Even when life is soft and gentle i lean into metaphors. Part of my work is allowing metaphors to rise up to move the receiver - to create new possibilities is part of the alchemy of metaphor. Have a peek here atReframing Your Story if you are curious.
Metaphors are magical and nourishing inhabitants in my inner life. They are best and memorably explained in this, one of my favourite movies... Il Postino.
Anyway i digress
The metaphor i want to lean into today is the metaphor of the kiln.
The potter takes earth. Clay of a specific kind, shaped purposefully by the hands of the artistpo and then that combination of earth and water is exposed to intense fire.
Today i am leaning into the fire part.
The fire hardens the clay, burning out the water, hardening the malleable into a solid mass, holding the shape of that which was worked toward. Holding a purpose and a function.
Life lately has been intense. Hot. Chaotic.
I have felt the burn over and over.
The details are not important because all of us go through fire - over and over and over. Our fires might be tiny hardships or immense rootshaking raisings where everything is flattened and we come out blinking and dusty.
The fire takes us from something malleable and easily changed into something else, something with purpose and function.
It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It doesn't mean that so much has to change in response to the process. It doesn't mean that it is easy.
It means that to walk into our purpose we have to temper. We have to go through a period of burning away. And when we work the process we come out with treasures that last
So the metaphor i am leaning into is the potters kiln.
What metaphor is working you today?