Summer Solstice 2009~ The Torch that Lights the Way

Today’s entry is a very personal one … today I went to visit my new Vizsla puppy, Helen. I didn’t know who the wonderful breeder was going to match me with, and today marked the 4th time I went out to the country to visit the amazing Vizsla family I have been invited to join. As a child, I was raised with Labrador Retrievers on the farm where I grew up in Chester County, PA., and I thought I was destined to have another Lab, and in fact had been on the path towards finding one again, until a little over two months ago, I found my new Vizsla family on the net and as soon as I saw the website, I knew that theirs was place I wanted to be. When I first contacted the breeder, all of the puppies were spoken for, but then, about a week and a half after our initial conversation, I got the email that changed everything: “I have had some movement on my puppy list, and would you like to come out and visit?”

The course of history changed on that day when I met Rosa and her magical pups and the other amazing dogs there. I was smitten, and destined to be the parent/best friend of one of these elegant, deeply affectionate, wise, intelligent, graceful spirits. My heart swelled.  When I returned home after the first visit, all I could do in my spare time was Youtube every single Vizsla video I could get my hands on– work suffered and deadlines were missed, because every spare moment was spent on Vizsla TV or the breeder’s website, specifically returning every day to “Rosa’s Blog”– the update on the growth of the beautiful puppies– like the image with Helen and “Quail TV” I’ve posted here,  I was under some kind of spell.

After three other visits, each one more wonderful than the last, filled with innocence and exploration and new friendship, I received the breeders in my home this past week and they told me that Helen was going to be my girl. I immediately googled the etymology of the name “Helen,” and what came up was “Sunshine,” “Torch,” and then “Torch that Lights the Path,” or the way … The breeders had named the puppies after their favorite tennis players, Arthur, Johnny Mac, Rafa, Venus, Serena and Helen (Wills Moody). I myself had come up with at least 20 different name choices, but after discovering that Helen meant “Light,” and “Torch,” I knew that Helen was the only name that could be hers.

Today I held Helen in my arms, and the love that we shared was nothing that can be described with words– maybe with dog words and sounds, but suffice it to say that my heart was full and there was a new light in my life. Out of a recent period of darkness and struggle and disappointment, I have, like little Helen, my new sunshine ambassador, have been my own torch that has lit my own path, and I have brought myself to this day, into the clear skies, into the sunlight, into the warmth and the relief— the comfort and peace that can only come from the work that happens deep inside.

Today is a day of celebration.

Today is also my Mother’s birthday and it is with my mother lo these last few months and weeks, these visits out to the puppies that she and I have had the most incredible, life-changing, inspiring, grounding, loving conversations about rediscovering ourselves,  and reclaiming our power, the power of the divine feminine.

The rides out into the verdant green of the country, the healing green that as she likes to say “washes over you,” have been some of the most special and profoundly moving moments of my life to date, and today I give thanks for those moments and I honor her, the woman who gave me life and brought me into the world, someone I cherish and admire for her boundless creativity, endlessly fertile mind and extraordinary ability to love and nurture. My mother is one of these very people who has helped me to step into this new chapter, onto this new path. She, like little Helen, has been one of the torch-bearers who has lit the way.

Today is the Summer Solstice—a day of celebration for the ages,  the celebration of new love and new possibility. It is the honoring of what has brought me to this new place –the people and events and dedication to personal evolution that has brought me to this longest day of the year— to set the fire ablaze, the way they do in Stonehenge, to gather my herbs, my rosemary, thyme, lavender, basil, verveine and St John’s wort, and place them all in a pouch and then at the end of the day, hold the pouch in my two hands and pour the sadness, suffering, disappointment, anger and melancholy that I have experienced from this past year into the pouch to be buried deep into the earth where it can be regenerated and transformed into the new joy, peace, happiness, glowing good health and love I am ushering in.

Today is a day for celebrating the joy of freedom– freedom of the soul from the shackles of the past and all of the wounds– psychic, emotional and physical manifestations, all.

Today is a day to give thanks to the people who shape our lives, and for the epiphanies, the moments of awakening and conscious awareness that set us free from the darkness of the past and help us to see the possibilities for the future that we ourselves have the power to create.

So light a candle, or several, build a bonfire, small or large– any size will do. Gaze deeply into the flames and look into the depths of your heart and soul and ask yourself what you want to let go of, what you want to celebrate and what you want to create!

What do you dream of? What is your heart’s desire? What can you do to set your spirit ablaze? Give thanks for your life and the opportunities it affords you to celebrate yourself and this very special moment in time.

What will be, who will be the torch that lights your way?