Seed Word
Single word meditations to ignite you.
To encounter a word ~ truly encounter it ~ is a wonder... a joy... possibly a danger. You meet its sound and meaning. You meet its naked energy. And then you're either done for or... you're finally started.
February 2012
Just… be
All this talk about aspirations….
Finding the seedfire inside and helping it to grow.
Makes you feel like you should be dissatisfied with your life if you're not already. Makes you think that you should be up and running. Creating, founding, building. Changing the world… or at least your small corner of it. Doing something.
Not so. Not so.
If that's what we are up to then, in the immortal words of Flannery O'Connor, "To hell with it!"
Our purpose is not to create a sense of discontent in you. That's the cunning work of hucksters and ad men. ("You're a loser and you smell funny and no one will like you, unless you try and buy this magical thing we have and right now you don't.")
But our awakening to a life lived from a deeper level often arrives as a sense of being out-of-center. And if that's what you feel, then so you are. But here's where our path branches away from the voice of the outer world and the ad men and the "motivational" people.
It may seem counterintuitive to you, but we're not directing you out to conquer your personal world to prove your greatness and lovable-ness and indispensible-ness. By touching upon your sense of discontent, we're actually first looking for a way in. And that means walking our way through layers… toward what one writer has called "the white fire of a great mystery."
That great and wonderful mystery is… nothing less than you. And the fire is at your center.
Our work in this series is not to awaken you to a scramble you should be making to prove yourself valuable and unforgettable. It's to awaken you to the sense that is actually generating from a true homing beacon - much truer than the outer world's signals – that exists deep inside you and is signaling for your time and attention.
So, first we took you… just a little ways inside. To the level of what has been called the "subtle" or "energy body." This is the level of your being where you register reactions to life. Like the surface of water, where rain, wind, and all the flotsam and jetsam sloughed off by the passing world stirs and unsettles smoothness. It's where your inner sense of wellbeing and balance meets the outer world's prodding, poking, rankling, needling - and sends the message inside: "You're not okay, and you need to do something about it."
Lest there be confusion: It is important to start collecting your thoughts and directional ideas into notes and, possibly, journal entries. One day, maybe sometime soon, these will sharpen into plans and you'll be ready, really ready, to act on these notions of where you want your life to head. When you're fully focused and fired up.
But you will be making a wrong turn at this point if your response is to get busy and start doing things… right now. With your hair on fire but not your soul.
Unless you take the time and do some deeper exploration you may just become a copy of everyone else… the next so-and-so. A copy. A clone. Not an original.
What we want to help you find and live is… the authentic you… making your contribution to the world.
That's our purpose in this series. To help you get and live there. Out of the center of your life. We hope that's where you want to be and that you'll stay with us.
Seed Word
Single word meditations to ignite you.
To encounter a word ~ truly encounter it ~ is a wonder... a joy... possibly a danger. You meet its sound and meaning. You meet its naked energy. And then you're either done for or... you're finally started.
February 2012
Be
We feel pressured by life. We push back.
We feel like we're "not enough." We work harder, take on more than we can manage.
We feel overwhelmed. We feel anxious, and start to become ill.
We feel annoyed or angry or enraged, and blame other people for putting this work on us, or not carrying their fair share of the load, and making us tired and unhappy and sick and driven. We have given away our self, mind, body and soul, and all our energy, living at race-pace, wearing life like a sweaty, scratchy shirt, enslaved … passing our days and years in a mild insanity we call… living.
But in reality.
There is no place we need to go.
No race to run.
There is nothing we need to do.
No one to make happy or please.
Nothing to become.
What is offered to us is space. Open, open, open and luminous space. And a great, silent welcome to simply…
Be
Laying the Track to Your Future
Part 4 of How to Live Your Fire
Once we find our soul's "pulse" — that is, why our aspiration will give meaning to our lives — it's important to "track" those deep energies that motivate us over time.
Why?
First, deep aspirations can emerge strong and steady when we're dissatisfied with our life or our work. "I've got to get out of this meaningless job and get on with my real calling." But that energy can easily vanish when some surface pleasure, or a reward like a small raise, brightens the world again and distracts us. We are prone to accepting trinkets.
Too, our focus can easily shift from "I've got to change my life," and "I want to live a life of meaning," to "I just want to have a simple, easy and fun time of it."
As a species, we seem to avoid doing any more work than we absolutely have to. (That's just human.) And we know that changing the course of our lives will be work — so why not just squirt an extra dollop of whipped cream on the berries and forget all this live your fire business! Why live life at its peak, when you can live at its ease? (Settling for the quick and easy reward is human, too.)
