Saturday, June 5th, 2010
I’ve been reading my old journals again, and they are a treasure trove I hadn’t even imagined the vastness of. A note that resonated through me was one I wrote at the very beginning of a road trip I was taking by myself when I was 20. I’d been riding the ferry sitting in my van with the window rolled down looking out over the sunny ocean. I wrote that I was so grateful to be young at heart and free that it scared me. I then wrote, “I am terrified with joy.”
I am going to tell you all now one of the most important things I ever could…never lose your freedom. And when you find that it has been squeezed out of you so slowly and so deftly, day after day in little bits, or in a few hard hits you never feel you recovered from…steal it back. You may need stealth and feist, brains and nerve, but if you do you will get back your heart. You won’t just get it back, for it is in truth always with you…you will get it back whole. Yeah, you’ve got to get in the ring with the things that bind you and bear down on you and you have got to give them hell. You have got to notice the things that are hiding as you drag them unknowingly behind you and quickly fling them off of cliffs. You’ve got to run…hard sometimes, and stop and stand perfectly still at others. You have to find the beat of your own heart again, and focus on it so unwaveringly that you don’t lose its rhythm in your ears once more, like holding a shell to your ear to remember the sound of the ocean.
I thought about what brings me that feeling of freedom now and many things came to mind, but only a few brought that fierce terror of joy and one was riding my bike so fast I feel like I am flying, going through town and to my favorite place at the ocean. That combination is pure fearless freedom to me. There are others but since that one came to mind first I got on my bike yesterday and took off. It was perfect and the ocean soothed my sometimes-weary and long-traveled soul as always…and then, riding more leisurely through town I remembered something. When I was nine or ten I had a bike I really loved and I was allowed to ride around town by myself for as long as I wanted. It was my first feeling of freedom, in that particular way, in my life. I knew that riding through the same town over two decades later it was that same feeling I was remembering.
Yes, we know terror. We feel it in our hearts over so many things. We are steeped in prophecies and economic doom and earth changes and so much more that looms like a dark cloud over the potential horizon. The same horizon that can hold magic and freedom and joy and bliss…but not as many people are talking about that. We find ourselves in the bog of uncertainty and negativity sometimes without even meaning to be there, as we at the same time deal with some of the most intense soul growth we have ever known. It is enough to make anyone absolutely loony and if we aren’t careful we may notice we let ourselves sink into the bog of the potential negativity simply, and ironically, because we at least are familiar with that kind of fear…and it is so much scarier to face the more intense and strange fear that comes up when we imagine the radiant, wild, ecstatic joy that might be coming instead. So yes, we know terror…but terrified with joy? Have we known that feeling?
Take chances! Magic lies in risk! Especially because everything outside of the predictable box is considered risk and there is so much potential there! Love too hard or say something foolish or wear your hair in strange ways or just be strange! We all are. If you decide it is okay with you others will have to agree or move on! And then you will not just be okay with your strangeness, you will fall in love with it and it won’t be strange at all! It will be wondrously and indescribably beautiful! There is so much waiting beyond our fear and our holding back!
And sure, we know ferocity. It seems to lurk under every unturned page…but what happened to the fierceness we burn and yearn and were born with inside? We are wild and powerful animals of immeasurable power and we know it not. Or do we? I will tell you when we know it…when we break free and exercise that wild soul we are. When we fall in love with ourselves and life and therefore the universe itself. And it doesn’t happen simply because we think we should feel it. Should has nothing to do with this at all. It’s all about want and will. It’s all about remembering…in this case what frees you…because only you know…and only you can choose it. It’s not like it takes a lot of time or money. That is a myth we use to keep ourselves bound when we are not yet ready to shake our glorious wings bedecked with the gold of self-knowing and risk it again…flying free. It may take only a few minutes. It may just take a twist in your mind when you are about to go down an old road inside and realize you don’t have to. It may be those moments sitting with the moon or playing with your dogs or watching the sunset even if you have work to do. It may mean letting go of a little of the constriction or control and just damn well saying it like it is sometimes. Or reclaiming something that was once yours and belongs to you still.
For me it just meant a bike ride last night on my second-favorite bike ever, one I got for free, after sunset in a cold breeze with my body feeling broken, and my mind scattering and shattering with the wind on my face. But it was mine. I stole that moment back from anyone or anything that would take it from me. I steal every moment I can. I steal back my thoughts and my feelings when the wave of the “other” comes rushing in to dissolve those sometimes-fragile feeling sand castles within me. I often say that to love yourself makes you a fugitive in these times, still. You are stealing, and you must become very good at it in order to succeed. But just remember that what you are stealing back are parts of your very self. You are stealing the nourishment that would otherwise go to spoils, and we must all learn how to reclaim what we are and what feeds us in a way most people have forgotten we need to be fed. Then we can recover. Then there is enough for all and with love as the basis for all that occurs. For we won’t always be an underground movement of self-lovers, self-knowers, and those who trust themselves and believe in the wild freedom of the soul. It is rising…within each of us. So find the place that you can be free and give it to yourself like the greatest of gifts…as often as you can…and never let it go…and soon we won’t wonder what happened to the elves and the nymphs and the angels…they will all be running free, barefooted among the wildflowers…you and me.
Love, Jennifer
