“You are a phoenix with your feathers still a little wet/ Baby, the ashes just look pretty on your eyes…” – Deb Talan
(photo from iberianature.com)
Questions. That is all I seem to have had for the past few months: questions. Mostly the question has included ‘why’ and it has been directed somewhere around me. But I have become bored of that, and myself. In the movie The Man with Two Brains, Steve Martin asks for a sign telling him whether or not he should do something and everything around him shakes and rattles and his dead wife’s portrait screams ‘No!’ at him, but he keeps asking for the sign. I have felt like that. I’ve kept asking why, but this morning I realized that I need to start asking ‘what?’
The Universe has been sending me fire. The examples of the signs are many, so I won’t list them, but from my house catching fire to huge bonfires set in front of my house (the biggest examples) fire has been a distinct theme. Two nights ago I asked the Universe what I was meant to do next, ‘give me a sign,’ I said. That same night a ladybug landed on my chest as I lay in bed. (Odd as it is February and far too cold for ladybugs.) I looked up the symbolism and it said, “Ladybug, ladybug fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are alone…” Fire. This morning I was getting dressed in the dark and the static charge on me set off several sparks as I got dressed.
So sitting at my computer in the very early morning I wondered where to go from here. Not ‘why’ but ‘what.’ It’s all very well getting signs, but I have been feeling so beige lately I haven’t had the courage or the energy to do anything about it. I moved my computer a few inches to make writing easier and there in front of me on a green Post-it in my very own handwriting was a quote: “Remember, you are not here to play it safe. You are here to start fires.” – Sera Beak
Fire. I’ve had none on the inside. It has all been external. Inside I have felt empty and a little lost. But Deb Talan‘s lyrics have been haunting me for a few days: “You are a phoenix with your feathers still a little wet.” I’ve been poo-pooing it because I have never felt less phoenix-like in my life, but perhaps that is what the external fire has been about. A phoenix rises from the ashes and flies. The space around them doesn’t continue to burn when they have taken flight again. I am in that place where the fire has surrounded me and I have been left feeling quite wobbly and unsure. But I guess it’s my turn now. It’s time to get those wings flapping again. It’s time to get my own fire burning.
“Remember, you are not here to play it safe. You are here to start fires.” – Sera Beak
