Lessons For These Times From a Deep Water Leaf

Lessons For These Times From a Deep Water Leaf

Alora says, “I know how disorienting it is to get caught up in a whirlwind and to be tossed, unexpectedly, into a strange new reality. I know from experience how easy it is to get stuck in the Boggy Marsh of Fear. These days, in your world, you may be feeling as I did when I first arrived on Lake Sojourn. But take heart. You are stronger than you know. Challenging times have a way of bringing out the best in people like you.”

Lessons For These Times

From a Deep Water Leaf

  1. When you get swept up in a whirlwind (or virus pandemic), you just have to ride it out. It’s here. It’s happening. Hold on for the ride.
  2. Don’t get stuck in the Boggy Marsh of Fear. Acknowledge your feelings, then learn to harness the wind that can lift you up and out of fear.
  3. You may be in uncharted territory, but you can still set your own course. Approach this like an adventure and find your own unique way forward.
  4. Listen to wise guidance. Be discerning. Trust your own inner knowing.
  5. You get to write your own story – it’s your choice whether you play the part of the villain, the damsel in distress, or the hero of your tale.
  6. Remember always that Love is greater than fear.
  7. Pay attention to your dreams, for they bring guidance and healing.
  8. This can be a time of transformation, for you and for the world. What if we are all about to emerge from nymph form and finally claim our wings?
  9. Face your fears. Go inward. Dive Deep and claim your gifts.
  10. Bring your gifts back to your tribe. Help others.
  11. Changing times may bring grief of things lost. Let yourself grieve. Then learn to let go with grace.
  12. Take the Eagle Eye view. There is so much more to life than this one experience. This, too, shall pass.

~~~

Looking for an uplifting read in these days of social distancing and sheltering in place?

Check out Fallen – The Adventures of a Deep Water Leaf where you can follow Alora as she masters the lessons she just shared with you here and learns to become a Deep Water Leaf.

Order the Special Edition full-color hardback from Amazon or directly from me on my website.

Also available in paperback (with black and white illustrations) and Kindle format.

The Boggy Marsh

The Boggy Marsh

I recently posted this map of Lake Sojourn, the territory in which the story of Fallen unfolds, on my Facebook page and asked people to pick a location they felt drawn to so I could tell them something about the meaning of that place. It turned out to be an engaging post. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, every location but one was chosen.

Nobody, apparently, wants to be in the Boggy Marsh.

Who would? The full name of this place is actually the Boggy Marsh of Fear. It’s a noxious, smelly, sticky place where one can be too easily trampled by beasts or torn up by talons. Nobody in their right mind would CHOOSE to be there.

Except we do. All the time. It seems like most of us, myself included, spend a lot of our time there, stuck in the muck of our inner fears or the fear de jour being fed to us from the constant stream of political and media messaging that permeates our awareness.

Like the leaf characters in Fallen, we wail and moan, we tremble in fear, we voice our outrage while we wait helplessly for the next calamity to strike. We grow numb to it and, as our feet sink deeper and deeper into the mud, we become paralyzed. We lose consciousness and when we lose consciousness, we are no longer in our right minds. We lose our power to choose.

Ah, but there’s opportunity here. Opportunity to name the beasts of fear that plague us, to observe their patterns and habits, to call them out, to stand up to them, to resist. We can help each other out with this. Lift each other up.

The hero of the Boggy Marsh is the one who says, “Enough!” and learns to harness the wind of self-determined action. One by one, we can leave the Boggy Marsh of Fear and set a new course. The map is full of unexplored territory, full of possibility.