Epiphany

Epiphany: clear sight, a-ha moment, manifestation.

The definition of epiphany in the dictionary and as it portrays in the story of Christ is the same to me: a clear-sighted moment, and finding of a star that you have followed, a manifestation of brilliance.

I didn't know that I had put those two pieces in my mind together like that until someone recently asked, and I said: Same same. Because spiritual truths are not separate from our lives, finding where you are going in your car, in your career and in your self all feel like some sort of an arrival.

There is a great confluence in my life in witnessing people's stories. As an English teacher, I first thought I had to teach those kids English, and then I quickly learned I was way more interested in teaching them how to be heard, and wove it into the lessons on prepositions and identifying clauses. When I started working with clients on the table, I thought that meant that I was supposed to fix what was wrong, then I quickly learned to listen to what they were saying so that they could hear themselves and the body could reestablish balance (yes, we are that amazing). When I started the podcast, I thought I was doing a pet project for post-partum me, yet what birthed was story after story of glimmering strength that showed there is a thread running through our lives that is our destined gift and growth. Often times it is something we overlook and dismiss that is holding a holographic key of understanding, and we don't know until the moment that we do, like an epiphany.

It is helpful - it appears - to have space for an epiphany for it to be able to occur. Enough space in your moment to let two truths sidle up next to each other for a new juxtaposition of understanding. Or to let the talent you dropped a decade ago, wink at you while you are bored in its hopes to ascend back into your life; or even as Lenoard Cohen sang to us, the light can stream through the cracks in the dark. I mean think about it -- what has already been whispering to you? What story seems too silly or too small for your busy schedule. How many times have you looked around and said, "I can't because, 2020, I mean 2021; well now ---." Let the thing that is most preposterous take some space in your life and see what it shares; not the Thing that makes you feel less than, the Thing that makes you feel : “This is so crazy!” or “Who am I to do this?“ or (my favorite) “This would be too easy!”

For so many years, I stepped away from my Catholicism for reasons that were grounded and true. In that space, I was able to learn so many other perspectives and expansive ways to see and understand how the pulse of the universe and our precious lives can move and manifest and when I leaned in, I was able to see more clearly the perfection of the roots of Christ Consciousness from which I have grown. I remember being astounded when I heard Neem Karoli Baba tell listeners to meditate life Christ, as Krishna Das retells, "He lost himself in love."

I was shocked that this powerful new dynamic (which is what Ancient Vedic practices were to me at the time) was pointing back to the place that those that loved and reared me were moved from. I find it no coincidence that this piece arises on my grandfather's birthday, today, the Epiphany. A man that truly lost himself in love through action: patient listening, endless game playing, projects with family or church -- a willingness to extend what he had. It was often and still is often that I receive epiphanies from the time I have shared with him and my grandmother, the steadiness of elders, bolstered by the immediacy of the parents who are doing the running raggedness of raising us. I also think of it as the Gift of our being here: the players and the place; the love and the loss; the peaks and the valleys; the things I missed; the things I gained; the things that are still holding out on the sidelines banking on the fact I will get them — eventually.

I think of these truths now, as epiphanies: knowing that it is all inscribed in infinite potential; that we are made to be encircled by love of generations; that as one of my dearest friends told me: “We have everything given to us at the time of our birth;” and that we can use that truth to eradicate our doubt and perception of worthlessness, realizing that in the ever ordered perfection of your arrival there is this little spark that can flicker, yet never fades, and holds the essence of your unfoldment and the journey of your own recognition of how brilliant you are.

And when you are in the places that feel more dark than light - -perhaps leave a little space for an epiphany and trust that the same spark that brought the clarity, brought you and will bring you through.

So Many Gifts — by Hafiz
There are so many gifts
Still unopened from your birthday,
There are so many hand-crafted presents
That have been sent to you by God.

The Beloved does not mind repeating,
“Everything I have is also yours.”

Please forgive Hafiz and the Friend
if we break into sweet laughter
When your heart complains of being thirsty
When ages ago
Every cell in your soul
Capsized forever
Into this infinite golden sea.

Indeed,
a lover’s pain is like holdings one’s breath
Too long
In the middle of a vital performance,

In the middle of one of Creation’s favorites
Songs.

Indeed, a lover’s pain is the sleeping,
This sleeping
When God just rolled over and gave you
Such a big good morning kiss!

There are so many gifts, my dear,
Still unopened from your birthday.
O, there are so many hand-crafted presents
That have been sent to your life
From God.

Let love in

Let’s let ourselves believe again.

In angels. In love. In miracles and coincidence. Let’s let the hands that birthed us, seen and unseen be acknowledged, be real.

When I was younger, my grandmother, Mom-mom, as I call her, as many Philadelphians do, bought me a Christmas tree. It was ceramic and lit up. I was in my twenties.

“There,” she said. “You’ll always have a Christmas tree.”

I loved that tree. The battery went out. It became cumbersome. I wouldn’t throw it out. My Mom-mom gave it to me, and when I looked at it I heard her say: “There, you will always have a Christmas tree.”

This year, I went to pull it out and I had to admit to myself – it was time to let the tree go. I didn’t correlate this until I sat down to write you (as happens when we open ourselves), yet a few weeks later she called and said she had a “pre-Christmas present” for my son, and we had to come pick it up.

As a great mom-mom, lineally and literally she had lined the bag with presents he would enjoy, Snoopy and such, then tucked inside was a beautiful quilt of snowman with chickadees and cardinals.

My grandmother always had the cutest snowman.  “Now, Aaron will always have a snowman,” she said on the phone.

I will hear her say, “There you’ll always have a Christmas tree” every Christmas, in every tree. I don’t have to believe anymore that it is in that one tree, that one form. It is her love of Christmas that helps me see through eyes of faith and love.

So – let the magic find you. The planets are bringing it (happy new moon and may the ever growing light ignite in you for Solstice), the calendar is singing it, and your heart is asking for your permission to let love and magic, faith and joy back in. Let’s not pretend that anything less than love brought us forth  - no matter what our story; and love sustains us - no matter what we see with our physical eyes…for just on the periphery of our perception is Love that holds everything we need, waiting to be let in.

May you let yourself hear the love of your Ancestors,

Kate

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