Welcome to the sacred unraveling.
A seven day journey.
Thank you.
The fire within.
An Ayurvedic meditation on transforming heat.
Into power.
During the perimenopausal time.
Welcome back,
Dear sister.
Yesterday you arrived.
You placed your feet on the ground of your own body and said,
I am here.
That took courage.
More than you may realize.
Because arriving means feeling.
And feeling right now.
Is not always comfortable.
Today we go into the fire.
So please find your position again,
One.
That holds you.
Let your eyes soften.
And begin,
As always,
With your breath.
In through the nose,
Slow and full.
Out through the mouth,
Slow and complete.
Let three of these breaths be your threshold.
The doorway.
From the outer world.
Into the sacred space within.
Meeting the Heat.
I want to begin today by asking you something.
Not to answer out loud.
But to simply sit.
With it.
When the heat rises in your body,
That sudden undeniable wave of warmth.
That moves up through your chest and throat.
And floods your face.
What is your first instinct?
For many of us.
It's resistance.
It might be embarrassment.
A wish that it would stop.
That no one would notice,
That this body would behave itself.
But what if just for today,
We tried something different.
What if instead of bracing.
Against the heat.
You turn towards it.
Curious.
Open.
Unafraid.
In Ayurvedic medicine,
The ancient healing system of India There is a force called Pitta.
It is the energy of fire and water combined.
The force of transformation.
Digestion.
Metabolism.
And illumination.
Pitta governs all the processes in your body and mind.
That convert one thing into another.
Food into nourishment.
Experience into wisdom.
The old self.
Into the new one.
And during this time of our lives in perimenopause,
Pitta is rising.
It is moving.
It is doing its sacred alchemical work.
The hot flashes.
The surges of heat,
The sudden flushes.
That move through you like a wave.
These aren't malfunctions.
They are pitta.
Doing what Pitta does.
They are your inner fire burning away what no longer belongs.
Clearing the path,
Making the space,
Illuminating what has been waiting in the shadows.
To be seen.
I now want to invite you.
To imagine yourself standing.
Before a great sacred fire.
A sacred controlled.
Intentional fire.
The kind that has been tended.
By women.
For thousands of years.
The kind of fire that warms without destroying.
That illuminate.
Without blinding.
Feel its warmth on your face.
On the front of your body Notice that the warmth is not uncomfortable here.
It is welcoming.
It is ancient.
It recognizes you.
Now place your hands one over the other.
At the center of your chest.
Your heart center.
And notice that there is a fire here too.
A smaller version of the great fire before you.
It has always been there.
Long before the hot flashes began.
Long before this chapter of your life.
Opened.
This fire is yours.
It is your passion.
Your purpose.
Your life force.
It is the warmth you have given to everyone you have ever loved.
Breathe in slowly.
And as you do.
Imagine drawing the energy.
Of the great fire before you.
In through your nostrils like a thread of golden light.
Down into your own inner flame.
Feel it grow just slightly brighter.
Slightly larger.
More present.
More alive.
And now when the next wave of heat arises in your body,
I want you to try something extraordinary.
Instead of tensing against it.
I want you to try to soften.
Instead of pushing it away,
I want you to breathe into it.
And as you do,
Whisper to yourself.
This is transformation.
This is my fire doing its work.
I am not burning up.
I am burning through.
Observe and watch the heat move through you like a river of light.
Up from the base of your spine.
Through the channel of your belly.
Past your heart.
Up through your throat and out through the crown.
Of your head carrying with it everything that is ready to be released.
Old rolls.
Old stories.
Old definitions of who you are supposed to be at this age in this body in this life Let it burn through all of it.
Because you are safe.
You are held.
The fire knows what it is doing.
In many indigenous and earth-based traditions.
Fire is not merely destruction.
It is the great purifier.
The forest that burns returns to earth as ash.
And from that ash,
New growth emerges.
That could not have come any other way.
The lodgepole pine releases its seeds only in the heat of a fire.
Some things are designed to open only.
Under pressure.
Only.
Under heat.
You dear sister are such a thing.
So let us take a moment to offer something to this fire.
Think of one thing.
Just one.
That has been weighing on you.
A belief about yourself that diminishes you.
A role you have been playing that exhausts.
An expectation.
Yours or someone else's that no longer fit.
The woman you are becoming.
You don't need to name it aloud.
Simply just hold it in your awareness.
Like a dry leaf.
Your open palm.
And now breathe it into the fire.
Watch it catch.
Watch it illuminate briefly as it burns and watch it become ash.
Drifting upward.
Dissolving into the wide and expansive sky.
And something lighter is here in its place.
Can you feel it?
A small opening.
A slight loosening.
That is the work of the fire.
That is your pitta doing exactly what it came here to do.
Now we tend the fire.
Because a wise woman knows that fires need tending.
We don't want Pitta to rage unchecked.
We want it in service of our becoming.
Not our depletion.
So take a slow breath in through your nose.
And this time,
Imagine the breath.
As cool Blue.
Moonlight.
Moving down through the center of your body like a gentle stream.
Feel it moving through any areas of heat or tightness or overwhelm or inflammation.
Not extinguishing the flame.
Simply cooling it to the right temperature.
The temperature of wisdom.
The temperature of clarity.
And in Ayurveda,
We balance pitta with the cooling qualities.
Of the moon.
Of water.
Of stillness.
Of self compassion.
So as you breathe this cool light through you,
Offer yourself one simple act.
Of compassion.
Say quietly.
To the fire within you.
Thank you.
Thank you for working so hard.
Thank you for burning through what needed to go.
You may rest now.
I am tending you.
I will no longer let you burn out of control.
And I will never.
Let anyone extinguish you.
You are mine.
And you are sacred.
Repeat after me.
I am not overheating.
I am transforming.
The fire within me.
Is ancient.
And intelligent.
I release what is ready to burn and I honor the ash it leaves behind.
I tend my own flame with wisdom.
With water.
With the cool grace of self-compassion.
I am a woman on fire and I am magnificent.
So as you prepare to return,
Dear sister,
I invite you.
To carry this reframe with you.
The next time heat rises in your body in any form.
Let your first breath be one of curiosity.
Rather than resistance.
Ask it.
What are you burning through for me today?
And then let it move.
Let it do its sacred work.
You are not the mercy of this fire.
You are its keeper.
Tomorrow we enter the dark hours,
The sleepless nights,
The 3am awakenings.
And we're going to discover what wisdom lives there.
Waiting for you.
In the quiet Until then,
Rest in the warmth of your own becoming.
Take a deep breath in.
And out.
Allow your eyelids to gently float open.
And come home.
Namaste.
