[The lighthouse at Cape May Point]
Early this morning, before the sun could struggle through the clouds, I was on the beach breathing in the cool breeze of ocean air. Sea gulls were my companions as I looked out to sea. I am feeling happy. Coming to the ocean to celebrate Rosh Hashanah was the best thing I have done for myself in a long time. The new year is quickly becoming a time of healing and renewal. It looks like I might have reached the edge of the exit to the tunnel, and the light is clearly shining.
Yesterday my husband joined me and we went for a swim together in the ocean. The water was still warm enough, and the salty sea washed over us as we splashed, swam and laughed out loud at the joy of it all. "Hey!" We exclaimed, "This is turning into a vacation!"
I love to look in nature for symbols and signs that could have relevance for me. It's part of my spirituality. It's a sort of game I play, because I am not sure that I believe in these things. For example, like finding a Cardinal's feather under foot on a morning walk in my neighborhood in Philadelphia recently. I decided to take it as an auspicious sign. I mean, why not?
In the fall, Cape May Point is a destination for migrating birds and butterflies. So, wherever I go while down here, butterflies are everywhere. Even on the beach. They fly around my head and flutter through the air. They are on bushes and flowers, and flittered around me on my four mile walk through the state park yesterday. I am using them as a symbol for the new freedom I am feeling from the shackles of my past emotional wounds. They remind me of a speech a very dear friend gave at the party for the publication of my first book in the fall of 2003. She compared me to a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, after having come to the states, acquiring three degrees and authoring my first book. At the time, her tribute to me moved me deeply. I placed the photograph of her giving the speech in a small crystal frame on my bookshelf accompanied by a "Willow Tree Angel of Freedom," of a young woman holding up a butterfly with her two hands.
So, going forward, I choose to gather symbols and signs of all these "angels of freedom" fluttering around me as I wander through this charming ocean-side place, and hold them close, as I embark on a new life journey of freedom from past pain, and becoming healed and whole.
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