“That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.” ~ Meredith Monk

Have you ever felt the stirring of change in your bones and in your blood? Have you seen it in your friends and coworkers? That sense of need to shift one’s energies toward something more fulfilling and purposeful?

Although many of us have felt this at one time or another — there are moments when we teeter on the edge of what feels like two opposing forces: our sense of duty and responsibility in contrast to a desire for freedom.

This edge may feel precarious at times; dangerous, and sometimes slippery. It certainly takes a great deal of balance to walk with solid footing. What is it that makes us feel unsteady? What is it that pulls us to one side or the other? How can we know for sure that we are making the right choices? Choices that are aligned to our goals, our purpose?

Questioning is good. It keeps us on track and helps us focus on our goals. When we lose sight of our goals, we forget that our actions have meaning and purpose. We lose clarity. Having clarity and attuning to your goal supports the foundation of our lives. From there, freedom and expansion evolve.

You may notice that when you return to your purpose it’s like returning to the beginning — to the very foundation where integrity of action is most visible. Action moves us forward into the future, and it is, at the core, a beginning, which demands clarity.

Gaining clarity can be challenging, to say the least. We all recognize the importance of concentration, and we know that one pointed vision is more likely to succeed than a mind scattered in many directions.

Remember that clarity thrives in simplicity. It is a sadhana, a discipline. It’s the pathway to samadhi, to God, to enlightenment. In our day-to-day lives and in our efforts to gain recognition, authority, expertise, etc., we must be disciplined and willing to give effort toward remaining clear. Through focused attention and concentration, we increase our potential for reaching our goals. We gain the ability to determine how our lives will unfold.

Perhaps it is time to see our daily efforts to achieve clarity as a spiritual practice. No matter what you are doing — if it is your chosen path — be focused, be clear and steer in one direction. In doing so, you’ll guide your path with intention toward freedom, action, liberation, and the Divine.

Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose – not simply accept – the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one’s words are likely to make on another person.  This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs. Read Full Article Here.

 

Invite the breath of clarity into your being.

Inspiration
As you inhale, intentionally breathe into your brain, mind, and memory with the focus and precision of clarity.

Expiration
As you exhale, feel the softening of your attachments and the opening of perception ~ trust in your ability to know.

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.” ~ Pema Chodron

Although we may not care to admit it, when we take an honest look at life, there is very little we can control, other than our choices and attitudes. Especially the laws of nature. Life is less about trying to make it what we want it to be, and more about navigating what already is: a daily journey of experiences, through both beautiful and rugged landscapes. Since change is the only constant, it serves us well to remember our innate ability to be resilient.

As humans, we are resilient by nature, although sometimes our ability to be flexible is difficult to remember. Instead of surrendering gracefully, naturally, to what is — we engage our egos, wrestle with fear, and exhaust ourselves with a war within.  Imagine, on the other hand, if you woke to life each day in a state of resilience.

Being resilient is about staying open to changes in the moment, regardless of your expectations of what “should” be. It’s about giving up attempts to control, and accepting what is, rather than struggling to achieve what you think you want in reaction to present circumstances. It’s about trusting that life is on your side and working with you to fulfill your dreams. Resilience means you are willing to bend and trust your ability to return to your center, again and again.

Have you ever seen a brilliant flower growing out of a barren stone wall?  Its growth is symbolic.  Of you, of me, and of life.  It isn’t easy, and it’s not supposed to be.  But it can be and is joyful and wondrous.  Join me as I take off my armor, step off the battlefield, and redirect my energy toward resilience this season.

“I haven’t failed, I’ve identified 10,000 ways this hasn’t worked.” ~ Thomas Edison

Shift your reactive impulses with resilient breathing.

Inspiration
By drawing in a breath to the count of seven, allow a deep fluid inhalation to penetrate any stressful or anxious breathing pattern that has arisen. Allow the intake to be active, shifting the body’s automatic impulses through focused relaxation. At the top of the breath, hold for a count of four.

Expiration
Exhale slowly and fully for a count of seven. Feel the shift of your automatic response easing gently into the resilience of the moment. Allow yourself to consciously soften any reactive responses and move toward a state of ease. At the bottom of the breath hold for a count of four.

Poetry is often my language of choice. When I read Walt Whitman, I hear the voice of life.  Enjoy the following selections.

Traveling Souls

Let’s go!  whoever you are come and travel with me!
Traveling with me you find what never tires.

The earth never tires,
The earth rude, silent, incomprehensible at first,
Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things
well envelop’d,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful
than words can tell.

Let’ go! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however
convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter’d this port and however calm these
waters we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we
are permitted to receive it but a little while.

Interweb

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surroundings,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the
spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile
anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somwhere
O my soul.

Do you have commitment phobia?  Lately, I’ve been curious about whether our lack of commitment, as a culture, isn’t so much unwillingness, as it is a lack of clarity. How clear are we about the commitments we make? Do we really understand the purpose of our commitments? Oftentimes, it’s easy to say we’re willing to commit to something, but without understanding why we’re committing, over time, it’s likely our enthusiasm for that commitment will fade.  Although it seems like an overwhelming question at first, if you feel commitments are difficult for you to make, it might be worth taking the time to ask yourself: what is my life’s purpose?

