5th Fire Q4: Quest

5th Fire Q3 asked you to find a conflict that calls for more reflection.

today, your quest is this: take 20 mins to explore the impact of this conflict on your body, and see if you can call in the power of stillness, humor, and equanimity.

follow the steps below or create your own ritual to allow yourself to literally move around the conflict to whatever degree you are able, to gain perspective, to notice how you can use your will to shift the impacts the conflict has on your body. Magic, in fact, has been described as the ability to change consciousness at will…so let’s practice some practical magic!

1. Select an object to represent the conflict. It can simply be a piece of paper on which you write down a few words related to the issue, or it can be something such as a stone or a bowl of water.
2. If you are able, take a seated position facing the object. Keep your eyes in a soft gaze on the object, breathing into your belly and drawing strength from the connection between your body and the earth below.
3. Sit for five minutes or so, allowing all the emotions to flow that come from thinking about this issue — notice how anger feels in your body, resentment, rage, shame, embarrassment, fear…where do these emotions show up? Can you feel them in your back? Your temples? Your shoulders? Do you feel heat, numbness, vibration? Just keep breathing and notice.
4. When you feel connected and aware of the emotions and sensations flowing through you, stand up if you can and move around the object. Allow intuitive movement to happen — do you want to be far away from the object? Do you want to throw punches in the air? Jump up and down, pound your fists, or crumble in tears? Take another five minutes or so to just move and let your body express whatever comes up.
5. After you’ve allowed some body-based expression, slow your movement, and begin walking around the object. Connect again with what the object represents and notice how you feel now in relation to this issue. As you move around it, imagine you are seeing the situation from different angles. What can you notice about the conflict if you look at it with someone else’s eyes, or from a wiser version of yourself, or if you see it taking place in a different time or place or circumstance, or to someone other than yourself? Allow your imagination to explore while staying connected with your body.
6. When you feel ready, sit down again. Breath. Connect with the earth. Say this affirmation out loud to yourself a few times: “I meet hardship with stillness, humor and equanimity.” 
7. For the last five minutes, be still. Get curious about where humor and equanimity live in your body in this moment…from where can you resource a laugh or a smile? Can you feel what humor feels like in your cheeks, your neck, your chest, your belly? From where can you resource a sensation of composure and calm? Can you find it in your feet, your spine, your hips, your eyes, your mouth?
8. When you feel strongly connected to stillness, humor, and equanimity in relation to the object, listen to your intuition about what you need next. Maybe you need to journal, or cry, or to rip up the piece of paper or dump out the bowl of water onto the earth as an act of letting go of your attachment to this issue…YOU will know what you need. Trust your will, and allow yourself to be guided in the closing of this quest.