Word of the Week - 82

Word of the Week:  LISTEN

If you have become estranged from your intuition, all is not lost.  The first step is to grow and remain quiet, still.  The second is to listen.  The third is to trust the information you receive no matter how unlikely, or even unreliable it seems.  Knowledge greater than ours takes us in directions we would never have chosen.

The prompts are likely subtle.  In my experience, intuition doesn't shriek.  Notions of what to do next may arrive sounding similar to an overheard conversation, or may be the result of simply knowing something unknown a second before.  Among my examples is the suggestion, several years ago as I began my morning at the computer, to "find more writers."  Just that, not how, not where, not why.  So I did.  From that directive, I discovered poets, their blogs, their work, and ways my own writer's voice could become stronger, winnowing down the choice of words I needed for what I had to say.   Those found writers became friends, models, teachers, even an angel who walked me through the poetry she'd studied her whole life.  In one morning, based upon a flash of what I can only call intuition, my world expanded like a new universe being born.

Intuition, I believe, is the Panama Canal, moving us from one level of existence to another.  We are lifted and transferred from ordinary to expanded.  Intuition is not epiphany, not the explosive realization of discovery but something much softer, yet quietly insistent.  It may lead us to epiphanies. to shouts of "eureka" and such.  For me, its gifts, for they certainly are that, are neither noisy nor big, at least in the moment.  In the aftermath of taking the recommended action, I may be aware that it was, in fact, a big deal.  At which point, my normal response is to sit, subdued and at the same time dazed, grateful almost beyond measure.  A sacred gift, indeed.  Thank you.

 

Word of the Week - 25

Word of the Week:  REIMAGINE

Today I declare that imagination is our top and truly kick-ass superpower.  As with other endowments, it may be used for good or ill.  Today I declare it is no longer appropriate to employ imagination to  enlarge or inflate fear or worry, to use it as the magnifying glass that sharpens a focus on our suspected defects, to bend it to our will for the purpose of keeping us frail or tepid or less-than.  We, as Werner Herzog reminded in a recent interview, are able to give success our own definition and we certainly are here to save the world by whatever means possible.  This will involve stealth, humor, beauty, love and patience.

Without being vast and brilliant, saving the world, even a section no larger than a collar button, would be impossible.   Therefore, we must reimagine, redefine what we believe about ourselves and how we fit into this world that needs us at our truest.   Recently I found a quote by writer Paulo Coelho, “Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.” As the loudest voice of disapproval is usually the one in our own heads, that is the first one to ignore.  Sing louder than it shouts.  Make faces and do a silly dance.  Righteous mediocrity can't stand any of that.  And, above all else, throw your arms around every lumpy, battle-scarred, making-it-up-as-you-go-along inch of your brilliant being and squeeze until you can hardly breathe.  Don't let go.  I'm not saying this will be easy.  It may seem impossible, but, as Coelho also said, "Impossible is just an opinion."

In our reimagining, let's imagine this:  that most of what we've been told is wrong or, even more likely, was lies intended to keep us quiet, submissive, to stop us from being troublemakers and siphon our unmistakable coolness out of the tank, leaving us stuck and dispirited.

Empowering words from Lisa Congdon.

I realized this week, in visiting some top-drawer work from artist Lisa Congdon and writer Maria Popova on women who have changed the way we see the world, that it is, at this late date, unlikely that I will be (a) famous or (b) brilliant on the BIG screen.  That does not mean I am not or cannot be brilliant.  The stars come in all sizes.  Brilliant, and successful, by my definition.  Some days all that requires is being alive, reasonably awake and aware that none of us is ordinary, unless we choose to be.  Imagine something brighter, something better, something that makes your heart happy, not lurching along with grim foreboding.  No one has ever known what will come tomorrow.  I imagine it, and we, will be magnificent.