Instinctively Said

pay attention to the road... your road

2010-10-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

Do defining moments equip an individual with an enhanced internal navigation system? I ask because I believe the further along the path you travel, the less road signs there are. The less clarity there seems to be. Assurance gives way to misleading factors driving your every choice. Something has to take over if you're going to keep travelling the right path.

You can't avoid the challenge of learning how to navigate from the inside rather than depending on the outside. Well, aside from taking round-a-bouts or traffic circles where, yes, lights and signs remain in plenty because you're moving in the same circle over and over - never travelling deeper, rather set in course on cruise control. These signs keep you in place, never changing, never growing. Comforting little circles - slow enough you don't get dizzy, you don't notice. You don't have to think, but ease... ease doesn't mean it's the right road you should be on. Buck up and take the next right.....

Defining moments... that which enhances an individual? Scrapes away the scales from tired eyes? Defining moments full of realization perhaps just as much about what doesn't define you as what does. They are what kicks you into a passionate stand - "never will I ____________" or "from here on I will ______________." Internal navigation. Parameters set.

What about the defining moments which by their own nature are ever so slight? An absolutely brittle tremor missed by most. Unrecognized, unappreciated for the change in course it contributed to (even though it may take years to transpire). Doesn't matter, the slightest change in direction is a change in direction and plays part in altering your final destination.

On any given day I do not believe our destination remains the same. You can change it a dozen times over within a single day. With, or without knowing it.

You may miss a turn or two or twenty... no one is counting. Regardless of where the missed turn seems to be taking you in the moment, be open to the journey - this is where possibility is waiting to be shot out of a canon, breaking ground on a path you may never have considered before.

Eyes of the heart and soul - keep them wide open. Brace for it... synchronicity, favor and manifestation. Let it be in your world. Move the question mark aside, clear the doorway, the windows, the walkways... make room for flow.

hell to pay

2010-10-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

In a single swoop both fists buried themselves against her collar bone, swallowing handful after handful of her shirt. Slammed against a plain white wall she is lifted, just barely off the floor. Whole body vibrating, her mother's lungs were pushing everything they could past her vocal cords creating one of the most familiar sounds the girl would ever come to know - her mother's screams. Eyes closed tight, the girl was trying to understand, wishing she could remember what she did to make her mother so angry. The vice grip released and she was thrust to the side, banished to a room at the back of the duplex. The room had a small balcony hanging off it like a dirty blanket.

The girls own chest was curling up into a ball inside of her. Fiery tears immediately slashing a wet path down her face. Her heart pounding incredibly as she stared out the window and down the street. Her body caught on to the idea before her mind did. She was going to run. She could make it. She could run.

To her left, a second bedroom also opened to the balcony. Beady little eyes peered out above the bottom of the window watching her. She knew her little sister would tell on her. Still, she found herself pleading anyway, and still, like any little runt of a sibling would do - her little sister lied and promised not to tell.

With a deep breath the girl jumped from the one and a half story balcony and ran. Oh my god she ran. Overwhelmed with fear and knowing that her little sister was at that very moment telling on her, adrenaline only heightened the terrified sensation already blanketing her from the inside out. It was as though a vicious dog had caught glimpse of her and was taking chase. There was no one on her heels, but it didn't feel like that at all. Everything in her was running... body and mind. She arrived at a dirty worn down strip mall several blocks away and found the first pay phone she could. Clutching the receiver she dialed her Aunt.

Safely at her Aunt's house, the girl sat in the corner of a wide open front room buried down in an oversized lazyboy chair. As though a terrible gust of wind - her mother shot through the front door and the girl's heart shot into her throat lodging itself there as a lump. Without pause her mother shouted out her full name followed by "get your ass in the car now." The girl's Uncle appeared from the kitchen and stood at the top of the stairs like a warrior. "No," he said. Frozen with dread, the girl watched the back and forth. "Calm down" he demanded. "She's my daughter," the mother blasted, "don't tell me how to mother my child!" "You're upset, you need time to calm down," her Uncle continued.

Through the bars of the railing which separated the upstairs from the entrance of the house where her mother was, the girl caught her mother's eye. Like a tiger in a cage, her mother paced with a deadly gaze. Enraged, but trapped. Furious, but behind bars. The girl wanted so badly to smile, she could feel it surfacing. But just as quickly she felt it sink right back down. Her mother's locked on gaze pierced through the whole escapade of running away and reality hit. She couldn't hide behind her Aunt & Uncle forever and when she did come home... there would be hell to pay.

use it all

2010-10-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

You'll notice the world doesn't bring you the beauty it possesses. You live and come across it every day. Life long discovery and connection to your own path and it's unique direction... or misdirection. Your re-routing is beautiful too. A heart reignited is just as precious as a heart already on fire.

