A couple of years ago I was given a spirit name from an incredibly powerful Shaman who I have the greatest respect for. I wasn’t sure what I would get and knew that no matter what I must accept it with gratitude and honor. I was secretly worried it would be something like Crazy Fire Head or Stubborn Bull, but when she blessed me with the name Stargazer it rang true to my whole being and somehow confirmed a sense of myself that was longing to be recognized and remembered.
In my last post I wrote briefly about my childhood love of the moon and how my relationship to the moon has continued to unfold into the beautiful practice of living in balance, and with intention and ceremony throughout my adult life. Despite my admiration for the moon, I extend even greater curiosity to the keepers of the moon; the blanket of stars and space wrapping it securely in the arms of the universe. Since as long as I can remember I have been a Stargazer, contemplating, asking, watching and wondering about the Great Mystery.
I must have been about 9 or 10 when I was really exploring the concepts of stars and space. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the universe has no end, that it is infinite, that we, humans and our Earthly friends are but a tiny, little blip on a vast, never-ending map of Great Mysteries. I would think about the space between the stars, planets and moons. I would think about the space between me and someone in Australia, the space between the mountains and me. Eventually, I started to contemplate my inner space recognizing that there was space between my cells, bones, mind and breath. I discovered that it is the blanket of stars within my own essence that I must gaze into to find my spiritual understanding of the world and myself.
I also discovered that the space beyond me is really the same as the space within me. The farthest part of the universe is the same place as the deepest spaces within my own being! If the universe outside of myself is infinite and holds everything, all possibility, then inevitably, so too does the space within me. How amazing that within our Self we hold the power of everything. One might perceive space as the nothing, void or empty, but it is within the nothing that everything exists. I then began to see the power of space, the indefinable ‘essence’ that binds all things, it is the space between that brings cohesion and oneness, it is the space between where inspiration, wisdom and possibility are born.
I share this story as we enter the New Year because I feel that this is a time when we must be willing to create, respect and sit with space and the deeper contemplation it provides. In the last few weeks we have celebrated some major holidays, survived the end of the world, honored the Winter Solstice, a Final Full moon and the turn of a new year. How many different intentions have you had? How many changes are expecting to make? Are you going from one big thing to another and not genuinely devoting a substantial amount of time truly honoring what these events symbolize? The disconnected world tends to rush through one event to another, we want drive through spirituality and instant gratification for our intentions and if we don’t get our fix we move on to something else.
Remember that we are still in the season of quiet and stillness and our modern culture tends to demand a lot of action in regards to our ‘resolutions’. We have to change this and find that, fix, build, do, do, do, go, go, go. I say, keep sitting, keep pondering and keep creating space within yourself. Trust that possibility rises not just from willing it, but from creating the space for it to naturally emerge. The more space you reveal, the more possibility you will have. I invite you to recognize the things that no longer serve and let them go (we did that with the solstice and full moon), and rather than fill that space with something else, just leave it to the great nothing and see what the Mystery will provide.
The space within me, honors the same space within you,
Robin Afinowich
