Every year huge flocks of swifts, a relative of the hummingbird that look more like a swallow, pass through Portland, Oregon in September. They are known to return to the same roosts and since the 1980s have stopped by the chimney of Chapman Elementary in NW Portland on their way through. 

During September they gather every night after sunset like a swarm or tornado and swoop into the chimney for the night. Often up to 2000 people gather to watch on the lawn below. Once they move on, they won’t return until the following September. It is one of nature’s evidences that life marches forward. 

Even though as humans we keep moving forward, or think we’re moving forward, sometimes we leave parts of ourselves stuck in various experiences, unable to migrate through to the next season, as if some of the swifts being left behind in the chimney. 

But just as the swifts wouldn’t leave one of their flock behind, our psyche, our souls, want to resolve the parts of ourselves we’re leaving behind, or haven’t integrated yet.

Though the frequency of forgiveness is often talked about in a moral context, like forgiving something that was wrong, it is nothing so small and is so much grander.

Forgiveness as a frequency is related to the central channel (meridian) of the body. It moves life force through you. Though Jesus, in the Christian scriptures, referred to forgiving seventy times seven, he was not suggesting to set yourself up for the same thing to happen over and over. 

This is often what people have learned to do with forgiveness, like opening their central channel to the same wounds. Or in refusing to forgive, closing themselves off to new life, and new love.

He was referring to our infinite ability to transmute whatever takes place in life into a forward moving energy; to sift the wheat from the chaff; to our capacity to grow brighter, stronger, wiser, happier, more abundant still. 

To do this, to integrate our experiences fully, into the frequency of forgiveness that moves us forward in grander versions of ourselves, wisely closing some doors and bravely opening our hearts to others, takes a lot of courage and a lot of power. 

Simple, unadulterated, vulnerable, wise, power.

“You cannot exercise much power without gratitude; for it is gratitude that keeps you connected with Power.” ~Wallace Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich

Forgiveness and gratitude are closely related. When you start playing with forgiveness, you realize it isn’t a mental exercise that shunts experiences off into the far reaches of your brain and body. It doesn’t work. 

Forgiveness is a vibration. You feel it. In its wake there is no trauma left behind. No shame, ache, regret or resentment. And when it is complete, when you’ve done the work that transmutes your experiences, you feel greater vibrations of gratitude, of bliss, of joy, focus, productivity, generosity, of life force…and power. It becomes a feedback loop of personal power and gratitude for more.

Interestingly, this same central channel of the body is also associated with confidence. We “zip up” this central channel in Donna Eden’s work as a means of filtering appropriate and inappropriate energies, to tune the body to feel confident, vibrant, and ourselves.

Forgiveness, then, like its friend gratitude, is an aspect of authentic power. Power that moves up through you like an artesian well to be expressed as you. Brilliant. Capable. Vibrant. Whole. You, ready to migrate into a new season.

Here’s to more of You in the world, ❤️

Shelley