This week I’ve been walking with ghosts and miracles.
It’s made me question what I want; a solid Tantrika move.
Let me back up a sec.
We’ve been walking with The Tantrika, the archetype of blooming, attracting, and desire, since May 1st.
When I say “desire”, I don’t mean R-rated smoochy stuff.
It’s more like, “want”.
Like, what do you want for dinner? What do you want to study? What do you want in this life?
That kinda want.
OK, now cue the ghosts.
Because of a website re-design (stay tuned!), I had to travel back in time.
I had to sort through the back end of my website, which is pretty much an archeological dig.
You know the ones where a bespeckled intern pauses, dusty and sweating, then shouts I think
I found something, triggering the team of white linen and khaki clad archeologists to rush over, peer at the discovery in laden silence, then hoot ‘n holler and pour whiskey from a flask.
Discovering evidence of a long-gone civilization is exciting, and it’ll put you in touch with its ghosts.
The “archeological dig” that is my website turned up similar evidence and ghosts.
In 2019, I was a hopeful teacher with a growing school on a small woodland campus.
The archives of my website hold evidence of the classes, rituals, summer camps, and year-long programs I used to offer back then.
Like finding the cook pot that held dinner right before Mt Vesuvius blew, I saw a ritual scheduled for March 24, a spring retreat series, and a summer camp planned for the summer of 2020.
This is what I was cooking right before COVID-19 stopped the whole world in its tracks.
So, I paused to look at my discovery (I think I found something!)
I felt the ghosts of it, the students who would’ve been there, and the “me” that was exciting and cruising right along teaching stuff I loved in the way I loved.
I’d just about forgotten that “me”.
So The Tantrika archetype joined all those ghosts and asked me, hey, do you still wanna do this stuff? Do you still want that life?
So, two things.
First, the lockdown of 2020 is still rippling forward through time and affecting us. To me, it feels like we’re collectively beginning to stop the survival-based pivoting and starting to excavate the abrupt evacuation of life as we knew it.
We’re finding evidence of who we still are, and who we are no longer.
Second, my answer was yes.
Yes, I still wanna be a hopeful teacher with a growing school. Yes, I still wanna offer retreats, rituals, classes, and summer camps at Darkwood.
Yes, I said.
Then The Tantrika smiled that coy smile of hers and said okay then.
OK, now the miracle.
Within a day of declaring my desire to begin offering classes and retreats at Darkwood, I was offering one.
In the course of an hour, the Writer’s Group for Tantrika season went from online to in person and doubled in attendees.
Twenty-four hours after that, I was setting up the apothecary, arranging the altar at the center of our circle, and welcoming the writers back to Darkwood.
It felt good. The ghosts and I were all happy.
So, I’m curious.
Are you in a similar boat?
Are there any pre-pandemic ghosts “wanting” things you still want? Or wanting things you’re done wanting?
Since Beltane and Tantrika season are “across the Wheel” from Samhain and Wisdom Keeper season, the veils are just as thin now as they will be on October 31.
So, sit with those ghosts of the past-you, honor what they wanted; appreciate their wisdom and mourn anything they didn’t get a chance to have.
Then, update.
The Tantrika is also joining you and your ghosts to ask, do you still want this?
Maybe you say yes and pick up where you left off.
Maybe you say no, free up the energy spent wanting that, and walk down a new path wanting something else.
I know people doing both.
We want, not out of discontent, but as a directional tool for evolution, a sculptor’s tools shaping the future.
This is some of the vast wisdom The Tantrika archetype reminds us we have.
It’s important to want.
It’s also important to update your wants.
Both can masterfully sculpt your future.
love and the veils of Beltane,
xo
kv
