This past week has been a tumultuous time. As I prepare to teach a program that distills much of what I’ve learned and taught over the past thirty years about how to live a free and sovereign life, the dragons that guard the gates to my inner kingdom have been roaring and lashing their tails in a fine frenzy.

This is the way evolution works, sometimes. Each creative step forward on that winding mountain path to sovereignty and freedom requires us to shed identities, shed fears–to strip away all that weighs on our hearts.

Each step forward calls us to bow and wave kindly to the trolls that sit by the side of the road, chanting their litany of: You can’t do this. Nobody will listen/understand/care. You’ll get a nose-bleed/be eaten by mountain lions/freeze to death. Turn back, they cry, turn back before you fall.

Dear trolls, trying so hard to be good friends, to keep us travelers safe from harm. They are loyal. And notoriously short-sighted. They can’t see much beyond the ends of their noses.

So, to them, that path to freedom that feels so solid under my feet is a blur of what-ifs and yes-buts, of thorn and thistle, precipice and danger.

To them, I say: You and I and this mountain path are made of the same shimmering, vibrating life-force.

As are thorns, thistles, mountain lions, and the clear air of love and freedom that fills my lungs. That sustains all of us. That draws us into the unfolding future. That reminds us, always, of who we really are.

We are made of the same stuff as stars and galaxies. As the earth, the sun, and the tiniest microbe. When we remember this, we draw from the great, universal matrix of life all the nourishment we need. We inhabit our power, our grace, our majesty. We wear-lightly, lightly–the crown that proclaims us queens and kings of our lives.

And we join with all the other sovereign beings of this earth in creating a world that nourishes and supports all of us.

………………………………..

How about you? I’d love to hear about your encounters with dragons and trolls when you begin something new, or start a creative project, or change your life in some way. And I’d also love to hear how you experience your own sovereignty. How you wear your crown.