The Wanted Freedom
First Gate: Everything we love we will lose
Can manifest as isolation, devastation, acute shattering
Moving into vulnerability opens us to the medicine of being permeable to love.
Second Gate: The places that have not known love
Arises as shame
Inhabiting our adult self opens us to the medicine of compassion.
Third Gate: The sorrows of the world
Appears as despair, overwhelm, hopelessness, holy outrage
Remembering our immutable bond with the world opens us to the medicine of sacred entanglement.
Fourth Gate: What we expected and did not receive
Arises as loneliness, emptiness, reaching for secondary satisfactions (i.e. addictions, over consumption, etc)
The mystery of our deep time lineage and our true inheritance opens us to the medicine of belonging.
Fifth Gate: Ancestral grief
Manifests as confusion, lack of connection, unresolved trauma, disconnection from ancestors
The mystery of transgenerational transmission of courage and an invitation to elderhood opens us to the medicine of wisdom.
Sixth Gate: Grief for harm done
Appears as regret, guilt, shame, and self-blame
Our capacity to wound and be wounded opens us to the medicine of accountability and forgiveness.
Seventh Gate: The gate of trauma
Manifests as hypervigilance, dysregulation, disassociation, and exhaustion
The mystery of the body’s enduring memory and capacity to heal opens us to the medicine of resilience and integration.
From the work of Francis Weller, in his books The Wild Edge of Sorrow and Entering the Healing Ground – Grief, Ritual, and the Soul of the World.
All of the artworks above are by Enrique Martinez-Celaya
Samantha DiRosa 