The memory of yesterday is still lingering in my reality.
My skin is still sun-kissed from the hours spent outside. The scent of the sacred fire that burned at the center of the stone circle still lives in my hair. When I close my eyes, I can feel the circle around me—the stones, the land, the people who gathered, and everything we carried into that space.
There are experiences that end when we leave them.
And then there are experiences that continue to move through us long after the physical moment has passed.
Lion’s Gate is still moving through me.
My heart feels free this morning. Not because every question has been answered or every feeling has disappeared, but because of the work that was done yesterday and throughout the weeks that led us there.
I feel peaceful because something within me has found its balance.
I have been thinking about the place Lion’s Gate holds within the larger seasonal journey.
At the Summer Solstice, we explore Spirit.
We turn toward the light of who we are—our truth, our essence, our fullest expression, and the parts of us that are ready to be illuminated. Summer invites us to become visible, to stand within our radiance, and to remember the truth of the soul.
At the Fall Equinox, we will explore the Heart.
We will turn toward our emotions, our feelings, and the wisdom contained within everything we have lived. Fall will invite us to listen deeply, to receive the harvest of our experiences, and to honor what the heart has carried.
Lion’s Gate stands between these two points.
It is the bridge between Spirit and Heart.
It is the place where the truth of the soul meets the emotional reality of being embodied.
It is one thing to recognize our power in Spirit. It is another to hold that power while living inside a human body—with its fears, memories, desires, vulnerabilities, and feelings.
It is one thing for the soul to know.
It is another for the heart to feel safe enough to receive what the soul knows.
This is the work Lion’s Gate asked of us.
Not simply to reach for more power, but to expand our capacity to hold the power already within us.
Not to rise above our humanity, but to allow our soul to enter into a more intimate relationship with it.
Not to abandon our emotions in pursuit of spiritual truth, but to create a place where truth and feeling could finally meet.
Throughout the weeks leading up to Lion’s Gate, we explored what it means to remain with ourselves as more of us becomes available.
We witnessed the places where we had learned to shrink.
We met the fear that can accompany visibility and expansion.
We explored the relationship between power and surrender.
We practiced holding our truth without gripping, forcing, controlling, or abandoning the tender places within us.
And then we gathered.
We entered the stone circle carrying everything the journey had revealed.
At the center of the circle, the sacred fire burned. Around it, we stood as individuals and as a community—each of us meeting our own threshold, yet witnessing one another as we crossed it.
The fire became a place of transformation, but also a place of remembrance.
It reminded me that power does not have to be forceful.
The soul does not have to overpower the heart.
The heart does not have to silence the soul.
True embodiment asks them to exist in relationship.
This morning, I can feel the result of that meeting.
My heart feels freer because it was not asked to become something else. It was allowed to feel.
My soul feels more present because it was not asked to remain somewhere above or beyond my human experience. It was welcomed into my body and into my life.
And I feel at peace because I am no longer asking myself to choose between the truth of my soul and the truth of my heart.
There is room for both.
Perhaps that is the deeper meaning of Lion’s Gate.
It is not simply a moment of spiritual expansion. It is a passage into the capacity required to embody that expansion.
It is the bridge between knowing and feeling.
Between Spirit and Heart.
Between the truth of who we are and our willingness to live that truth while remaining deeply connected to our humanity.
Yesterday, I stood inside that bridge.
Today, its memory remains on my skin, in my hair, in my heart, and in the quiet peace I feel within me.
The fire may no longer be burning at the center of the stone circle, but something it awakened is still burning within me.
Lion’s Gate was the bridge.
And I crossed it more fully into myself.