Pilgrimage Studio

Tag: The Past

  • Today’s Shot 236

    Today’s Shot 236

    by Beth Haley

    I have passed this site in Beaufort, SC many times during my travels for work. Today, instead of wishing that I had time to stop, I made time for a few quiet moments to investigate.

    The Church of Prince William’s Parish, known as Sheldon, was built in the 1740s. It has been burnt twice. First, by the British army in 1779, and again by the Federal army in 1865.

    What you notice first from the road are the pillars.

    They draw you in for a closer look.

    As I entered the grounds, I felt like I was stepping back in time, and that if something could be said at all, it should be done in a hushed tone.

    There is an intriguing play between light and shadow filtering through skeletal remains, ancient branches, and fluttering leaves.

    Graves dating back to the 1700s have survived the years despite being vandalized.

    Sheldon was built on the plantation of the royal governor of South Carolina (1737-38), Col. William Bull, and this altar still remains along with the marker for his grave.

    Sometimes, when you least expect it, a specific moment and space opens up and renders itself so well to an opening of the senses that it is undeniably the right time and right place to step away.

    What do you see?

    What do you feel?

    What do you hear?

    What do you taste?

    What do you smell?

    The Campbell Oak.

    I want to say I’m grounded in this moment.

    And I am. And yet…

    …if one can taste time and age, then I have also stepped into the past where what has been, and what is now, is like the dance between light and shadow: it tastes both bitter and sweet at the same time.

    To mindful moments…

    If a favorite moment in your day had a flavor, what would it taste like?

  • Echoes

    Echoes

    by Thela 🦊 Foxgood

    I’m thankful that this is all we saw of Dorian here. For those who saw so much more of her: we pray the aid and help needed be close at hand.

    Echoes

    I hear the echoes of our voices along the swampy path as I retrace old footprints. The happy dogs are roaming again. The heron stands still for long, long moments; patience turns slowly on its own axis of time. Nothing seems to move fast here. Dragonflies, the size of birds, drift, rather than dart.

    Treasures gathered, I step back through the moss-covered portal once again and return to this present time. Yet, I carry these echoes within me always.

    *****

    Light a candle and sit quietly before it. Focusing on the blue part of the flame, meditate on something that you’ve lost but still carry within your soul. Perhaps it is a person who has passed on, a dream that didn’t bloom, or a hope that was crushed.

    Feel your heart beating with a hundred feelings; with all the feelings that surround this memory.

    Choose one detail that you would like to save. It might be represented by a song or picture, a mannerism, or a favorite book or food. Hold this detail in your heart and looking at the bluish flame, meditate on this gift you carry within you toward a new day dawning.

  • Use your Past

    Use your Past

    by Beth Haley

    In looking at common thinking on the topic of our past, I see the same messages over and over:

    Leave the past behind

    Don’t allow your past to limit your life

    Don’t be controlled by your past

    Don’t allow your past backstory to define you

    Make peace with your past

    Heal your past

    How to move on

    Leave your past in the past

    These are all great, but I was looking for something different. I didn’t know what, but in the middle of this search, I came across a new message I did not expect. Perhaps not new so much as, approaching the topic of our past from a different angle.

    Aditya Jaykumar Iyer says it like this: “Use your circumstances and your childhood memories to your advantage.”

    We can accept the past, heal, and move on. However, we can also use it.

    I have often thought about the memories and circumstances of the past and wondered what it was all about. What was the point? Yet those memories, liked or unliked, make up our story.

    It seems that we often work for a separation from the past to start out new…? We want a divorce from what was. We segregate these memories or these circumstances (the past) and say, “You stay in the trash pile. You don’t benefit me anymore. Or, you never benefitted me at all. All I want to do is move on.”

    But, what do you find when you analyze your life story so far… you might find that many things from the past have prepared you for this exact moment in time… that your voice is needed at this time, because you have something to say that no one else can say. Because there is only one you and no one else has your exact story.

    After all, what is only half a story? If your story started today, you’d lose a lot of the background that made you who you are in the first place. What makes your voice unique? What have been the disadvantages and advantages that make you who you are? Your story, comes from your entire life, not just part of it, not from only the parts that you liked, but from the whole picture.

    In working to move forward and step into new things, its funny, but:

    “Life has a way of bringing us back a full circle.”

    –Aditya Jaykumar Iyer

    When outside influences want you to adhere to the status quo or to a certain standard, what is it about you, that brings you back to your own voice? If you revisit experiences you’ve had, you may find clues that were always there, pointing you in the direction of your path now.

    “A path is not a straight line. It’s a cycle.”

    –Aditya Jaykumar Iyer

    Life has seasons. It changes and grows, twists and turns, but all of your experiences combined is where the depth of your story and the strength of your individual voice comes from.

    Aditya Jaykumar Iyer may have been talking about careers, but I really liked this message applied to the overall topic of “Our Past”.

    Allowing. Acceptance. These are struggle words for me. I always want to resist the things I haven’t liked or don’t like now. But I’m being encouraged more and more to allow and accept and use what was and is, to move forward.

    Your past doesn’t have to be segregated, it can be sourced and used.

    BH2019

    I can also see in this message (allowing it and using it) the true meaning of: Make peace with your past.

    Source:

    Life lessons I’ve learned after doing 300 podcast episodes: Part 1
    by Aditya Jaykumar Iyer

    3209107@pixabay

  • Origami

    Origami

    by Beth Haley

    From this blank square of paper, the zen question, “Who am I?” becomes, “What am I?”

    This seemingly simple art can fold and unfold into many layers of meaning.

    The end result is, not necessarily, as important as the process of creating. If we are mindful throughout this creative endeavor, we may each see something different.

    “All things are given life and form.”

    Religion in Chinese Garments by

    Karl Ludvig Reichelt

    The square is the uncarved block (Pu is a Chinese word meaning “unworked wood”). The Taoist meaning of Pu is: perception without prejudice and without the distinctions of right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, black or white.

    This square of paper is my uncarved block.

    Transformation

    Fold after fold. Crease and un-crease; a new creation is coming into being. Just like we can take the old lines and creases of our life and transform them into something new.

    Memory

    The paper has memory; it remembers its past lines. They are like scars on the soul. They may heal, but once there, those lines remain.

    Self examination

    We can unfold (turn back time), and remember our past. Then, make new creases and story lines to form a new shape, outlook, new picture, or a new present and future.

    Haley 2019