Once a person knows their purpose, most individuals feel a natural urge to commit and take action toward it, but finding that sense of purpose isn’t always easy. Aligning with who we are requires tremendous honesty and self-awareness.  Notice when you put blinders on, why you continue to wear them, and how they drive disconnections to your commitments and purpose. When you are confronted with a situation and seek to identify a course of action, take a moment to ask yourself, is this an act that truly aligns with who I really am? If not, don’t do it! If yes, chances are, you’re in alignment.

This month, I encourage you to write down a list of possibilities that answer the question of your life’s purpose. Write the list, and then narrow it down — again and again. Find a common thread or overall concept that you can reduce to a single word or two and hold that idea. Take time ~ days, weeks, months ~ to contemplate it. Be sure it truly reflects your values and resonates with who you are at the core of your being. If you are truly aligned with your purpose, you should have no problem saying yes.

The spring equinox is a perfect time to begin a new sadhana and answering the questions above should be a practice. Commitment is about saying YES to your purpose. I hope you will choose to engage with the answers you find as a means of committing to your community and those you love– but mostly, as a way of committing to yourself.

To read more about Parker Palmer: community, knowing and spirituality in education, click here.

EXCERPT from Let Your Life Speak

Excerpted from “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation” by Parker J. Palmer. Copyright (c) 2000 by Jossey Bass, Inc., Publishers, a company of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

I was in my early thirties when I began to wake up to questions about my vocation. By all appearances, things were going well, but the soul does not put much stock in appearances. Seeking a path more purposeful than accumulating wealth, holding power, winning at competition, or securing a career, I had started to understand that is indeed possible to live a life other than one’s own. Fearful that I was doing just that, I would snap awake in the middle of the night and stare for long hours at the ceiling.

True self, when violated, will always resist us, sometimes at great cost.

Then I ran across the old Quaker saying, “Let your life speak.” I found these words encouraging, and I thought they meant: “Let the highest truths and values guide you.” I lined up the loftiest ideals I could find and set out to achieve them. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque. But always they were unreal, a distortion of my true self–as must be the case when one lives from the outside in, not the inside out. I had simply found a “noble” way to live a life that was not my own.

Today, some thirty years later, “Let life speak” means something else to me, a meaning faithful both to the ambiguity of those words and to the complexity of my own experience: “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.”

My youthful understanding of “Let your life speak” led me to conjure up the highest values I could imagine and then try to conform my life to them. There may be moments in life when we are so unformed that we need to use values like an exoskeleton to keep us from collapsing. But something is very wrong if such moments recur often in adulthood. Trying to live by an abstract norm, will invariably fail–and may even do great damage.

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

Vocation, the way I was seeking it, becomes an act of will, a grim determination that one’s life will go this way or that whether it wants to or not. If the self is sin-ridden and will bow to truth and goodness only under duress, that approach to vocation makes sense. But if the self seeks not pathology but wholeness, then the willful pursuit of vocation is an act of violence toward ourselves–violence in the name of a vision. True self, when violated, will always resist us, sometimes at great cost, holding our lives in check until we honor its truth

Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what is truly about–quite apart from what I would like it to be about–or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.

That insight is hidden in the word vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin for “voice.” Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

Inspiration
As you inhale, notice where and how the body opens to the breath.  As it opens, feel what commitments you are moving into without resistance.

Expiration
As you exhale, allow yourself to soften through any holding or controlling.  Release into your committed sense of knowing.

Honor the deeply rooted breath of commitment.

“The men who are great live with that which is substantial, they do not stay with that which is superficial. They abide with realities, they remain not with what is showy. The one they discard, the other they hold.”
~ Lao Tzu

As we enter the gateway of winter solstice and the sun is stationary, the universe provides us an opportunity to sit, to listen, and to accept what is true in us today, here and now.  In this stillness, we recognize what is abiding in our lives; where we choose to offer our energy in order to fulfill our dutiful roles and satiate the longings in our souls.

Many of us will desire greater freedom during this transition – a need for more time and space for spiritual practice, family connection, community involvement, or creative expression.  There will be an urge to make changes in our lives to fulfill this need, but remember that change is always constant.  It’s always there. There is no need to drastically shift that which is already in motion.  Instead, focus on gaining clarity on what you are abiding at the moment, what matters most to you right now, what elements of your life you wish to retain, and what might support and give form to the changes that will inevitably come to pass.

Understanding what we value and why we abide it, brings light unto our true passions.  And, when our true passions are revealed, we gain the sense of freedom we seek.  It’s a process that happens within, and will eventually guide the ever-changing world without.

In many senses, life is a labyrinth.  It’s a process of walking many paths, making many choices and following many roads that sometimes seem to lead us nowhere at all.  But, every step we travel is purposeful, even when we meet an end.  Endings are, in fact, a powerful place.  They provide us time to stop, to reflect and to remember what is abiding and authentic in our lives.  Every ending is an opportunity to retrace our steps, and to focus again on what is meaningful.  Each time we arrive at another end, we turn around with more clarity, certainty and honesty than ever before.