Dear Friends,

I have been building many fires this winter, and I'm growing accustomed to writing by the crackle of the flames.  Today, I think of the country's inward-drawing energy, and the loss of the familiar that some people are feeling, as they lose jobs, customers, employees, savings.  Many people are having to let go of the old at once--it seems our country is in a "burning down" phase.

This burning down is essential for transformation.  When you burn wood, you rely on the coals of that wood to ignite the next log.  If the wood does not burn, there are no coals.  Without coals, you cannot light the next log and make a fire to warm yourself by.  There must be a burning down.

Trusting in the process is the biggest challenge in the midst of change.  The mind has the tendency to want to cling to the old, the familiar, and to the way we expected things to be in the future.  But trust is deeper than the mind; it is a gut-level clinging to faith despite the fury of the mind's doubts.  If we can trust the letting go, we can open ourselves to transformation and its benefits.

Watching Obama arrive in office, a face of the new, just as our country wallows in the pits of economic turmoil and loss, is an example of coals of the old igniting the fire of the new.  Whether you are for his politics or not, it can't be questioned that he is "new" -- he is an African American, and that in and of itself says, "it's a new day in America."  Centuries of blood, and scars and tears produced by slavery and its aftermath see the glimmers of redemption.  There is deep intelligence in the transformation taking place right now. 

The "burning down" of the old is never easy.  It asks us to understand that life is transformation rather than a static place.  The other night, I was putting my son to bed and noticed the image of the phoenix that hangs above his bed.  Our country collectively--and some of us personally--are in a phase of burning and building the new simultaneously.  In the midst of this, there are glimmers of the phoenix, the mystical bird that rises from its ashes.  Obama may help birth the phoenix for America, but only because individuals, all across our country, trust the process enough to allow the phoenix to rise within.

Blessings of love & the flap of wings,
Cynthia