Source: zasu.tumblr.com via Julie on Pinterest

Driving in my car the other morning, scanning the series of turns I have made in recent years, I wonder: am I walking right toward the lion’s den? Here I’ve been, making several turns in my life, hoping—even at times full-heartedly trusting it’s the right turn—thinking perhaps I’ll avoid more suffering and gain more stability, thinking perhaps the ground will look clear and I’ll be on a new path. But, at each turn the road seems to get darker and this is when I wonder am I walking right toward my own destruction?

What if this is true? What if I am indeed walking right toward the lion’s den? If so, what is getting destroyed on the way to the den? What will the lion rip to shreds should I actually go right in to her den? I realize as this journey to, and perhaps in the den goes on, my heart feels like it’s breaking. But, it’s not. It’s actually opening. Expanding. Awakening. The lion, it turns out, is eating the thick flesh surrounding my beating, awakened heart. Not my actual heart.

This is the gift of the lion. Yet, in our minds we create schemes all to avoid this eating. But, the lion will and does have its way. As we avoid her prowess, we walk right into it. And it is not the eating that causes suffering, it is the hesitating, the resisting, the scheming and staying around the periphery of the den that brings the most misery.

But, so many of us have to do this. So many of us, for so long have to stay on the outskirts of this den or maybe even venture far away from it—but, we will all eventually end up in her den, being ravaged by her teeth. Our flesh will be eaten. It is also eaten while we avoid the den. It is eaten while we sit and stare and fear at the den. This slow eating of the flesh, of our small self is what prepares us for the ultimate destruction. The destruction of that small self. We are being prepeared for this encounter—all of us.

As I have moments of this awareness I welcome this and say: let her eat and skin me alive. For, it is the only way to come alive. It is the only way toward true intimacy and union with our higher self. It is the passageway toward truth and as a subscriber on my fan page said in response to my question: Do you ever feel you are walking right toward the lion’s den—? Only those who have the heart of a lion can do it.

It turns out the eating of what surrounds my beating, often aching, but alive heart is what makes me feel less afraid. It turns out the walking toward what will ravage me is my salvation.

Let me say this again: It turns out the walking toward what will ravage me is my salvation.