We can also find that our deepest aspirations seem to shift on us over time.
"Six months ago I was telling myself I wanted to focus on being a painter - I was really excited and confident about that - and now I feel excited about wanting to start my own business. So now I'm leery of moving in any direction, because my motivation keeps changing." We are indeed multi-faceted beings, with many interests that pull at our attention, saying, "Follow me… today anyway…."
The point is that it's easy to get distracted and derailed.
What we need is to find the steady pulse of our deeper energies - the motivations that appear and reappear over time. And we need to let our vision of a new future develop. Here's what we recommend:
A great way to track and steady your focus is to keep a personal aspirations journal.
This need not be a daily journal, one that you feel compelled to write in every sunrise… or feel guilty if you don't. It can be as simple as a dedicated file in your computer or a cheap spiral notebook. Its focus and upkeep can be simple, too:
Start it off by writing down your aspiration… as you understand it right now. And of course, write down its deeper pulse as you understand it… why living out your aspiration will give meaning and purpose to your life.
"Visit" your journal whenever the motivational energy arises… whether that's daily, weekly, monthly, or just occasionally. Obviously, the more often you "check in" the better, but don't force it. There will come a time when you will want to engage the force of will and take steps… but not just yet.
Strengthen your energy whenever you journal by answering questions like:
Will I need training to do or achieve this?
Can I do this solo or will I need to be part of a team?
How will I begin - what's my first step?
When will I start?
Who will this help or benefit? What will my personal contribution be?
The more concrete details we think through, the more we lift our aspirations out of "dreaming" stage and prepare to move them into lived reality.
And mostly, let your aspiration and its core pulse continue to emerge… or even to shift a bit over time.
Just as your eyes need time to focus when you emerge from darkness into light, the eye of the soul may need time to focus on what you need to do and why it's important to you, before it adjusts into clarity. If you track even your shifting aspirations, a solid direction will emerge in time.
Finally….
Journaling is a way we can allow ourselves to live into our aspirations before we start to actually work them out. It can help us to steady and strengthen not only our vision but our confidence and our determination - two important character allies every one of us needs.
Consider starting your aspiration journal today… and you will find that it helps you lay the track that will soon lead to living your life at its peak.
Getting Down to Bliss
Part 3 of How to Live Your Fire
Previously, we set aside time to search for inner fires that were once important to us.
What we find, given time and space, is that the seedfires of our original, authentic self are still there — like embers that haven't gone out even though the debris of our busy and distracting lives has settled over them.
Whenever you allow open space for reflection… what flickers to life in those undistracted moments?
Pieces of melody that seem to want be to sung or recorded? Story fragments, or even full-blown book ideas?
Maybe… images that want to be sketched. Designs to be realized. Shapes to be rendered. Structures that need to be built.
Or do "engines of change or industry" emerge - visions of an organization that can help, develop, support, train?
Let's say your 30-minute investment has allowed images of yourself doing something vital to emerge. We're getting somewhere. Take a bit more time to go deeper, from what you'd like to do why it would give you satisfaction.
Visit your dream again. Imagine you are outside yourself, watching yourself live your dream. See your imaginary self going through the motions - and then shift your awareness from this image that's front and center before you to what's going on in the back of your mind… or down in your heart, where awareness of our deeper connections resides. Take time to finish the statement: "I would feel deep satisfaction from…"
… writing words to create vivid and delightful pictures in people's heads… take them on an imaginary journey, adventure, or resolve a mystery… make their pulse rush… open them to perspective, insight, inspiration, wisdom… convince them of a viewpoint… clear misunderstandings and ground people in reality… make an important shift in their life.
… developing cash-flows that help build lives and opportunities.
… transferring a skill and observing people develop a competency.
… creating music that makes people move and dance... experience the transcendent… makes statements about life, living… shapes sounds into new melodies.
… refining or overhauling a system to smooth the way an organization runs.
… developing guidelines to help people function in an orderly way.
… inventing a device, or improving one that already exists.
… leading a group through challenges to ground-breaking achievements.
If we allow ourselves to move to this level and encounter our inner energies, we can feel the motivating force that pulses within the images of our dreams. We find that we like to invent, instruct, entertain and delight, create new shapes with sound or color or materials or organizations, improve life or living conditions, provide stability or means of livelihood….
We need to reach this level of self-awareness to keep from job- or career-hopping… skimming the surface of "the job world" and merely moving from dissatisfaction to dissatisfaction.
What we are feeling for — the way a doctor feels for a pulse — is both our passion and how we can express that passion in solid reality. Ultimately, it is your purpose, your reason for being here. It is the path of your own fire.
