Cultivating The Garden Of Your H eart

The seed that will grow must first lose itself as seed. The seeds of life that are in all of us want to expand outward. The shell around each that grows thick to protect it initially MUST CRACK if the seed is to sprout. What is known and familiar must fall away for new life from within to burst forth into the lives of those around us. Its amazing what a day of de-cluttering "stuff" can achieve for the mind:

Yesterday, I was thinking about loss and life's "crisis" moments which oftentimes come to us "uninvited ~ (ie: cancer, death of loved ones, job loss, relationship breakups, car wrecks etc.) which cause us to question life and our direction. If permitted, those moments can become a candle that the soul holds out to us lightening our way in those dancing shadow moments~ almost requesting we find a way to remember what it is to live our life with passion, on purpose.

Some of us have the sense that we're not using ourselves to the utmost. Even at the happiest moments, others feel "something" is missing. I feel fortunate as of late for all the losses that came so fast and close together, although initially "uninvited" it came, now it is "welcomed" as it created an awareness in me to pay attention to my souls need for intimacy, authentic expression, creativity, and replenishing solitude.

These are questions that belong to each of us. Any life crisis brings up issues of the purpose of ones own life and the passion to live. But you don't have to be in a life-threatening situation to want to delve into this kind of inquiry. In the flash of a moment of internal truth, we are called to it by numbness, fatigue, or boredom. We can choose to continue to reach outside of ourselves to fill that emptiness (that "void") or we can sit with it, feel its empty awareness with a kind of spiritual inhalation.

Oddly, there is an actual spaciousness that comes from living from the inside out. It is only in this way can we "cultivate" joy again. Yes, cultivate it like a garden in our hearts by searching for the absolute "preciousness" of small things, the ordinary miracles that strengthen our hearts so we can keep them open to what is difficult. To delight in taking a shower or taking a slow walk with no destination, and noticing that one bird which sings every morning from the top of the pecan tree right above your door stoop. To walking out the door and seeing that tiny baby squirrel greeting me each morning eating from the spillage underneath the bird feeder. This particular morning I took note of the baby brown thrashers hopping around on the ground. Yesterday they were still in their nest. The difference a day can make.

While de-cluttering and donating cherished items which no longer served me in my journey, I realized yesterday the fire in my heart had been reignited. The process of de-cluttering was merely to carve away anything that threatened to snuff it out. I no longer feel at the mercy of life's changes. But now feel as if I am merely more equipped to offer to you my friends the gifts that are mine alone to give. The gift you all give to me is the awareness that I can be true to my own need to be private. At the same time, an exposing of myself here in the Facebook medium choosing to risk my tiny significance~ that reaching from my heart found you.

My journey is not more or less important than yours. It is just that...my "journey" and the only one I can make "authentically". The stories I share are my "truth" only. They merely represent my understanding of what happened at various times in life like a work of art, not a still photograph. If told or observed by anyone else...I am sure they would be different. I share them in hope that what is true for me...the overcoming, the spiritual awareness, the sin, the sin forgiven, the love of Father and his abundant grace can reveal what could be true for you.

I witness and share to encourage you to live "clutter" free (physically and spiritually)...enjoying the journey that is your and yours alone to take. Live it authentically.