Phoenix Rising

I was asked recently what my spirit animal was.  It’s something that has come into my peripheral vision lately for reasons I’m not sure I understand and probably am not meant to.  And I was stymied.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t think of one, I simply couldn’t put words to that which fit undeniably. 

I recalled later, when off the spot, that I’d recently taken an online quiz that is all the rage right now with me.  It related specifically to Harry Potter’s patronus but correlated with the spirit animal issue and my patronus was the phoenix.  It’s unclear to me now, really, looking back if I had simply shoved that idea back into the recesses of my memory banks or if I simply couldn’t retrieve it because I was with folks I didn’t well know and couldn’t offer that so flippantly.  There is weight to the idea of the phoenix and all of what it represents.  And while most of the quizzes I take are simply for fun, there is a degree to which many hit home, and this one probably more so than others.  I’ve been in the depth of grief for some time now and riding the waves of that, afraid to simply stand up on the board with my arms out, trusting for balance.  I’ve been knocked down, knocked over, pulled under more times than I can count – what’s to say that this time is the time to stand?  But what is it that makes the phoenix rise from the ashes of what once was, with strength and renewal…and hope?  That’s what I need to stand on again.