Committed To Spirit
PART I.
The time is now.
We are moving into a time - individually and collectively - where we can no longer ignore those uncomfortable questions that we have previously had the luxury to push into ignorance.
For our earth - considering what happens when the oil runs out, realizing how unsustainable our behaviors are.
For business - recognizing that current models are also unsustainable and driving us all to near insanity.
And, most importantly, for ourselves. Those ideas of self-awareness, those questions about how we really want to experience our lives. They can no longer be pushed aside to address issues of material wealth and success.
If you are going to real-ize your potential, if we are going to move into the next stage of awareness on a universal level, we must take responsibility on a personal level to be with those questions and live into answers.
Our Fears
I feel hypocritical. I have shared this before. I often hear those dissenting voices, Who am I to speak of facing one's fears and restructuring business and acknowledging dreams when I have the luxury of sitting at home and not being forced to go into a job or workplace? Who am I to tell those who are struggling to embrace the struggle when I feel so at ease with my life (ok, most of the time)?
For so long, those (and other fears) have kept me (and be honest - you too) from living more deeply. They are excuses for not speaking our truths even when our voice shakes, for not doing those things that seem "selfish" or "risky", for not loving each other with reckless abandon.
But all fears stand guard of something they don't want us to discover. Some fears, like that of walking out in front of a speeding car, guard the gates of death. We are wise to heed their warnings.
Other fears simply guard a different path.
Questions often bring awareness, and awareness is the light that blinds the fear as you slip right on past.
So I started questioning. Could I sacrifice all of these worldly goods that we have right now if our income dropped or disappeared? Could I move into a one-bedroom apartment with two kids and still claim satisfaction with my life? Could I pick up a 40 hour/week secretarial job to make ends meet if this was called for?
The answers fascinated me. Yes, yes, and....no. Why? Because I feel committed to spirit.
My Committment
It is an arranged marriage, one that was unified at birth. But it is a union I have grown to accept and one for which I feel grateful.
I am committed to spirit. I am committed to vibrancy, to the space of the unknown, to a life of possibilities. That 40 hr / week job I said I couldn't take? It isn't for the reason you might think (she just doesn't want to work - duh). It's because I know I could do it and do it well...and that it wouldn't challenge or feed that spirit.
I would rather work 80 hrs/ week painting and writing and blogging and, yes, marketing these things -- sharing my passions with the world and stoking the spirit fire -- than do what I know I can do to provide a secure, confident outcome. Knowing there are always things to be done that we may not want to do, I acknowledge that I would rather feel the soothing knowledge of spirit flow through me during those times (being with what is) than the gut-wrenching ache that I'm not living to my full potential.
In that light, I created this painting to honor and celebrate this commitment.
There is space - an openness that even now I want to fill. But within that space is possibility and beauty - just as it is.
Instead of clinging to and hugging my paints and my house and my books and my beliefs I open my arms and release everything into that space. Into simply What Is.
Within this space, this spirit, I feel alive.
Now
There is an urgency I feel in this vibrancy. And increased volume in that which calls to me. You and I, in our recognition of this "something more" to life have a responsibility to respond. To Be,Act in life instead of React to it. (yeah, I love wordplay. sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.)
In my next post I will delve more into this responsibility, this personal call that we must answer. For right now, I am called to my daughter.
Namaste.