The Pull

The Pull has been strong lately. How you felt it? That fierce yearning within to drop in deeper, enter the vast wordless space. The desire to know your purpose in the marrow of your bones and express it exquisitely in the world. The need to live in both the sacred, spiritual and the everyday.

I have surrendered my life to the Pull, and yet there are times when I feel squirmy and impatient. Should I sit still? Or work on my passion? Will my vision ever come into fruition? Am I on the right track? The Pull rumbles and tumbles with my doubt and my ability to listen and act.

Messages to “slow down” keep appearing in my life – an eye injury, a lingering cough, a gimpy ankle and knee after a ski tumble. And yet the “it’s time to create and share yourself with others… NOW!!” signals have been equally intense. How to navigate these two “opposing” forces?

When I was in school to be an architect, our professors would give us design problems with parameters that we’d often moan about. Why couldn’t we just be free to create whatever we wanted without these limitations and constrictions? Yet our wise professors knew that these “confines” would rub up against our creativity and produce more magnificent results. Not to mention that they reflected what exists in the real world – you have to create within a context of clients, budget, physical materials, and climate. You have to create within practical reality aka everyday life.

I picture a similar effect happening right now. Life – illness, injury, the need to make money, keep a house running, figure out technology – creates a “confine” within which all the energy condenses within and travels through. Instead of wide-open-never-ending scattered space, I see a channel, a tube. I may be elbowing against the walls of the tube, yet this container is directing my energy, harnessing it.

And this containment is somewhat uncomfortable for me. As a spiritual being, I like feeling vast and limitless. And yet vast and limitless has to take some form in order to interact with and serve everyday, practical reality. So I’m adjusting my point of view to see all the irritations in life as gentle nudges to become more honest, real, and direct with my creations. To balance the expansive “sky” energy with the grounded feet-on-the earth energy.

Last night I pulled out a video camera that I haven’t used since my iphone has moved into my back pocket. I’m trying to figure out a way to create video blogs. As I retaught myself how to use the camera, I stumbled upon 3 years worth of baby videos of Shaman Boy. (God, he is dangerously cute in them!)

Shaman Boy curled up in my lap and we took a journey down memory lane. We watched as he was tickled and kissed as a 6 month old, an inch-worm who scooted across floors, a bear-crawler, a wobbly toddler, and finally a “big boy.” My heart melted with footage of Kai as a young teenager and Junebug, my mother-in-law who is no longer with us. I was reminded how much two of our dear friends who have since moved cross-country were then an integral part of our daily lives.

There was no footage of our fairy tale New Hampshire home, because that hadn’t appeared in our life yet. Kai’s girlfriend, Wren, who now lives with us and is an integral, can’t-imagine-life-without-her part of our lives, hadn’t made her entrance yet either.

I felt like Alice, peering through a looking glass into another world. So much has changed in five years that it feels like lifetimes. And that’s when I relaxed. Five years ago I was a new mom, with a community of help around me and very little time for a business. Today, I am a mom to an almost kindergartener, with a different community of friends and loved ones around me, embarking on taking my heart-felt business out into the world.

Five years from now? Wow. Only God knows. But I am certain that my dreams and yearnings will have manifested in ways that surprise and delight me. I can let go of that agitation that it’s not happening fast enough. Because quite frankly, life does whiz by and change. Yes, I will keep taking action daily. I will bumble and fumble along, listening to the whispers from my heart and from the wordless place. I will have days of great certainty and knowing and productivity also days when my head is spinning and I have no idea which way is up or down.

The Pull is strong. And once you align your heart and will to it, as we have Shaman Girls, there is no doubt about the path we are taking. We will unearth our true natures. We will connect with oneness/life/god/the universe. We will inspire and uplift others. We will share our passion and purpose, with a modicum of peace.

Actually scratch that. Not “we will.” We are. Right now. We are doing-being it.

Here’s to being. To authenticity. To doing our best. To listening to our heart song.

I love you. Keep shining.