A painted portrait of an older man with long grey hair writing with a hawk feather at a woven drum, window light turning into a river of gold.

Only what you take with you

01 The dreamer

Every life is a dream someone is writing.

Tonight, the pen is in your hand.

A young woman walking a patterned street, weighed down by bags that spill clocks, phones and grey threads.

02 The weight

You have carried these so long that you no longer feel the weight.

The calendar. The phone. The old argument. The thing nobody knows.

You carry them because you have always carried them.

A wooden gate under prayer flags between redwoods, a guide in a wide feathered hat beside it, the passage beyond in shadow.

03 The gate

At the edge of the redwoods there is a gate.

“What is in there?”

“Only what you take with you.”

A night jungle of indigo leaves and glowing eyes, a man dragging heavy bags along a faint path of light behind drifting red sparks.

04 The jungle

It is darker than you expected. Keep walking.

The sparks know the way, even when you do not.

You are not walking alone.

An older woman holding a feather staff before a serpent, a jaguar and a grey crowd, all rising out of her opened bags.

05 The struggle

Something rises to meet you. Then another.

You fight what comes for you, because that is what you have always done.

Look closer.

A copper fire bowl in a mossy alcove, creatures dissolving into rising red sparks, an open bag spilling gold light.

06 The recognition

The serpent has your worry in its eyes. The jaguar moves with your temper.

It was never out here. It was what you brought.

Given to the fire, it rises as sparks.

And at the bottom of the bag there is gold. What you hid was not only your fear. It was also your strength.

A swimmer in a crystalline, glowing blue river in full sunlight, rings of light and lotus flowers around them.

07 The river

Lighter now.

The water holds what you no longer need to hold.

You begin as a child, swimming, and you arrive as yourself.

A night ceremony in a round yurt: guides with rattles, sparks rising from the fire, people resting in a circle, an older man playing crystal singing bowls.

08 The circle

Rattles. Fire. The long sound of the bowls.

You are lying in a circle of people who came for the same reason you did.

Nothing is asked of you here but to rest.

It is how we take care of you.

Two figures in wide-brimmed hats on a dawn-gold beach welcoming a traveler home, a faint glowing room in the sky above them.

09 Home

And then, morning.

You come back to your own life as someone you recognize.

Perhaps it was a dream. Perhaps it was your life, or another one, or the one still coming.

When you are ready, write to us. If the answer is not now, that is its own kind of clarity.

With Love and Blessings, Ron & Toni

Write to Spirit House

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