Sometimes I would prefer initially to avoid conflict of any kind. I’ve had this concept of me always being “nice,” and I thought that was a good thing for many years. Lately, in the last several years, however, I have discovered there can be great joy in constructive conflict.
I participate in a few different circles where it is more than acceptable to speak your mind and your heart. In order to be present for each other so that it is a safe environment to open up, it is most preferable to clear out any emotions that might get in the way of being present. So, I have learned some different techniques for getting clear about what I am feeling and where those feelings are coming from, with the ultimate goal being to reduce the charge of them.
In one anger workshop years back I discovered the power of holding space for someone to discharge their anger (even if that anger is directed at me). It can be a very joyous thing, especially when I come away with a deeper understanding how it is ok for me to express feelings like anger too. Yeah!
May your day be filled with Joy!
Growing up I lived in many different places, city and country. We had modern tract homes, lived in Victorians, run-of-the-mill city homes, apartments and out-of-the-way hovels with treehouses. We lived in a tent one summer, and a lean-to another. Our family built a log house from scratch, and we lived many years there without water or electricity.
We moved at least once a year every year of my children, many years we changed residences several times. This had a lot of effect on various aspects of my life, and it really impacted my creative urges. I take great joy from the re-modeling, renovation or creation of a dwelling. I love to make a place my own.
Many times in my life I have dreamed of creating a home from out of the earth, a more roundy, eccentric amorphous earthy green-energy based structure. I’ve seen it in my dreams, visited it in visions, and held that I would actually live there someday. It has much the feel and look of the house built by Simon Dale for his family in Wales. I just look at those photos or photos of the Hobbit homes and I am nostalgic for my dreams.
Several years ago, my good friend Jeralynn bought a place with a bunch of acres on the Consumnes River. She shares many of the same dreams as I when it comes to building practices and being gentle on the earth. I get the great joy of staying in the guest cabin with a cob stove for New Years. Our band, Souls Journey, is going to play and lead a Kiirtan/sing-a-long for whoever shows up to celebrate. Building joy in community.
Adding a new discipline to my schedule sometimes takes a bit. A few days ago, I fell into the pit in the middle of the street (metaphorically). I didn’t even realize it until that evening, when I became aware that I had not drunk any water (or any other liquid) all day, nor had I eaten anything. I didn’t go for the intended walk that I had committed to, and I only managed to get in 5 minutes of painting ( I have committed to 15 minutes per day no matter what) that day too.
I sat at the computer all that time, working at tedious and stressful things, in extreme discomfort and even pain. That is the dysfunctional pit that I used to get stuck in. I learned how to get out of it quite a long time ago, and even started taking a totally “different road” but suddenly this week I discovered that I had sleep-walked right back in there.
I am choosing to look at this setback as a growth challenge. I still have not walked, however I am prodding myself into active consciousness. These little lapses of self -discipline are a gentle reminder to me to open up to guidance – the Muse, higher power, whatever word works for you – because if it’s up to me to manage myself , I get too cerebral and mess things up. I begin to think that it’s up to me to figure it all out, and I literally drive myself crazy. And my art suffers. I can manage my art right into “dead”.
So I have dug myself back out of the pit, again, and I’m trying to find that different road once more.
Golden Fire
Rising up as golden fire
of spirit explodes in joyousness
Awaken oh joy
sparkle my essence
Birthing new ideas
seeds of understanding
Sprout and raise
spreckle the future
• • • •
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