out which way to go. Everything is overgrown,
tangled, and dense. Nothing can move through it.
All this growth is the result of living your life in the context of your parents' lives,
and their experiences influenced how they parented. Your forest holds all of
their trauma, which was untreated.
Yes. They did the best they could. And in many ways they did a great job.
But in raising you they implicitly handed you their emotional undergrowth.
And they were also a generation of savers and holders; possessions
held meaning and create attachment. This generation feels that objects have
great value, which is simply one worldview -- not an absolute Truth.
This has been your reality; it's the element in which
you grew up. So of course you haven't really seen this.
It's been your normal.
You built a life within that emotional structure and
created as meaningful a life as possible, and it's been a
good life. When you transitioned from career to retirement,
the structure fell away, and now you are noticing how
stifled your soul feels.
Maybe you don't need to burn it all down.
But controlled burns could be useful.
To start a fire you need a spark.
Somewhere within you there is a hot spot, a few embers
that have quietly burned your entire life.
It is the mystery of consciousness when it is embodied.
As long as our bodies are alive, it exists.
So why has it not ignited all the overgrowth yet?
It's buried so deeply in your subconscious,
like the underground coal fire in an abandoned mine
in Centralia, Pennsylvania, which has burned
since 1962.
Your equanimity about your parents doing
the best they could is the dense earth,
weighed by gravity, covering your buried fire.
You have a gentle temperament with a compassionate
streak. It's a gift. And yet any trait in excess creates
challenges. This is yours.
Your work is to uncover your embers, let
air in, rearrange the fuel, and allow ignition.
Fire is amazing. It can be destructive when unconfined,
but it can warm us, give light, keep us alive. We get
to have s'mores with them. Tend your fire.
-Kathryn Harper
