What do you need?

Today is Express Your Needs Day. I found this movement at Evenstar Art and decided I'd play along. The goal is to make a sign and hold it up for what you need. Today (and most days) I'm finding this:

Fortunately, they said your sign doesn't need to be pretty. Won't you play along? If you don't want to make a sign or have time to make one, (because maybe you need to sleep or work or play or something else besides make signs) then feel free to leave your "need" here. I'd love to know!!!!

Door #1, #2 and #3

“All truth is one rarefied yet earthly room, but our awareness often is outside. We need to open a particular door and go through its conditioning chamber, gradually preparing ourselves to be able to see and respond in the subtle, awesome, caressing light of that spacious room.” -- Tilden Edwards

As anyone who’s followed this blog for awhile knows, I’ve been stalked by crows, danced with dolphins and stepped into more than a few foreign lands. Today, I’m here to write about mysterious doors - doors (& gates) that have been intensifying their pursuit of me over the last week.

Sunday while preparing for the Eucharist at Camp Cross women’s retreat, I glanced in the chair I had randomly chosen and picked up a blank mandala left there. Curious, I turned over the page and read this mandala is called “Gates of Death”. It speaks of the stages of my own journey and offered these words:

“You may feel compelled to turn your back on your accomplishments, to forgo security, or to let go of the way things have been, and step through a gateway to a mysterious unknown. This commences a journey downward, into the depths of yourself.”

Oh my... when I read those words I began to laugh as my upcoming pilgrimage to the Sinai Desert came to mind. I showed them to my sis sitting to my left and we giggled like little girls who’d been let in on a wonderful secret. Just in case we’d forgotten there’s a mysterious power greater than all of us… the message came through loud and clear! I will call that Door #1.

Door #2 became boldly apparent yesterday afternoon during a group phone call with my life coach when I volunteered to assist with an exercise. I was called upon to describe the room in my house with which I’m least satisfied. For some “kooky” reason, I chose the closet in my office. As I described its contents – a mess of other people’s stuff I can’t get rid of – some good things I can’t get to – a little window that lets light in, but I can’t access it because the door’s usually closed – Tonya patiently repeated my words, took some notes and then posed the question, “What area of your life might this room represent?” I get chills even now and the words again infuse all the way through my body. “My writing,” I announced without hesitation. Again, Oh My!!

Tonya’s charge to me? Not to start writing, but to physically clean out that closet and see what happens next. Whew... that's what I call a step of faith. So, I have a date with my husband for this afternoon and we’re going to turn on some nice music, roll up our sleeves, maybe even dance a little as we clean behind Door #2.

You know there had to be at least one more. Door #3 peaked in on me yesterday, but I didn’t realize it until this morning. I’ve been working with a few new SoulCollage® cards I made last weekend and one more card insisted on coming into the mix. It’s one that’s been around for awhile, but I haven’t spent much time with it. So… after reading Tilden Edwards quote (above) during my morning quiet time, my mouth dropped open & the giggly feeling rose up when I realized what’s on that card – a woman sitting in front of a huge closed gate/door… And believe me when I say, she has a lot to talk about!!

For now, I'll close with these snapshots of doors 1, 2 and 3. It’s a good thing I’ve spent the summer becoming physically solvent, since it looks like there’s a lot of adventure and mystery waiting to be let into the light. I hope you’ll stick around and journey with me!!

How about you? Any doors in your life beckoning for attention? Are there rooms in your ‘house’ awaiting a face-lift? Me? I’m off to de-clutter and see what happens next!

a very scary door #2
'the gatekeeper' © lucy

Re-gathering

My thoughts are fleeting. I want to write to capture my essence - my soul - the world reflected in my eyes and mirrored in my heart. I love this time of silence today - a time I haven't easily carved out in these full days of summer. In this moment - gentle fan blowing - ipod softly playing - the monks have joined me again. I am a monk in the world. One who finds beauty and calm in the midst of the chaos.

