you just can't find what that something is.
Are you longing for something that feels unquenchable and unattainable?
Is there an air of indecision,
Confusion and overwhelm or a feeling of dissatisfaction or a lack of purpose?
Are you experiencing addictive behaviours and self-sabotage?
Perhaps there's a feeling that you are glitching,
Lost or out of sync with your own life.
Separation caused by sustained longing and its subsequent fruitless searching is tiring indeed for both reflection and the physical self.
I wonder if you feel this fatigue deep down in your soul.
But your part in the lake of longing is drowning in its own fragmented reflection.
Its own activity under the water only serving to distort its surface image further with each fleeting movement.
The image is forgetting who it is and to whom it once belonged.
How can you distract it from its own distraction?
So you can start to call it back to the lake's edge.
Your fragmented part does not know that it is underwater,
Does not know that it has come unstuck and no longer recognises that he or she is indeed a reflection of you.
As such,
It no longer looks up to see that there is a world above within which it used to exist.
It has forgotten everything but to search for the lost thing.
Really,
What you are both looking for is each other.
An acceptance of each other just as you are.
An unconditional love and a permission to be.
And you both long for a homecoming.
That which is adrift needs to be brought back with a reassurance that you no longer long for it to be different and that you are here to collect him or her without question or condition.
Return to the point on the bank where you once gazed down with dissatisfied longing.
You are at the water's edge and you have a bag of bread with you.
You tear off just a morsel.
You see disturbances,
Ripples and trails creating patterns that zoom across the lake.
So you throw the piece of bread into the water anticipating the next underwater move.
The fragmented part looks up momentarily.
You know this as the surface water disturbance stays in one place.
It seems you have successfully interrupted its plight momentarily by something new.
It quickly returns to its activity.
Again you throw a piece of bread into the oncoming stream of its flow.
Once again you see the surface movement stop.
As the reflection looks up and sees the bread above them.
Time and time again you repeat this process.
Knowing with each intervention a pattern is being intercepted.
Bit by bit the underwater self is becoming more and more aware that there is a layer above him or her that can hold this bread.
It becomes more and more curious and less and less embroiled in its disparate underwater search.
Now you have slowed it down.
You can start to entice the reflection towards you by throwing the bread less and less further away each time.
Now you see that when the bread lands on the surface it is stolen to the underworld.
You have made connection and this is play.
A smile grows on your face and you imagine quite rightly that your reflection smiles too.
You are both having fun.
You are starting to feel an excitement and a beautiful type of longing that you have not felt the likes of for quite some time.
You feel the longing to have your reflection back just as it is.
You want them home with you where they belong.
As it draws closer beneath the surface there is also a sense of longing growing.
Your reflection is starting to remember and is starting to feel what they are searching for.
It is a search for belonging,
Acceptance,
Wholeness and home.
And somehow these offerings of bread feel to hold a promise of this.
The bread is now stolen from right by the water's edge.
So you lean gently over,
Smile still in place and gaze longingly with welcome written all over your face.
Come,
Come,
You say.
I'm here.
It's me you're looking for.
I have been looking for you too.
I am so pleased to see you.
I've missed you.
Thank you for playing with me.
There in full natural and true beauty is you.
Welcome.
Untainted and no longer distorted.
Just the radiance of reflected you.
Your smiles meet each other.
A welcoming.
You lower your hand and place your palm softly on the surface of the water.
This is reflected back to you.
And as your palms meet.
Just for one moment in time.
The world folds on its horizon.
And you become one.
The search is over.
I love you.
