“There is a door in a forest that was not always a forest. The door is no longer a door, not entirely. The structure that held it collapsed some time ago. The door fell along with it and now lies on the ground rather than standing upright. The wood that composed it has rotted. Its hinges have rusted. Someone took its door knob away. The door remembers the time it was complete. When there was a house with a roof and walls and other doors…” -from The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
The Discovery
Walking along the beach one day I came upon this piece of wood in the sand (picture above). I saw it was rugged, worn, sandy and had the feeling of being discarded and long forgotten. As I picked it up, I perceived it tingling, sparking and coming alive and I immediately knew it was a door. It wanted me to take it home so I did. I asked this wood being if it had a story to tell. Over the next few weeks, it met me in my dreams where I stepped through the door and walked into its story.
Through dreams, journeying, tracking, painting the wood and writing, I pieced together the fragments of wisdom and insight I received, and soon the story the wooden door wanted to tell became clear. Its message is for you, for all of us.
This is how it is with nature beings - elements such as trees (and wood pieces), rocks, crystals, pine cones, leaves, shells, wind, water, rainbows (colors), landscapes, animals and more - they are all our teachers and hold powerful medicine for us. When we slow down, breathe, ask and then listen with our senses, they will provide us with information we need to help us move forward in our lives. They help reconnect us to our connection to all things, aiding our healing process in symbolic and mythic ways, clearing our hucha - heavy emotions, stuckness and confusion, giving us a break from the deep medicine work.
Meeting the Door
The first thing the wooden door sent me was a knocking sound. Gentle yet insistent, like it was trying to get my attention. The knock dislodged a memory within me of a book I had read a few years ago named The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Following this lead, I got out the book and re-read the chapter called "A Knock Upon The Memory Of A Door". Within the first few sentences (quoted above) of that chapter, I could sense the magical surrealism that is wound into those words and how when the ordinary world and the non ordinary world become intertwined, a place within stirs and awakens.
There is at first the perception of only one world - the outer world. Then through a slight shift in perception, a door materializes and another world is discovered - the inner world. The door is the magical place between, the place where you stand neither in one world or the other. The knock on the door sounds familiar like a long forgotten memory gently nudging.
When the door is opened and you step within, there is a warm and comforting feeling of home, like you have been there before - and you have, you had just forgotten about the door.
The Story The Wooden Door Shares
You were born knowing. As you arrived into this world, you entered through a door of knowing, holding within you everything that you would need for this life and beyond. Yet as you grew and experienced life, that knowing began to fade, like a veil being drawn over your eyes, leaving only a deeply buried memory of the door.
Growing up in an externally focused and conditioned world, taught many of you to look outside of yourself to find what you need to feel whole and created a thirst within that could never be quenched, a yearning that could never be satisfied - a search for the memory of a door and a deep longing for home. Although the memory fades and appears concealed, the door is always there, whispering echoes of love, patiently waiting for you to discover it once again.
To become curious about the knock upon the door is where healing begins. As the memory of the door begins to emerge, you perceive that the door actually dwells within you. This sacred space is where your door of knowing will crystallize and come into being, where you will embark upon many journeys of self discovery and where you will meet yourself again. It is in this wildly alive inner space where your true nature lives, where that tall drink of water is that nourishes, replenishes and renews you.
As you turn the doorknob and take your first steps to curiously explore your sacred world within, it is here where you will plant the seeds of inner knowing, watering them with awareness and nurturing them as you return home to yourself again and again. This is where your seeds of truth bloom and where you begin to live in the experience of constant awareness of your truth within. As you begin to consciously choose to source from here, you discover the door of knowing and the world within is You!
Experience
I invite you to experience what it feels like for you to open the door to your inner world, step through and come home to yourself.
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