{"id":1407,"date":"2013-07-13T13:38:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T20:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myownashram.com\/?p=1407"},"modified":"2013-07-13T13:38:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T20:38:30","slug":"orange-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/awitchsashram\/2013\/07\/13\/orange-alert\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange Alert"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>A post in which I am all kinds of vague and mangle a metaphor about traffic lights.<\/p>\n<p>Some readers might remember that I had a very, very challenging summer last year. This year is only slightly better. Last summer was far too busy and physically and emotionally overwhelming. This summer is far less physically taxing, but is equally emotionally challenging. I am feeling the emotional fall out \u2013 finally \u2013 from the heartbreak of the last twelve months. I am in the middle of excavating old wounds and nasty patterns with my husband. I am reaching out to forge new relationships. It\u2019s all hard, but necessary and rewarding, work.<\/p>\n<p>I privilege relationships above all else. What I am finding this summer is that this may not be wise all the time. I also privilege what I call \u2018the Magic.\u2019 Other people might call it flow, synchronicity, timing, luck, coincidence, or the Current. Once I started really listening and looking for this in my life, I found that strange and beautiful doors began opening. My life took on even more adventure. Obstacles weren\u2019t as large or as stubborn anymore.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1408\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1408\" style=\"width: 256px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/397\/2013\/07\/feu_orange.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1408\" alt=\"By Wazouille, via Wikimedia Commons\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/397\/2013\/07\/feu_orange.jpg\" width=\"256\" height=\"469\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1408\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Wazouille, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So I\u2019m listening and looking even more keenly these days. What I\u2019m seeing is that the work I\u2019m doing personally around my relationships is necessary, but there are no green lights at this time. What I\u2019m seeing is that the areas of my life that I want to be open and moving forward are not. I\u2019m not getting No\u2019s; I\u2019m getting Not Right Now\u2019s, lots of orange lights. I have to wait. My pushing is not helping; it\u2019s only making certain things worse.<\/p>\n<p>All of my relationships are highlighting things I need to work on: patience, trust, being vulnerable, reaching out. Can I trust the Magic? Can I trust my partner? Can I keep showing up with openness and meet my friends where they\u2019re at? Can I trust the people in my life to show up for me and accept me as I am, mess and all? In addition to relationship stuff, my family is house hunting and having next to no luck. Can I trust here too? Can I trust the spell work I\u2019ve done around it? Can I trust the timing will work out?<\/p>\n<p>Everything is about trust for me right now.<\/p>\n<p>As I wrote that last sentence I was flooded with weariness. I don\u2019t <em>trust<\/em> very easily. I don\u2019t think the world is out to get me, but I\u2019m always on point, guards up. I\u2019m always showing up for others, not asking -or expecting- others to show up for me. I\u2019m always working too hard: not to be forgotten, to push things through, to make things happen for myself. I have to let go. I have to trust.<\/p>\n<p>The green lights in my life are all professional. I keep ignoring them, because I privilege other areas of my life. I think it\u2019s a human trait to try to avoid the uncomfortable ares of our selves and our lives and stick to what we\u2019re good at. I am not being allowed that right now. For over a year now I have been offered one excellent opportunity after another. I\u2019ve turned several down. The time is come to stop that and to embrace the Magic where it is. Getting more serious about my personal spiritual practices and my writing involves a healthy dose of trust and vulnerability. It\u2019s not just relationships that require these things.<\/p>\n<p>So this weekend, as one thing after another fails to go according to plan (I\u2019m not in Canada, for one), I realize that I\u2019ve been revving to go at lights that, while not red, are merely at orange. I need to focus on the green lights. Orange lights are temporary. Revving won\u2019t make them turn green any faster.<\/p>\n<p>I have to trust that attending to these green lights will lead to more green lights down the road.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A post in which I am all kinds of vague and mangle a metaphor about traffic lights. Some readers might remember that I had a very, very challenging summer last year. This year is only slightly better. Last summer was far too busy and physically and emotionally overwhelming. This summer is far less physically taxing, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1300,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,32,36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-life","category-magic","category-my-heart","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Orange Alert<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A post in which I am all kinds of vague and mangle a metaphor about traffic lights. Some readers might remember that I had a very, very challenging summer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/awitchsashram\/2013\/07\/13\/orange-alert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Orange Alert\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A post in which I am all kinds of vague and mangle a metaphor about traffic lights. 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