To find this path, and to venture out and live it, is the difference between being on a treadmill going nowhere and exploring your life's true journey. It is to find the adventure, joy and mystery of deepening and opening… toward the fully realized you.
Who's Got Time to Sit and Dream?
Part 2 of How to Live Your Fire
You do.
Today alone, you have 1,440 minutes. In a given year you have 128,400 minutes.
Consider each minute to be a gold coin that you get to spend as you choose. Too often, we have made choices about how we spend our time - minutes, hours… and years - without really knowing what we need to be doing to live a life of deep fulfillment.
The truth is, many of us wake up to the fact that we are bored or deeply unsatisfied after we're firmly entrenched in a life we believe we cannot change. But that belief is founded in an illusion. Granted, it's a pretty convincing illusion, and it traps us right where we are. We believe that undoing or changing our choices, even minor ones, will trigger something catastrophic.
It's true that changing the track of our lives may cost us, not only time to dream and find our true aspirations, but actual work - in terms of planning, making changes, possibly getting some training, moving, looking for a new job, building a new business. But what is worth more — protecting your "comfort" (or is it "discomfort"?) or "living your fire"?
In Part 1 of this series, we encouraged you to take just 30 minutes — like 30 gold coins in your possession — and invest them in your life.
Invest the time.
If it's not clear what your most important drive or aspiration is, think back to an earlier time. It may be that the exuberant pulse of life that once excited you was dulled by the censoring and undermining words of an authority figure. ("You can't be a musician. No one in this family is going to be a bohemian.") Or by dire warnings that induced fear. ("Surely you don't want to give your life to helping people — you'll starve.")
It is time to claim your own life and your own authentic adulthood by rebelling against "authoritative" voices that failed to recognize or affirm your life energies and that would have helped you emerge and become your authentic self. Without a little healthy rebellion, each of us is doomed.
Grab a pen and paper and complete this statement:
There was a time when I loved to ____________________________________________.
Let her rip !
As David Whyte has written:
At the center of this life
there is a man I want to know…
[who] wants to become real again.*
The question is not: 'Do I have the time to sit and explore my dreams and aspirations?' The question is: 'If the authentic life I could be living is at stake, can I afford not to?'
* from This Life
How Strong is Your "Pulse"?
Part 1 of How to Live Your Fire
Like the pulse of an ember, you can feel the energy of your personal aspirations.
For some of us that living pulse feels like frustration, and maybe a bit of fear. We plan to start the new project… but fear that we don't have the know-how.
For others it feels like envy, maybe even depression. We see other people living passionately - the way we want to live — but feel stuck or thwarted in some way.
Or maybe that pulse is strong, ready to break out into a living fire: You — on Life.
Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, called that pulse in each of us the life-throb of ages, dancing in [our] blood*….
It's the seedfire of life, a sort of spiritual DNA, coded not only with our physical characteristics but our personal aspiration as well. To live from this level is to reach our highest sense of fulfillment.
Live Your Fire is dedicated to helping you find, plan, and develop your personal aspirations into reality. How do you begin? Here are some simple suggestions:
First, be clear.
Often, life's demands and distractions have sifted in like dust over that live ember within. It's not even clear right now what that inner energy is pressing us to be or do; we lost sight of our personal passion a long time ago.
If that's the case, set aside time to be alone and let yourself explore one or both of these questions:
- What is my aspiration? Ask yourself this question several times, on different days. Write down any answer that comes. Don't censor anything. And don't worry if there are different answers on different days. Lost aspirations coalesce over time.
- Who was I before I let other people tell me what to be? Going back to childhood loves and fascinations is like going back to the last place you remember, say, havingthe car keys that are misplaced.
Remembering loves and interests that life pushed aside, or that you or someone else talked you out of, places your finger back on the energetic pulse of your spirit. You sense who you really are as an evolving human being again. (Don't get hung up on who or what has blocked that evolutionary process. Blame is a trap. Stay with the energy that finding your "pulse" gives you.)
As you look for those strong, deep aspirations, keep in mind that an aspiration is not the same as wishful thinking. "I want to be a famous artist" is a wish, not an aspiration. You have absolutely no control over whether or not you become "famous." None. You do have control over whether or not you take lessons and work at drawing, painting, or sculpting… and become an artist, capturing form and beauty, making statements about your world. That's the seed of fire you can bring to life.
For this reason, an aspiration is far more powerful than wishful thinking. Why?
Because you have the power to make an aspiration happen. You can be the person your spiritual DNA has coded you to be.
