Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006

We are alive. Each breath is different from the next. We learn from repetition, and yet only if what we learn from it is innovation. Then we are not just alive, but we thrive. We thrive on the nutrients of creativity, and it is always there for us, even if we feel we have grown distant from it. The vibrant colors that life lends us to paint with never leave us for good.

Sometimes all that stands between us and returning to a consistently creative and thriving state is risk. I call it elegant risk not because it is perfected by premeditation, but because it organically flows from our souls. Sometimes risk is all that can bridge us back to that organic flow. It is the deepest thing we can trust, though we are taught to distrust it instead.

Maybe it is just the risk of saying or doing something we are afraid of. Sometimes we don’t even know why we are afraid of what we fear. Then we have to ask ourselves what we have to lose. When what we have to gain overrides what we may lose, we enter into risk spontaneously. You see it really is a risk to get up every morning, a risk to step outside the house or stay in it….a risk to speak or stay silent…a risk to move or not to move. It is when we discover the value in risk that we can begin to actually enjoy instead of avoid it.

We don’t want to feel like we have to live on the edge, we want to feel that we can dance on the edge if we would like to…or at least get close enough to see what is beyond the edge. That is when it becomes creative and exciting…that is when it opens entirely new horizons and we find out what risk opens to us rather than remaining in the fear of what it may take from us.

As we know our universe is incalculable and blessedly beyond any measurement. Our only instrument of navigation is the heart, and sometimes risk is what allows us to step just far enough outside our comfort zone to remember its luminous design. Then we can feel the guidance and support we have been sometimes reaching for without feeling, and the sense of rightness that only that kind of revelation can provide. Do what scares you just enough to make it your friend, and then all of your inner world becomes a golden field of potential…and joy.

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

I leapt out of the grocery store the other night right before it closed, and without even realizing it I found myself in a moment full of the senses…the parking lot brought sudden silence and instantly the smell of rain on warm pavement rose up from the streets for the first time this year. Breathing it in deeply as I stood in my tracks, I was again surprised, by the sweetest, warmest, lightest scent of flowers, just for a moment. It was so subtle and profound.

I could have turned and hopped into my car and continued my fast pace home, but instead I walked around the whole parking lot looking for the source of that wonderful smell. This is what it means to stop and smell the flowers. What it really means is to catch ourselves in those little moments where we can draw the nectar from life, and do it. We could live like butterflies, or bees…just looking for the bright spots around us and then drinking them in.

This is not the same as draining something of life force…this is enjoying something deeply, which actually gives to it and strengthens it. Like the bee pollinates the flower. So often we watch the sweet things drift by in our lives like a train that doesn’t seem to stop where we are, or as if we are watching it all through glass. We don’t drink it in. We are too busy taking care of less joyful details, and we have been told that this is what life is about.

What is sweet in your life, in your day, that you could drink in more deeply? Is it spring flowers opening? Is it a relationship, a favorite new tea, a class you enjoy…a good conversation? A complement, a knowing look, a beautiful painting? Writing a poem, a great movie, a baby’s face? A new idea, an ancient memory, an exciting potential?

My beings once told me that it was okay to pan the gold from any situation…that there is always some gold somewhere within all of them, even if sometimes it is just a little…then take just that. They said I didn’t have to fill my pockets with stones to feel alright about taking the gold with me. The gold that you can find in a situation is only for you…whomever else is involved has their own gold and their own choices to make about it.

Check your pockets. Only keep what makes you happy. Pan for gold, drink the nectar, seek out the sweetness and let it be yours.