10/18/2024
I have sat down to write this message several times. Each time, I get a few words down and almost immediately, they donât feel right or relevant. I think itâs because Iâm not really clear on how I feel right now or perhaps itâs that how I feel is changing at such a rapid rate. As soon as I lock in the wordsâmy emotions have moved on to something else. If how I feel were represented by a game, it would definitely be pinball.
What I do know is that my life changed forever on September 27, 2024. Thatâs the day that Hurricane Helene made her way to Swannanoa, NC. The place that I call home. I donât really want to go into detail about the night of the storm, or my familyâs experience since then but I do want to share that my family and our home survived. Iâm not sure that I would say we are âokâ but I am filled with immense gratitude that I can sayâwe survived. Now, that survival has started to come with deeply intense guilt.
Every time I turn on a light, flush a toilet, make a cup of coffee, sit out on my deck, go to my bookshelves and collect a favorite bookâI feel guilt. Images of the things I saw and continue to see weigh heavily on my heart. The lives lost. The homes lost. The sheer scale of this devastation.
While I experience this daily dance between gratitude and guilt, I keep thinking about the first day I was able to go back to my Reiki studio. As soon as I walked in the door, I noticed the crystals that I had in the windowsill. The sun was shining through the trees and into the window and the rose quartz was absolutely glowing. Rose quartz is a beautiful pink stone of the heart, a crystal of unconditional love. It carries an energy of compassion and peace, tenderness and healing, nourishment and comfort. Rose quartz is a calming and reassuring crystal, excellent for use in trauma or crisis. Itâs also a wonderful stone for comforting grief.
I will take this as a sign. I will hold the yummy goodness of the rose quartz close to me. I will allow myself the space and time to get clearer on how Iâm feeling but in the meantime, will accept and be ok with the not knowing.
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