Charged... with purpose, power, a pulse. Letting the difference sink in... between knowing about greatness, and being great. Between studying the story, and taking the steps. The courage to be and fail... fall... rise and run. The greatest little damn moment you've ever seen. All of this is greatness. Recognizing your own story. Noticing the the look in your own eye that stands like a rock. Seeing your own smile light a path through the shadows to the middle of your own soul. Remembering your own heart and how vast it truly is.

True - many of us are our own greatest enemy. The line is long thereafter. Life calls us to stand straight, to breathe with intent and be something. But greatness... greatness calls on us to put the two together - the purpose and the individuality. To seek balance and beauty in the woman or man you are... and USE IT ALL to light the hell out of the path you're on.

Be not on someone else's path - and if you already are... well, you may notice you're not exactly equipped to be on that path, that it's not working. And it's not about you not hackin' it either because there's no comparison when it comes to life path and purpose from one person to the next. Path must be appreciated in the eyes of the life source walking it out. And purpose appreciated in light of the thousands of nuances which make that individual unique and perfect for the purpose they embody.

Each breath you take is yours, the heart thumping inside your chest is yours, and the mind racing the plains of thought, creation, emotion and dreams... is also yours to take the reigns and soar. But if you've struggled to get the bird in the air... I still say check who's path you're on. Because I know for a fact - we've each been blessed with our own endless sky... wide open and waiting for us to take aim.

Waves, though beautiful, will crush you - never weeping. Never slowing. Ever crashing. Power is what they are and do. What are you going to be and do? And when? Old and grey? Otherwise engaged? Never the time to make time so that time could have the chance to take you somewhere still and wide and open.

Finding greatness within leads to finding freedom within. With every mind, soul and heart that turns and pushes against the crowd I'm moved. Pounding against the surface of purpose like a drum... finding their song. I am so incredibly moved.

10,519 km's away... she writes

2010-10-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

A vision lost, a dream fallen, or even music fading throughout the hallways of your once dancing heart... may not be what it seems. And to prove it, the universe will at times... take aim and find you.

I was watching a Dan Rather report on TV when the universe took aim at me. The story of “Miriam” began to unfold. Born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, at 23 Miriam was swelling inside with an insatiable passion for writing and poetry. They show her cowering a bit behind a tree talking on a cell phone her family doesn't know she has. They explain she’s standing just outside of a very small English school run by an American man. An unassuming place of refuge, she‘s there in secret. This is the only place she has to hold her pen to paper, to free her words, to be the writer no one else knows she is.

Miriam’s father was not like most fathers in Kabul. Boys come first when it comes to education and 88% of women in Afghanistan are illiterate, yet he affectionately called Miriam “my scholar daughter.” And although teenage girls are more likely to become wives than students, he was her safety and her encouragement to pursue University. Goosebumps stand in honor. A woman’s life in Afghanistan will last (on average) 44 years. He was changing her stars.

Miriam’s father passed away and her two younger brothers took over the family, leading them all under the ceilings of tradition, of Taliban. They do not know, and can never know Miriam writes. She explains that her brothers have only allowed her to finish her schooling as long as she works part time because they are both unemployed. When asked what her brothers think she does for work, she replies “just a simple language teacher.” Little do they know she is already an anonymously published writer.

I suddenly feel so utterly exposed. I can’t stop thinking about my blog, how it has sat untouched for over a year now. It’s just her and I in my mind.

I watched in shock as I witnessed her brothers accept an offer of $20,000 from Miriam’s Uncle. It was done - her first cousin would very soon be her husband. An illiterate farmer living in a Taliban-controlled area far away from Kabul. She would be taken from her refuge, from her cell phone, from her University... from all possibility and opportunity she had been risking her life to work toward in utter secrecy. Forced to go the journey from the edge of her dreams to the edge of an unfathomable darkness.

In my mind she keeps looking at me. Silent, her gaze feels heavy like guilt. As a writer, I have been sitting on my hands out of fear… out of a paralyzing worry that I have nothing worthy to say. My eyes are burning. How do I explain this foolishness to her? A woman who has fought for every word she's captured on page. Accepting a life of secrecy and embracing risk just for the chance to write one more poem… bring to life just one more story.

Miriam may not realize, but through her own endeavors to write, to follow her passion despite the incredible risk... she has, the entire time, been writing one of her most powerful stories yet... her own. Humbled, I'm reminded of something I wrote a very long time ago…

“There is a huge difference between being inspired for just a moment,
and being challenged to aspire yourself from that moment on.” (c.w.)

remaining embassadors of trust

2009-05-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

At 4:47 in the morning, racing down the highway at 145km's an hour doesn't seem that fast. Glancing in my rear view every once in a while, the dark sky was slowly fading into a hazy grey. I suspect it's a color not very many of us are familiar with. I've only ever seen it this early in the morning - the color of transition - I imagine it's the color of sunrise before it hangs itself upside down from the sky and is flushed with shades of blood orange, red and pink.

