I have had a few days of mellow self reflection. I am always fascinated by how much I can learn from the people, environment, situations that surround me if I’m aware and willing enough. Everything carries within it a plethora of insight if I am only awake enough to receive it. Wisdom literally seeps from every crevice of the Universe. Who was it that said there are no new thoughts? Think about the weight of that statement! The answers to every question I have are present if I only condition my eyes and mind to see them.

I am a different person on Saltspring this time around… I have finally returned as myself, unlinked to the definitions and restrictions of my childhood, highschool self. I have come a long way, I am standing on a ridge I have never reached before and the view from here is absolutely breathtaking. Mountains are energizing, even the figuritive ones I scale inside myself. On this particular trek up the mountain inside me I have been pondering myself, who I really am. What it even means to be a person who can contemplate oneself.

Who am I? I used to play this game when I was a kid. Only I would have an animal clearly in my mind. I would answer direct questions about its composition to the diviner. Now the game is much the same save the clear image of what I am describing. I am exploring myself, using my senses, attitudes, perceptions to give me clues but there is no reference… no encyclopedias to pore through for supplemental information.

I think I AM how I’m LIVING. I don’t want to be my job, my societal position, I want who I am to be… who I am. To that end I have decided to compose a mission statement for my life and myself. I want to have a governing maxim that makes who I am clear, and foolproof when it comes to living in my own image. I want every action I take to further flesh out the picture of who I am. I want to always be expanding my range of vision, seeing more of myself, and seeing more detail… and I want every action, feeling, behaviour I have to add its own fequency that brings a new dynamic to the harmony, the symphony I am composing that is me. I want to always be creating, evolving a synergy of self that comes closer and closer to eliminating the gap between how I’m living and the image, sense I have in my soul of my best, most glorious self.

What marks the beginning of something? When is the moment of inception?

I feel a good cry coming on… the good kind, though. For me, they are all good cries, though. Its a very physical catharsis of the ashes that remain after the flame of energy has thrashed through my body. I am pensively, ponderously awakened in this moment. I think I haven’t been sleeping enough lately… maybe its that, or maybe its just the dip that usually comes after the energetic, passionate, productive period.

I am scared of more things than I realized… the deeper I go the more fear is there. I keep unearthing these unfounded fears, as I go deeper it becomes harder and harder to link them to events in my life, to my reality. How much of this stuff exists anyway? Did I sit there one day years ago and fabricate all these strangely intricate designs of fear… cutting, pasting, painting feverishly like I was in an after school art class. Fears are excavated from me like time capsules with scrolls in alien languages and artifacts my mind has never fathomed.

I have been dancing a dance these last couple of weeks that I haven’t danced in years. A vulnerability is surfacing in me for which I was unprepared. Its making me stiff, awkward, frozen in a painfully unnatural way. My spirit is in lockdown. I am walking through a forest in the dark and there are traps, spikes, dangers huddled in wait at every turn. But there is mysticism here, and something sweet and lovely and delicious that will be mine if I can only brave this forest, if I can only make it through. I must make it through, that is certain. I must “feel the fear and do it anyway” because I know in my heart that this is the only real living and that is what I’m here to do. But sometimes, I am still afraid to walk alone in the pitch dark. I have a theory that if you face down your biggest fears everything challenging in your life will seem ridiculously simple in the shadow of that conquering. I don’t know if this is true. I think it is… but at the same time, maybe new fears just grow up in the empty space. How can I ensure that once I have eradicated a fear something new wont send its tap root down and anchor deeply in my soul?

There is a pensive new green shoot reaching its first wet leaves up through my heart to the light of my soul… this tiny plant will flood my body with oxygen and enliven me if I can nurture its fragile life now, cultivate its strength and power. Encouraging and fostering its growth will allow me embrace my power and vulnerability same… because truly, what am I afraid of?

“Maybe life is a song and you’re scared to sing along, until the very ending”

“But…the love you bring won’t mean a thing unless you sing, sing, sing.”

If I spend my whole life being scared to sing along until the last three bars… that will be the most tragic waste… I don’t want to be a waste, I don’t want to be a waste. I must not waste away… I choose to SING!

Its been awhile, too long. I need to be connected in this way very frequently. I have had a busy, busy couple of weeks… but they have been amazing, too. I started a daily journal in which I record in point form all the good things that happened that day and the good feelings they gave me. This is creating a wonderful perspective on my life. I do not write and record the “negative” things or frustrations of the day, only the glorious moments that are linked to energizing, enriching emotions. Every week I sift through my list and pick the main ones… eventually I will have years and years of the most profound moments of my life that I likely would not have remembered otherwise.

This is living… the dazzling, delightful, magnificent radiance of being alive. I am doing it, I am doing it… right now. As a result of all this focusing on the good, through the process of recording my experiences, I have felt more on top of the world these past two weeks than I have in most of my recent months since moving to Vancouver in June.

Ideas are breaking through their shells inside me, pushing through barriers like a fleet of baby spiders, or baby turtles hatching. Each one has the potential for greatness, for a complete life, each spider, each turtle has the possibility of growing up… I am catching as many as I can and moving them to the idea refuge in my mind, that as many as possible will survive the gauntlet of my insecurities.