Hidden Treasures
Day of Our Dead
The season has officially changed. The air feels different. And over the last few mornings, the hedge along the left side of my back garden is covered in hundreds of beautiful spider webs revealed by the morning mists. These intricate webs are like hidden treasures. They were there before, but only in these misty autumn mornings are they revealed like jewels amidst the deep greens.
And today is Hallowmas followed swiftly by The Day of the Dead, or like I now prefer to call it, The Day of OUR Dead. Traditional people all around the world take a day (or 5) each year to simply honor their family’s and community’s dead. These are simple, powerful, fun and important rites in cultures that are not death phobic like much of the “modern” world of forgetting. And I am here, on Halloween eve, honoring MY dead. I am so grateful for the wealth these folks have given me, and I thank them for their unique gifts and for being in my cells still. I honor my father for his passion and tremendous courage that he instilled also in me. I honor my friend Nigel who inspired in me a special brand of beauty through song. I honor my great grandmother who valued education for women well before her time. And on and on the gratitudes flow. It is deeply comforting and extremely enlivening. It’s a bit like having a party in fact.
It is said that the veil is the thinnest between the worlds on this day of the year. And with that, I feel the access we hold to bridge our lives more fully with the inevitable and beautiful connection our living holds to our dying. This guaranteed death is inspiring. This inevitable death awareness helps, if we let it, to become better people with greater presence.
One way you can be more present and tap into these hidden treasures is to be more real and authentic .You take off some of your masks to reveal hidden treasures. Paradoxically, uncovering the naked truth in our stories and our vulnerability holds some of the deepest richest most beautiful treasures you possess. When you remove some of your masks, you liberate beauty. Your well honed “defense system” served you well when you needed it, but now it constricts and hinders your truest expression and vitality. It seems like a paradox, but it is really simply more of inclusiveness. If you want to be free, you have to be willing to be true and perfectly imperfectly real.
In living with the FACT you and we all WILL die, guaranteed, you are liberated to stop waiting… for what would be, should be, could be… and become free to be here now as you are. The vitality that this holds is vast and easy to underestimate. Hidden Treasures again.
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy – the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
-Brene Brown
With the deconstruction of your stories, you are able to remember/reclaim/reveal what is true. Hidden Treasures, like gold and diamonds, are found just beneath the mask.
What are your hidden treasures you are willing to reveal this Hallowmas?