Half an hour later I am well out of the city now... and noticing that every sunken valley is a hidding place for fog. In the farmers fields it was beauty... but ahead of me that same fog stretched itself across my path and now my stomach was sinking. I knew I wouldn't be able to see a thing. I exhaled long and slow as I let the car slow to 100. If you can picture it in your head I was at the very moment of disappearing into the fog listening to Phil Collins "Long Long Way to Go." I am not kidding. And I was right, I couldn't see. But in a blink, and without enough time to even spell the word "worry," it was over and the fog was breaking up and then gone. Ignoring the road in front of me, I starred dangerously in my riew view mirror as the image of the fog laying limp across the road became smaller and smaller. A smile stood from the corner of my mouth.

Words started coming to me as the highway unfolded. Questions. Wonderings. Like whether or not our newest generations will ever get to know the value of dirt under their finger nails? Or understand the simplicity of sunshine and rain and the power it has over sowing and reaping. I need to know... do farmers experience more of our world than we do here in the city? Or just a different part of it? Have enough of us paid attention to a single sunrise?... not counting the times one may have blinded us through the windshield as we crept along on our morning commute.

I worry because we are such a busy society. We miss so much, including each other. Famous for scheduling the masses into our tiny timeslots. How many of us still remember what it feels like when a conversation comfortably ends all on its own? Without an "I have to get going," or the ring of a cell phone "sorry, I have to take this." How do we ever scratch the surface with each other? How can we say we truly "know" one another? Having studied the cover... can we really say we've read the book?

Field after field... farmers amaze me. They are perhaps our last remaining embassadors of trust. Watch any one of them plant their seeds. A farmer knows that even with all of his effort some seeds simply won't grow, and with that same confidence, he also knows that the rest of them will - and that's what matters. I have never seen a farmer run back to his field after a long hard days work, drop to his knees and start digging up his seeds to see how they're doing, or check if they've taken to the soil okay. There is trust... and even more so, there is incredible patience.

We should think on this for a while. It applies to the way we invest in each other. It applies to those moments when we give... and for some reason can't let go, can't separate ourselves from the act. To embrace our part is to simply plant the seed. This is a whole other kind of farming, and a whole other handful of seeds need to be sown... with trust and even more so, with incredible patience.

being is not fitting

2009-05-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

The words don't come any easier 37,000 feet up. I keep getting turned around in my head. Even the guy next to me on the plane is asking me... "so... what's it about?" Is it really that bad that I don't know? Am I useless without intent? It's not enough that I'm here, tapping the world on the shoulder intending to shout, but praying I don't come out just a pathetic whisper? I intend on conversing. Just as I step out to take on the day... having no idea who I'll meet, talk to, bump in to, see... really, do any of us have pre-meditated "intent" in those moments? It's just you being you, and it's just me being me.

Why is it so different to put a pen to paper as though they just bumped in to each other? To follow what surfaces inside and walk with it... until it has to get going, pick up its kids at school, head to a meeting, or catch up with you later? I can't spell the sound I just heard some of you make in my head... y'know, the pppffffst sound... the one that goes hand in hand with the severe rolling of eyes... "what the hell are you talking about?" kind of pppppfffst. "First of all it's nonsense... and even if it weren't, who has the patience for that..." you continue pppfffsst'ing... "who cares??" Ok stop. Did you see that? The look I just made... let's paint that the backdrop here.... Have you ever thought about how long the same words have been circling through our mouths, ears, minds, phones, computers, televisions, and radios..... for centuries. Ever wonder where things anew come from? From within. A seed, fostered by curiosity and imagination. An open sky and plenty of water. By letting what is within have a say, a place, even just a moment to be. Sometimes I wish I could just get people to understand - shake them and say... "c'mon just roll up the rim!"

Yeah, that's right... every year Tim Horton's has their roll up the rim contest. Under the lip of every cup there is either nothing... or something... and as we find every year goes by... prizes remain unclaimed. New cars, laptops, cash. How is that even possible?! Maybe some people didn't take the time to roll up the rim. Or, they did and in the hustle and bustle threw their winning cup out with the trash. In the same way that prizes go unclaimed... so too... does everything within.

Our seeds struggle. Trying to sprout - but just can't. Whether we are too busy, or too cluttered with focus elsewhere. Too busy defining our... intent... and then redefining it at every other turn in life. This is not to say re-defining goals is not healthy and imminently valuable... I am talking about the pursuit of the constant fit-in. We're doing what we should, right? Because being really means fitting, doesn't it? It does, I know. It so often does.

So grab the dice - shake 'em good and maybe the next sentence will sound new. I worry we are failing ourselves as we realize it's no longer about the creation of a work, but the re-work of creations past. Re-arranging words, putting commas in new places. Is this our future? Or are we willing to work the land within and dig a little. It's not a question.... but a statement... and we all know someone in our life who will act on it, and we continue to love and be-friend those we know just won't.

Stop fitting, start being. Tap the world on the shoulder, and walk awhile... because you may just have something new to say. And even if you don't, we'll catch up with you again later.