Saturday, September 27, 2008

Daily blog: What do you ache for?

I have seen this question before. Expressed differently with sometimes different answers everyday and other times the same answer everyday.  What do you Ache for? Can you answer this?  How can we do what we love, so that the money can follow, if we do not stop and occasionally ask ourselves this question?  Not just love, because there are many things that I love that I don't really ache for. Like right now for instances, I am sitting in bed, my children are sleeping, I am surrounded by warm comfy white linens, it would be lovely to have someone bring me a nice decaf soy latte from Starbucks and leave with a light thank you kiss, for me to meander around in  my thoughts this am.  Do I ache for this? No, meandering around is fine without the coffee. 

I ache to know that there are fewer children going to bed hungry tonight.  To know that  I have somehow been instrumental in making the world a more compassionate place.  I ache to make things easier for my children.  I know I must sit back and let them fall, fail, deliberate to become the strong, intelligent, compassionate beings that they are meant to be.  I ache to be on the open sea, wind in my hair, arms open wide to the elements, salt water on my lips, the feel of rushing water under my feet and the feeling of wonder, amazement at the magnitude of beauty in the world.  

When I am drawing I ache for the just the right perspective to express what I am seeing to come through my hand.  When I am teaching yoga I reach out for those moments when transformation takes place in a student, the light in the room, my awareness, those little and sometimes big moments of beingness that give thrill, goosebumps that wakes up the kundalini energy and sends a chill up the spine. 

The Buddha taught moderation, the middle path, but he also taught about right livelihood as one of the steps of enlightenment here on earth.  Finding our passions, living a passionate life, uncovering what you ache for, these are the stepping stones to finding ourselves on the journey of life in this spiritually material world.  We may all experience our creative, sexual, spiritual selves differently and that too is one of the wondrous gifts of being human. Find your gifts, through contemplation, search engines, be in nature, they are there waiting to be discovered, re-discovered, brought out of hiding.  There is an old native story that says  "when the individual is getting ready to be born into this world the creator give each person a special gift that is theirs and theirs alone and that they can only use that gift when they have learnt the lessons that they have come here to learn."  Get the lesson.  Move on.  Use your gifts.  

Take the time to journal, blog, draw, paint, build, express your ideas.  Find your medium.  Start with lists, ask yourself the same old questions.  Find what you ache for.  Even if you live to be 85 you only have 4,420 Saturdays.  How many do you have left? What are you going to do with them?

See you on the open seas,
Denise

 One of my all time favourite books for find my way, not just for job hunting but for prioritizing all kinds of things in life.

1 comment:

Dragonquillca said...

Wow, I'm not sure I can express properly how much that post moved me...I have goose bumps.
Not sure if this is what you mean precisely, but I ache to be back among the green trees and wild-er places than Cambridge has to offer. Sometimes the Linear trail just isn't enough. But it will have to be for now, especially with winter coming. I admire your inner peace.