Thursday, December 7th, 2006
From the farthest reaches of the cosmos the first faint sounds of a vibration can be heard, and not just any vibration but the one we have been waiting for as long as we can remember. It is a vibration of radical change. It may not come the way we expected it to, or look the way we thought it would upon arrival. We must put on the shades that color the world with brilliance in order to see it, for it will not present itself to us in any other way. We must save, salvage, and harvest what aches to sing in us, even if it seems long-silenced, in order to find what is already waiting to answer our prayers.
It doesn’t have to be pretty, in order to shock us with its beauty. If I could give a holiday gift to everyone I know it would be a red wooden box with their soul’s art beating like a heart inside. Sometimes art seems to run away from us, or be swallowed up by galleries and oversized books…but it is just hiding. It is hiding in your purse, in what falls beneath the seat of your car, in the air around you and the empty spaces in shallow conversations. It is waiting everywhere to be noticed and to pounce from its hiding and invade your life with redemption.
Your art is hiding under loss. It is hiding under your greatest failure and surest doubt. It is hiding under what you wish you were and do not think yourself to be. It is a deity waiting to be named by your self-recognition. It is something you always wanted and don’t realize is yours. You can claim it by turning over the rocks of what you most avoid in your life, and by giving up, if that is the last opportunity for surrender. Take it. Grab something out of the ashes of what you lost and breathe the fire of your last breath into it.
When everything has been taken from you, claim the silence left behind and make it your own. From that silence universes of new life and new energy can be born. This is a time of the year for so many of us to reflect and renew. If it seems that opportunities have all run out, take the opportunity to rest, and trust that in resting and reflecting what is meant to open, will. Trust the stillness…it does not mean death, but new life.
Since arriving home from my recent journeys I have found that I am more comfortable with impermanence than I have ever been. I have found that although it is a harbinger of death, it always points the way to its opposite…permanence…and that which never fades, changes, or is ever lost. It points to that which is invulnerable, in whose embrace we can be utterly vulnerable.
It is a special time as we enter this new year while significant energies of change and support are arriving. It is time to think again and re-think what we want to manifest in our lives, how we want to live our lives, how we see ourselves, and what we would like to do from this moment forward. May it come from the depths of the heart, like the ultimate christmas gift to yourself, wrapped in hope and warmth, and stuffed with new dreams. May the light of the new moon of the year fall invisibly upon your every step.
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In the time between these two entries Jennifer and Sebastian experienced an amazing six-week journey to Tibet, India, Nepal, and Thailand. To read the journal of Jennifer’s experiences and see pictures click here.
