"Crescent Moon Clarity" © 1999   ~ colored marker drawing by Carol E. Fairbanks

"The natural movement of your inner world is toward wholeness, toward your center, and toward reconnection with your sacred self.  Allowing the inner world to reveal itself brings forth teachings, information, and sometimes suggestions and advice within the unfolding story."

                       ~ Jenny Garrison, Imagery in You, Mining for Treasure in Your Inner World

                           Crescent Moon Guidance

The only way that makes sense to move through a challenge, like a life threatening illness, is to view it as an opportunity to grow in awareness.  You find out very quickly just how much courage you have and what your values are, when you're in a survival mode.  You dig down deeply within the core of your inner most self and begin to "mine" the "gold" that you have stored there.  You give full attention to all the inner resources within you that have been waiting there patiently for just this kind of occasion. Through your fear and panic, you begin to see a way through this challenge, not right away, but gradually.  Just at the point, when you are sure you can't handle being afraid one more second, a sudden insight allows you to see the way in which you can. You will read something in a book or hear someone give a talk on the TV or radio,  and suddenly you are filled with a greater understanding of the purpose of your experience. Someone will call you and offer an opportunity that you never previously considered, and your life will open up in an unexpected way.  

I just had gone for my first 10 day yoga teacher training at Kripalu in Massachusetts, and  I was doing well in offering transpersonal art workshops from my Crescent Moon Creative Center.  Since I had retired from teaching public school, life was very good....and that happiness and peace, that often eluded me, seemed to offer itself to me very generously. When I returned from the yoga teacher training,  that happiness was quickly turned into fear and sadness, with a diagnosis of cancer.   I had to cancel my yoga training at Kripalu, and my Crescent Moon workshop schedule came to an abrupt end.

Along with the traditional treatment, I elected to do every kind of alternative therapy that felt right to me.  I did a fast forward training to become a Reiki Master, explored and made use of Louise Hay's healing affirmations in a support group, and created a lot of art, inspired by my inner creative source.  I supplemented my health care by consulting with a naturopath and an Ayurvedic doctor, and completely transformed my diet.  No frozen dinners for me...everything was prepared and cooked fresh and organic.  Self care went from being a "chocolate binge" to a wholesome diet, containing all the nutrients for which my body had been longing for years.  I remember cutting up vegetables in the kitchen, during those first months of change, and feeling totally deprived of life's goodies.  I would never ever enjoy myself ever again! (I can be quite dramatic when I want to!)  

Then the blessings started to come.  My initial yoga training gave me the skills to replace the invasive recovery exercise program, given to me by my doctor, with the wonderful, gentle yoga breathing and postures to help me recover in record time. After about six months of the best self care that my body could possibly imagine, my friend and owner of the Cincinnati Yoga School, Diane, called me and asked if I wanted to teach yoga.  In almost one single flowing movement, I went from being elated to feeling inadequate and defeated.  I told her sadly I thought I couldn't do it.

Diane said to me, "When I first asked you to be a teacher, how did you feel?" In thinking about it, I told her I felt joy and excitement.  She replied to me in a confident tone, "I think you should go with that initial feeling.  It is the one that is closer to your truth."

So, I said "Yes."  Because I had a teaching position, Kripalu also offered me a scholarship to return and finish my yoga teacher training, and I felt I was once again in the "land of the living."

The lessons that I learned, while recovering my sense of "wholeness" during that health challenge, are too numerous to talk about in this blog.  But it is enough to say that my perception of life and my relationship to everyone and everything was altered dramatically.  With new eyes, I saw opportunities that I had never seen before.  I embraced adventure to the extent that I moved across the United States by myself, just because I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone to see further into the depths of who I am.

"Crescent Moon Mystery" © 1999  ~ colored pencil
~ by Carol E. Fairbanks

I learned that things are not always "black and white" and was encouraged to surrender to and respect the mystery that is not visible to me. Just as in the crescent moon, there is a mysterious part in the darkness that I cannot always see.  It is still there and needing to be reckoned with, but because it is sometimes hidden, I need to trust an intuitive guidance that is revealed to me, as I need to know it.  Requiring trust, it is a knowing that goes beyond rational thought, and it defies explanation. And it often comes when it is least expected, like when Diane offered me a teaching position at her yoga school. 

So, as the story of my life continues to unfold, more is revealed to me with each and every experience.  Through the changes and tears, amidst the adventures and laughter, I continue to become more aware of all that I am.  Will I ever learn all there is to know about me?  Can one ever travel to the edge of an infinite starry space?  Not likely.  I will have to be content to be like the crescent moon... partly illuminated and visible... and partly in the mysterious darkness...that unknown territory yet to be explored.