Goodbye Phoenix

Back in the day, I dated a guy in marketing. He was also a musician. That’s what I fell for. The musician. So sexy, right? I’d always thought that I should date a musician…I mean if they write songs about love doesn’t that mean they should get it? Love, I mean. But what this actually means is that I should probably have dated a songwriter…a very successful songwriter. Dating a marketing guy who sings the songs that other people wrote, however, is not anywhere close to the same. Anyway, I digress. At that time in my life, I started to really get into the idea that I was starting over. I was in a place of rebirth. Channeling the phoenix seemed inspired. And I wanted to name my event production company Phoenix Adventures. The marketing guy told me that “phoenix” was trite and overdone. And being who I was then, I listened to him. Do you know how many companies and organizations have claimed the phoenix as their logo since then? Soooo many. Okay, so maybe it was a little overdone. Still. No poetry in this guy. Nice voice. Great guitarist. No poetry.

You see, somewhere along the way, years ago, I learned about the power of words and the energy they carry and I own that now. I learned about affirmations and how the unconscious mind responds to expressions of the positive and present. How the universe responds to our energy. Now, I do my best to speak in the positive and present – for example, “I am well” as opposed to “I don’t get sick”. I no longer use self-deprecating humor. Nobody needs that shit to come true!

Words and their energy have their own magic for me…hence the word…“magic”. I have a whole magic file on Pinterest.

 “Why, the phoenix?” you may ask. In ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology, a story was told of the phoenix, a magical bird symbolizing renewal and rebirth. In the stories, the phoenix lives 500 years and when it is time to leave this earth, it flies to the Temple of the Sun, where it gathers cinnamon twigs and resin and builds a nest of spices. Did you read that? Cinnamon twigs! Then the sun sets the nest on fire where the old phoenix dies, only to be reborn, rising to new bird-life from the ashes.

There is nothing about this story that doesn’t speak to me. The magic, the wings, the flight, the sun, the infinite rebirth has kept me channeling for years. The cinnamon twigs.

As I have gone from one stage of life to the next, rebuilding and reinventing, I have embraced the story of the phoenix, claiming it for my own. New career? Phoenix. Violent break up? Phoenix. New town? Phoenix. My friends have declared the phoenix as my inner guide. I have considered a phoenix tattoo. I have really been into the phoenix. 

Recently, I experienced the loss of my home and my business, due to a wildfire in Colorado. My home did not burn down, but with toxic chemical smoke and water damage throughout, it was uninhabitable. A total loss. At long last, I literally have risen from the ashes. As I was considering this, resonating powerfully with the fact that I was rising yet again, a thought came to me. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the phoenix. For a phoenix to be successful as a phoenix, it purposely must self-destruct in order to rise from the ashes. Have I been asking the universe for the opportunity to rise over and over? Have I been somehow energetically channeling self-destruction simply by resonating with the phoenix? Where attention goes, energy flows. Your wish is my command. Holy shit. What have I done?

And here’s the other thing. What I have also seen more recently – EVERYWHERE –all of these quotes comparing women to the phoenix. We are rising, for sure. Out of ashes, for sure. I mean, what’s not to resonate with? But what is it costing us?

Do we have to self-destruct over-and-fucking-over again?

 Now don’t get me wrong. I love the part of me that has been able to rebuild so many times. With each iteration, I have learned and I have grown. I am more authentically me and have stepped ever more fully into my own power. But, wow, resilience is fucking exhausting. And if I am constantly rebuilding, when do I get to just be? And as I came to that place, that understanding, I decided. I am done with the ashes. No more self-destructive energy for me. I am letting the phoenix go. I won’t lie. Like a lot of myths that keep us in the fairy tale, I enjoyed identifying as the phoenix. A magical, powerful bird that…oh, right…blows itself up. Okay…so. I asked myself, where should I resonate next? Is there another animal I could choose? A lion, maybe? Oh, a wolf?! Awesome! There’s good wolf quotes, too.

 

And here…here is the thing that I’ve come to realize. I don’t need to channel anything else. I resonate with me. I resonate with the woman who has had the resilience and persistence to rebuild and reinvent time and time again. I resonate with the woman who has decided to rewrite her own story so that she is no longer self-destructive. And I resonate with the woman who is ready to step fully into her own sun. The woman who is ready not to be burned up by the sun but to take her power from the sun.

I am grateful for the phoenix, for she has taught me to rise. But more, I am grateful for who I am now. And so now, I will find my inner guide in this woman that I am today.

For this woman, she shines like the sun.