Life continues to throw hard balls and curves. I duck and dodge like a ninja - feet firmly planted while body bends and turns. I want to stay grounded - to be like the ancient Irish tree - reaching into the earth and stretching toward the heavens. The light in my eyes flickers - when I open the door to an unwelcome message - when I rush around and feel cranky with my husband - when I jump up from bed and hurry to the next thing - when I charge out the door to yoga - something feels very wrong about that...

And so, I settle into my blue-flowered cocoon in this light of morning and I dream I am in Bermuda with the ocean breeze flowing across my skin. I am centered and calm - a prayerful stance - floating above the ground yet still fully connected to the Universe. God is with me - around me - within me. Earth uncovered. Soul recovered and reclaimed. It only takes a moment - less than 10; smaller than 5 - to connect - re-find & re-gather. I have come back to center.

I must be nourished and fed. This feeds me. God. Silence. Gratitude. Slowing down. What can I give up for 10 minutes each day? Sleep. E-mail. A rigid schedule. There's always a few minutes for restoration. I need this. I love this. My ritual is my writing. How could I have forgotten that? My writing is my ritual.

And you? Where do you find nourishment? What might you have forgotten? Is there a piece of you you'd like to reclaim or re-gather? It only takes a moment...

per special request - a new photo of aslan - 're-gathering'

To Be or Not to Be

Focus. It seems so funny to me that the word focus would arise with me this morning. As I look back at my morning journal pages, they show little focus (or volume recently). They appear abrupt and interrupted – unfocused. Can they be enough? Can I be enough? Can simply “being” be enough?

The focus of Being. I see it as the tension between allowing things to bubble up – percolate – be what they will be in the moment, AND putting a course into action - following what wants to arise with more steps, through more effort.

For example, I want to write a book (yikes did I just say that?). Will it simply bubble up? Will someone just say, “Here, let me put those unfocused journals into a book for you”? Very unlikely. It takes effort – focus. Will my body get healthy if I just sit around “being” all the time? No, it takes at least a little push to get out and walk, take a class, stretch on my yoga mat.

So, here's where my morning musings landed:

Simply being doesn’t always cut it. Sometimes you have to focus.

Thoughts? Do you experience the tension between being and focusing? To be or not to be - that is the question - today.

Ingredients of Inspiration

Recently I received a comment from a reader who was intrigued to know where I come up with my post entries. The response immediately popped into my head: Life. They come from life.

It’s like a big pot of stew that has grown from being awake to and aware of what is all around me. Adding elements from the smallest raindrop to the most profound quote, pulling from past experience and present moment. Things start to bubble and stir. There is musing and pondering until all of a sudden “pop” and the words fall onto the paper with my hand only an instrument.

It hasn’t always been this way for me. In fact, I have lived most of my life in a pretty structured and linear state. But once I started noticing all that is around me, I couldn’t seem to stop. There is always something to see or hear or experience. I could barely get through my walk the other day, because I was so mesmerized by raindrops. Teeny tiny drops. Millions. Trillions of them lined up along the evergreen branches and the naked limbs of winter. There they sat, just like stories waiting to be told. Which one will drop off the branch and onto the page?

Often times, it is in the writing that the words unfold. "I write to discover what I know." -- Flannery O'Connor. Mysteriously, by putting words onto paper, I find myself connected to something that my body and ancestral mind knows and carries, but my human brain couldn’t quite wrap around.

Being in nature, I know I am part of something greater, and everything down to the tiniest grain of sand or merest drop of water is part of the same thing. And so, instead of pushing the image away or ignoring it all together, I pause and ponder and become aware. I stir it into the pot that is uniquely me. This new ingredient changes who I was only a moment before which can be kind of scary, but I want to know the flavor of right now.

In this moment, I put these words out into the universe, knowing you perhaps will add a word or comment that I hadn’t considered and it will become something new. The ingredients come in a variety of measures. Stirring them in is daring. It's scary. It’s intriguing. It's a bottomless stew of inspiration - with enough to go around for everyone!

What are your ingredients for inspiration?