Create!

March 6

I got my spiritual fix this morning from my facebook memories feed. Funny memes about tacos being antidepressants (It’s true! I had tacos a couple of nights ago and felt immediately uplifted!) and reminders to focus on building the new and to go out into the world and do magical shit.

I’m thinking of some quotes today that always inspire me.

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud.” Shauna Niequist.

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and crazy life?” Mary Oliver.

“All we really want to do is dance.” Joseph Campbell

“Living your calling is the courageous path of disregarding facts, statistics, and the past.” Tama Kieves

Can I just say I love my Kindle? All my books, at my fingertips, in one little device that fits nicely on my lap. I found all these quotes in the space of about five minutes.

I digress. Or, maybe not. Because having a kindle and immediate access to all the yummy stuff I’ve read and highlighted and being able to copy and paste those quotes? Simple things that make life worthwhile. In the words of someone I met in a coffee shop just last week, it is the simple things that make life most enjoyable.

Quotes like the ones I shared with you set me back on track. What is on track for me may be different than what is on track for you. For me, on track means living in joy. It means, in the words of someone who spoke them just last night, living with a peaceful heart and a quiet mind.

And yet, there is very real bad, nasty shit happening in this world. Are we to ignore it? No. Not if we are to be responsible citizens. But, as my favorite podcaster Rob Bell says, we must practice discernment between being informed and not feeding the news energetically.

I’ve felt, for over ten years, that the emergence of the TP (temporary president and can I say just how much I love that? Another gift from Rob Bell. Think about what toilet paper does. It cleans up the mess. Of course, we have to throw it away when we are done using it, and it doesn’t leave more mess in its wake, but go with me here okay?) is simply a result our mass consciousness. Something was ready to change. Something was ready to give. There were lots of things that were not working. Of course, there are more things that are not working now but think about this: what if, instead of feeling angry and disempowered and cynical and hopeless about what is going on, we look at it in a different way? What if we recognized this as a new beginning? Yeah, it’s ugly out there. Devastating. Things are being dismantled and it isn’t happening in a nice way.

But when has dismantling ever happened in a nice way? And when have we ever been willing to make the kind of changes necessary to live more successfully? Only after we’ve had huge traumatic messy losses. So we acknowledge the dismantling, do our grief work, and enter the creative process.

This is what we, collectively, must do. We could just be in the beginning stages of a massive creative endeavor here. Lots of messy losses mean there is room for something new. We are the ones to create that new. I don’t know about you, but I do not want white Christian nationalists to create the new and they will if we don’t step up. We are the ones that could be talking with one another, not about the horror of it all, but about possibilities. We get together and talk about what could be. What we want it to be.

Grieve when necessary. Cry and shout and get rid of the anger when necessary. I get rid of the anger by digging. When it snows, I snow shovel. Otherwise I dig in my garden. Each hole dug is a dismantling. Then I fill up that hole with what I want to grow there. Then I nurture that with water and feed.

This is a great metaphor for what is up for us. Stop complaining and plant something new. Brainstorm with others about what it could look like. This is where it begins. Create something new in your minds, then move out into the world and do the next indicated right thing, the thing that comes up as a result of that creative process. We are in the midst of creating something new. Go out into the world and do magical shit.