The Cauldron of Transformation

There are a lot of emotions floating in the ether these days. Deep anger, hate, grief, fear, divisiveness, love, kindness, empathy, compassion, and understanding – all these emotions are swirling around in the cosmos. If you are an empath or even a person on a spiritual path, you are probably feeling all these emotions, sometimes all at once. So, what do you, as a spiritual seeker, do with all this emotional energy?

In a deep conversation with my spiritual director this week, I tried to articulate what seems to be true for me, and perhaps others who are on this journey, especially those who are opening to the call of the Divine Feminine. I have written about this before in this blog (see “Where Opposites Meet,” 11/26/2020). It is a concept that, while not yet fully formed, bears thinking about.

In many traditions, the Divine Feminine is the vessel, the one who holds all emotions, all energies. As one who deeply feels the energies that swirl around me, I sense that I too, am called to be the vessel, the cauldron who holds all the energies while they are being transformed into something new. It is in holding these disparate energies that transformation can take place.

I am called to fully feel all my emotions, not just the pleasant or happy ones. I must feel my anger, my fear, my grief, my sadness, as well as my joy, my happiness, and my connectedness. I must not deny any of my emotions. They must all go into the cauldron of my sacred feminine self (which, by the way, is also a part of men).  

As I fully embrace my emotions, rather than stuffing them or denying them, they soften and change. In that cauldron these energies mix and mingle. They become greater than their individual parts. They are transformed in the stirring and the blending, the reframing, and the loving of all of myself. In that cauldron, fear can change to empathy; hate can turn to love; grief can become compassion. But this transformation can only take place if I allow all my feelings, the good, the bad, and the ugly, to be stirred in the vessel of my deepest self.

In these difficult times, I am coming to believe that spiritual people are called to live with the discomfort of the negativity of the world. We are the vessels that can hold and ultimately transform these swirling, difficult, contradictory energies. As we transform ourselves, we change the world.

It isn’t easy. I was taught to deny and repress any negative energies. In that old paradigm there was no place for doubt or negativity in one’s spiritual life. However, the longer I live, the more I am convinced that denying the negative only makes it more powerful. It is only by fully feeling and accepting those dark emotions as a part of being human, that they can be transformed into something beautiful.

To be the cauldron of transformation is an enormous responsibility and a high calling. If you are feeling the discomfort of the world, perhaps you are being called to be the cauldron, the holder of energies and the one who stirs those energies up into one delicious soup of wholeness and humanity.