Do you ever take inventory of your life? To me, it's like cleaning. We sweep out from under the bed, clean out the closets, dust off the shelves, fix the leak and the squeak in the door and take a good look at all the junk we've swept up. It's been that kind of day here at Mountain Jewel. We've been asking the powerful question, what's all the stuff that we've been ignoring or avoiding?
Life can be incredibly overwhelming and this can lead us to run as far away as possible from that which overwhelms. Distractions are easy to find and can range from mindless and trivial to legitimately self destructive. In the end, we have the option to continue ignoring what is ours to do or to face it. As Toko-pa Turner says,
Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own.
I've definitely been a person who has run from life or just continually runs around, always off to the "next (best) thing"- I've left communities, friendships, jobs, and more. This homestead business, to quote a Diane Cluck song, Sara, "Pins my tail down." I'm invested. I'm tied up. I'm all in.
I can't just leave and when things get hard, I can't run for long.
And furthermore, I'm not only called to not leave, I'm called to continually tend, care, invest and love.
I have occasionally pulled a card in one of my favorite tarots, The Medicine Woman Tarot, that says,
"Your heart has found its home. Put your full energy into all you love here. Hold nothing back. Your heart has reached the heavens and brought them home to rest. Let yourself feel your commitment to a certain place, a certain community. Love can be expressed very particularly. You have a place to found all of your high hopes and dreams.
You are going to "do it" now. Longings no longer take you away to the illusive someone or something better. You have reached a time when you must give your full participation to what is before you. Fix it up; make it into your dream. Everything you need for full spiritual growth is here now. Take stock and dig in." [Ten of Bowls: Your Heart Is Home]
What a joyful message! Yet just knowing this doesn't cut me off from feeling the conflict that Toko-pa talks about in This Too Belongs:
In the end, so much of the conflict we feel in our hearts is because we’ve split ourselves off from the very life we are living. We partition ourselves from the things with which we are at odds, treating them as unbelonging even as we live them. We vaguely imagine some other body, some better career, some other lover – but the irony is that so much of what makes us unhappy is our own rejection of the life we have made. Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own. We must look at it squarely with all its unbecoming qualities and find a way to love it anyway. Only from that complete embrace can a life begin to grow into what it is meant to become.
Life isn't a pie in the sky and it's not always easy. There's some dangerous pseudo-spiritual babble that crossed my path somewhere in my 20s that says, You should be joyful all the time. If you're not, you're out of alignment or out of the divine flow... While I've experienced a lot of this joyful flow, I beg to differ: moments of struggle, hardship or overwhelm, moments where it seems like so much is broken, going wrong or too much is being asked of us are also a valid part of life and we certainly aren't disconnected from God(dess) when we're feeling them. That's some straight up mumbo jumbo that causes people to disown their lives and do something called spiritual bypassing (look it up.)
I'm finding Toko-pa's approach to be much more whole, honest and ultimately empowering, leading us along the path of a rich and complete life,
We must look at it squarely with all its unbecoming qualities and find a way to love it anyway.
When I was in high school, at the library I somehow made my way to Oriah Mountain Dreamer's book "The Invitation"- have you heard of her? Though I was young and still within the shelter of my parent's home and very caught up in the life I was living, her words spoke straight to me. I have been thinking of them lately as I face overwhelm and general resistance to just do the hard things that need to be done.
The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
My soul still feels so much resonance, perhaps even more now, as I did when I first read it. I want to know if you can stand in the fire and not shrink back. We all face trials and tribulations of the soul. We're all given the opportunity to stand in the flames and feel the burn and to keep going. It's up to us to say YES... or to shrink and ignore or hide. To cast off our life. To run in search for something else.
But, at some point, when we are feeling just brave enough, we can turn toward that which we were previously unable to look at, stay put and learn a whole hell of a lot about ourselves and life. And we can especially learn that we are strong enough to face it all. We are resilient. We can do the hard things. We can keep going. Cuz everyone knows the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
