Patience is a virtue.
So I've heard.
I do believe it, but not so much when I most need to experience it. These days of growth are challenging. Mostly I enjoy them. Every now and then I am brainwashed by my thoughts to be under the impression that nothing has changed. How ridiculous. In the midst of the green flourishing of plants, and the wild blooming of flowers, my rational mind dares to declare that nothing is changing. It's all old.
Old thinking, old patterns, old ways of being in the world. I am not under the jurisdiction of all things old. My perception can easily change. My wish for things to change can be realized in this moment. Because things are changing--and for the better, always.
Patience was handed to me today in these two things I heard today from a person who fully recovered from a cancer coma. She was naming things that are truly important in life.
"Love, not fear, keeps you safe. All challenges are gifts."
--Anita Moorjani
Life is ever-changing, ever-shifting. We are moving with the changes and expressing our individual selves along the way. Our old conditioning would have us grasping at any branch or reaching for any quick fix to retain some vestige of control over the flowing current. Our best solution is to let go. While fear is our first and oldest response, it only slows down our process of co-creation and life expression. Over and over, it helps me to be reminded that the present moment is the place of strength, power, calm. Being in each moment with as much presence as we can bring is the ultimate strategy for living a life of full awareness, and full-out authenticity. Each moment is a hand-holding with the Universe. That moment is the place where Truth and Love are transmitted, delivered, and expressed.
"Here is the challenge. Stop. Look. Listen.
Nothing is in the way.
Spontaneously, life is bursting forth."
--Steven Harrison
I have no idea. What's happening in my life. What's on the way. This is the warrior's way. I am on the warrior's path. It is an unsettling feeling. And yet it feels alive. Like I'm on the growing edge of change. I choose to stay in the present moment as much as possible. To know that the work I am doing now is the work I am supposed to be doing. I have a part of me that wants to dart around, searching for some clarity, some idea, some solid direction or certain goal. But that's not the way of the Universe, nor the way of human wisdom seekers on human life paths. I am developing compassion along the way--for myself; for others. This must be the purpose.
"A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This unknowing is part of the adventure."
--Pema Chodron
Moving with the motions and changes of life is like floating on the ocean tides. The tides are huge--they are part of the big picture. And yet the movement is constant, and the water is ever-changing. There is nothing to hold or stop this water's flowing beauty. This is the largest kind of freedom. I am being encouraged in my life to flow with my life's guidance in the same way that waves wash up on the shore. Beautiful, graceful, and life-affirming; also moving as part of the bigger picture. Ultimately, living in this free way allows for the greatest expression of my authentic life. The best things in life are free.
"All good things are wild and free."
--Henry David Thoreau
When you begin to think outside the box, you one day come to understand that there is no box to think outside of. This is the day you realize that you've been living a life of dualities/polarities. And that a life of freedom, love and joy is best lived outside of these human-made containers and constraints. I am discovering these things--especially that joy is the immediate by-product of such an understanding.
Spring light boldly shines--flushing out darkness, cobwebs, and old thinking. Allow this time of spring to stretch you outside--outside of your home and your containers.
"Enlightenment is life without a future, liberation from the pretense of safety.
Without a future, where did the past go?
It is the end of the known, and the endless exploration of the Unknown. It is the end of the struggle to be anybody or get anything.
It is the end of looking for anything.
It is the end of trying to become anything.
It is the end of trying to hold onto anything.
It is the end of trying to make something happen.
What a relief!"
--Scott Morrison
Fed by radiance, I am aware that my inner light is continuing to expand and to push beyond the box that my thinking head wants to keep it in. It's a slow, gentle, mellow process. This is good, since it's more like a seepage than a flash of enlightenment.
Because it's happening slowly I am able to receive it more easily. The small doses allow me to integrate and utilize the larger light. I have greater freedom to open, and to allow love to flow.
"The soul is a candle that will burn away the darkness,
only the glorious duties of love we will have."
--St. John of the Cross
"Your spirit is urging you continually to live with love and compassion...loving your way into the realization of God."
--Meredith L. Young-Sowers
This is a season of Light.
Light that has continued to be provided. Light that has been promised. Light that has come. Light that returns. Light that acknowledges gifts. We are here to live and be and shine that light. Sometimes we feel like our light has been dampened, shadowed, or nearly extinguished. We may feel disconnected from Larger light. No matter how dark our lives may seem, a spark still lives in us. It is our task in life to find that spark and to fan it into a flame.
"Love is a tower of light. Inside, blazing fire."
--Jelaluddin Rumi
