As the Days Go By

"When sleeping women wake, mountains move." - Chinese Proverb

As I have been moving through my 21 Day Challenge I have felt an incredible array of emotions. Yesterday I was feeling so unhappy with myself and my ability to follow through with decisions and dreams that I was in the kind of tears that don't feel like they are ever going to stop. After a long talk with Mark, a good sleep and some reflecting, today I am feeling strong again, and back on the road to full dream-chasing recovery.

It's a hard thing - this intention to create change - when you see other people living up to their creative potential you compare yourself to who they are NOW. You don't see the days when they were in floods of tears, or the years when they wrote, "Today I am going to start..." over and over again in their journals. I don't think we share enough of the bumps in the road.

Today I wanted to share a book that has helped me over one big huge bump. I grew up in an interesting brew of religiousness. I've shared before that when I was born we lived at a summer camp. It was sponsored by the United Church. So my earliest spiritual upbringing involved singing about love and peace and friendship while sitting in the woods surrounded by people I loved. When I was a little older I went to church with my family, but spent most services sitting with my Grandfather drawing squiggle-pictures and eating Trident mints. God for me was always a place of love and family. But it was never cool to talk about God in real life, so I never discussed it with anyone.

I've re-written my next paragraph about 47 times now looking for the right words to explain some more about my spiritual leanings but it always comes out wrong. I guess what I want to say is that I was always nervous reading or talking about Religious People's ideas (capital R intentional!) So I kind of hid my own ideas deep deep down. You never know what people are going to come out with or what hornet's nest you are going to disturb when you bring up any sort of divinity talk. It became something I was working out on my own - what I thought, where my place was, what I believed in - and was constantly in a shifting pattern, moving towards what I could live with.

A few weeks ago I discovered "The Red Book" by Sera Beak. I read it in two days and felt a strange mixture of recognition, terror and excitement as I did. When I finished it, I am ashamed to say I put it down, ran away from it, and did lots of other things to keep myself from thinking too much about it. It resonated with me a bit too much. I was terrified of it. But it kept calling me from the bookshelf so I got it out again and started working my way back through it. If you have any interest in magic and spirituality and femininity and divinity and sexuality and colour and inspiration - read. this. book. It takes living juicy to the next level. It's Sparkling 101 for grown-ups, and Creative Inspiration for women (not girls!)

(And if you do get it and want to talk about it with someone - I'd love to!)

"... become a divine exhibitionist. Play more, laugh more, do things that make your spirit roar, that amplify all your senses and encourage others to smile. Love boldly. Make your spirituality brighter, your prayers more colorful, your life more refined and reflective. Not only make the divine see you, but make the divine want to lick your forehead and taste you. After all, it's not enough to merely notice the divinity in the oak tree or gorgeous sunset or in your feelings for your loved ones, or even in the mirror. You have to pray from such an honest and open and raw place in yourself that the divine eagerly wants to kneel at the alter of you."
- Sera Beak "The Red Book" pg 69.