First things first. Sit with these questions. 30 minutes a day is a minimal investment in your own life. (If you won't take the time, who's going to?) Be open to whatever the voice inside answers. Look for the seedfire that's within you - the part you can nurture into being.
Begin to tell yourself, "I can be the person I aspire to be."
Then post your answer on Ascent's Aspirations page, as a first step toward living in a new direction.
* Stream of Life
Seed Word
Single word meditations to ignite you.
To encounter a word ~ truly encounter it ~ is a wonder... a joy... possibly a danger. You meet its sound and meaning. You meet its naked energy. And then you're either done for or... you're finally started.
January 2012
Excite
Excite(ment) means "to experience a rising of the energies." Think of the hydrokinetic power of water pushing up through a rocky break in the ground. When it reaches the rim it spills or gushes, and something beautiful and life-bringing happens.
As 2012 approaches, what excites you? What do you want to do in the year ahead?
Many of us experience a rising excitement about a new creative idea. We hear ourselves gushing, "I'm going to "write"... "paint"... "start a business"... or "lose weight and get fit." We want other people to witness and affirm our potential: "That's a great idea!"
But then... the energy sinks. The aspiration vanishes. For various reasons the idea that excites us today subsides and, like subterranean waters, sinks back into hidden channels.
How many times have we done this - brought up an idea to friends or family, only to allow its energy to die down again? Or do we just hold it inside, because we know ourselves too well?
What holds us back is... myriad "reasons." What is it that backs you down?
"Not enough money"... "Too little time"... "I need to do more research"... "I need to be sure my work is perfect, or at least better, before I show it to anyone"... "I need a guarantee that this is going to pay off"... "Someone else's needs come first." After the excitement... we talk ourselves out of it.
The truth is, beneath our logical "reasons" lies the real energy that works against every creative emergence ~ a virulent, countervailing force that arises and backs us down.
Fear is the force that resists and kills creativity. Fear is an insatiable cavern that sucks our ideas and energies back inside. We feel safe. But that's because we don't recognize what's actually at risk: Our lives.
Every time we deny the life energy that wants to express itself through us, we miss out on our own true life.
And later, when others ask, "What happened to that great idea?" we offer our "reasons". Somehow we know that every one is a cover. We know we lost out to fear's resistance. We don't want to face the truth that what we're creating is a riskless life of non-creation.
Those who do allow the idea to surface and ~ in the mix of fear and thrill that occurs when we blaze a new trail ~ the creative idea cuts a pathway into our life. We make the time. The money comes (actually, it's already there, we were spending it on other things.) Learning a new skill (and feeling the vulnerability of the learner) is not as bad as we thought it would be. We like having our ego challenged and remade, because we experience ourselves becoming as great as our ideas.
In 2012, aspire to live in the direction of your excitement. Where does the current of your idea or dream want to carry you? Today, face your inner resistance - whatever fear is holding you back - by imagining the possibility of a new, creative, excited you.
Let the word "excite" drop from your head down into your whole body. Let your life energy rise, spill out, and blaze a new course before you.
Be excited.
Seed Word
Single word meditations to ignite you.
To encounter a word ~ truly encounter it ~ is a wonder... a joy... possibly a danger. You meet its sound and meaning. You meet its naked energy. And then you're either done for or... you're finally started.
December 2011
Explore.
Take a little time... soon... maybe later today or this weekend... to find free space and journal about the habits, small and great, that define your life right now. See your life -- each day, week, month, year -- as it is, with its comfortable streambed of habits and traditions. This is the sleek, set track through which the silver current of your spirit now flows, unconscious as a lovely stream.
What would happen if the stream one fine or not-so-fine Winter day understood that it was time ~ and maybe past time ~ to edge out of its banks... just a little? What if the first gentle, silver finger of water began to find its way in a new direction?
What would it encounter? ~ an obstacle? a sudden, surprising plunge? a buffering mound and a redirection?
Maybe all of these.
But as the Tao brilliantly counsels: "Soft water flows around hard rock. Who wins?"
Along with resistances, surprises, switches, the silver exploration would also encounter... its own inner force... determination... ability to dissolve and transmute and carry in its silver depths whatever meets it ... and continue to flow.
Eventually, the exploration would create a new channel... growing deeper still with each passing day, week, year... noisy with the ruck of the current and waterclatter of its own energy ... moving on and on in its own new and true course.
Place the word "explore" on the altar of your mind. From there, carry it like a burning torch down into your heart, your whole being. Offer it to God, the Universe... offer it to your self and your one true Life.
Be an exploration.
