It’s as if I’ve finally cracked the seal on my purpose and it’s an artesian well of stories. They’ve been waiting this revelation and now I see them all and understand my role as writer, my intention, my hope, my mission. To depict characters, human beings, in the midst of their flaws, their unravellings, theirs anguish and sadnesses, in the centre of their unspeakable choices, their horrifying ones and connect us – the normal, sane, the everyday, with them. Illustrate, expose the unspeakable as human, lovable, compassionate. Human.

To illuminate the humanity of us, to create and identify the world as perfect with it’s flaws and viciousness. In fact those things offer divinity and perfection as much as any others. Ultimately to bring people, individuals together, in understanding, to stand on common ground.

Illustrate the exquisiteness of anguish and struggle. The beautiful ugliness of humanity and offer explanation and understanding of and for the unsympathetic.

If I can authentically, accurately represent the experience of a man who beats his wife, dynamically, and thus in turn implant profound understanding, empathy thereof, we will know ourselves more deeply, more completely, we will relate to ourselves compassionately, lovingly, and gracefully, and act as such. Thus is the key to peace and fulfillment for us, we humans, on this planet.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been disorganized, prone to overwhelm, an extremist of sorts. I’ve thought for years that that quality was a fundamental of my personality. With the help of my amazing coach, I got to the bottom of that yesterday, or the beginning of the bottom, anyway.

The bottom I got to began because of a conversation about why I was so disorganized, what that covered up, what is allows me to pretend about myself.

Soooo… Here we go!

When I feel like I’m behind, disorganized and overwhelmed by my life, its covering that I don’t think I’m good enough, that I am not the best choice for the job, that someone else can do it better, that I can’t make a difference. I end up feeling sad, useless and fake… and other people, not only don’t get the opportunity to contribute or participate in whatever project I am creating, my “playing small’ gravely invalidates their importance and value. I am saying, essentially “Hey guys… yeah, its way more important for me to be selfish and wrapped up in my own tempest, I don’t really care that you think its a great idea, that you may have a desire to contribute… my disorganization is more important than that.” Yikes, eh?

So this is what it comes down to for me: it is up to me. It is MY job to change the world. There have been countless folks out there claiming such things but I finally got today, that everything is related; including my inability to be organized.

It is MY obligation to serve humanity. To inspire. To contribute. To change the world. To make every ripple I can.

The snow is shrinking, receding back; like a plague that knows it cannot win. Its New Year’s Eve. I am very excited about 2009. My goal is for each year to be better than the last… then I think about that and I don’t like the comparison that happens. I want each subsequent year to be an expansion of the preceding ones. As if last year was a spring board, like when you’re playing Super Mario and leaping up to the highest platform and you’re on those flowers that sink if you stand on them too long. Life is kind of like that, actually, we have but a moment to enjoy each moment and when too long is spent stagnant or in the past, we become trapped and fall.

2008 has been an incredible growth year for me… highest highs and lowest lows, to be cliche about it. I am certain about things I wasn’t certain of before. 2009 is the year of the artist for me… my artist rising, and that is thrilling.

Some friends of mine came into the restaurant to hang out for comedy night… and brought me flowers!! Such a lovely thoughtful gesture. So for the first time since moving to Vancouver I am looking at a crowd of flowers; overflowing, vivid yellow tulips with long flaming fingers reaching up to the edges of each petal…

I was feeling a little “blah” this morning and was about to crawl back into bed, when my ICBC lady called me and asked it she could close my case… I remembered I had a stack of receipts I had never submitted and asked if it was too late… she said no I could drop them off anytime… so that means I will have an extra couple hundred dollars or so… Yay!!

But I was still feeling groggy and disinterested in enlightenment… that’s when I looked up and saw the masses of joyful tulip arms reaching out to me… and breathing in deep…ahh, yes, I remember now “none of it matters because its jut a ride.” ~Bill Hicks

I am little bewildered because so many areas of my life are moving and growing, stretching into and beyond themselves like wild savannah cats; ready to leap and lazy at the same time… and then there are the few stragglers… the bits and pieces of my life that are refusing to change; like stubborn chameleons who keep favourite colour patterns painted over their bodies regardless of surroundings and the resident prey eying them up. Its beautiful to witness but very, very dangerous.

I have a need for intimacy and I have a need for independence; and I have a fear that both of those needs cannot be met simultaneously. So just behind this door, my loving consciousness waits for me, lounging in a rocking chair wearing fuzzy slippers and a honey smile because she knows the truth. “I’m made of atoms, your made of atoms and we’re all in this together.” ~ Ben Lee

I’m glad she knows because I don’t. This is where is all goes hazy on me. I have an inner knowing that there are no needs. Maybe there are requirements the body has to remain in this form world… but beyond that is anything a need? Which me feels in need of those things? Is it my sacred inner self that is connected to the divine Universal mind? not bloody likely!! So then? what other answer is there? If its not me, its my ego. My ego thinks things I don’t think and I don’t know how to disconnect from some of those longly entrenched thoughts. Some say I don’t need to know how, that just the noticing is enough… I wonder.

Maybe I can non-violently communicate with my ego?

Ego: I am angry, frustrated, scared, nervous, closed, lonely, guarded, fragile, jealous. I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to lose myself.

Sacred self: I’m hearing you have a need for intimacy and a need for freedom and independence.

Ego: I guess so, but I still feel angry, frustrated, scared, nervous, closed, lonely, guarded, fragile, jealous. I don’t want to feel peaceful.

Sacred self: How would you feel, what would your experience be, if you did feel peaceful and couldn’t feel angry, frustrated, scared, nervous, closed, lonely, guarded, fragile, jealous?

Ego: I would disappear. I wouldn’t be important, valued, needed at all. I would be left behind, alone. I would die.

Sacred self: Is that true?

Ego: YES!

Sacred self: Okay, honey. Can you absolutely know its true?

Ego: I don’t know… I’m confused… I guess not absolutely.

Sacred self: How would you feel if you couldn’t believe the thought that you would disappear if you felt peaceful.

Ego: Peaceful.

Sacred self: Can you see a turnaround of this thought?

Ego: I will be more important and valued if I’m peaceful.

Sacred self: Can you see how this thought may be true or truer that your original thought?

Ego: Yes.

Sacred self: Can you think of any real-life examples of this belief?

Ego: I guess there are times when we are in flow and neither of us is battling. There is never any attempt to get rid of me in those moments…

Sacred self: Yes. I love you. You have value. You help to bridge the gap between the esoteric world and the world of form. You help me to see things that will hurt or damage our body. That is an important function, I don’t want to eradicate you. I want to live in harmony with you.

Ego: I want that too.

“Always forget how strange it is, just to be alive at all.” ~ Patrick Park

“If I don’t know what to do, oh I swear I won’t follow any of you.” ~ Brett Dennen…

I want a voice. I want a voice that matters; a fearless, joyful, courageous, inspiring voice. I am sitting in the dark of my apartment contemplating, as usual, my life, the world and my place in it. I am reveling in the feeling of my fingers on my laptop keyboard… they are deftly navigating the letters, translating abstractions of thought into cohesive (hopefully) sentences & paragraphs on the screen.

There is no reason to cripple myself anymore, I need to rephrase that there has NEVER been any reason to allow paralysis to hold me stagnant and motionless that I am wrapped and wrapped by spider fear with her sticky, silky thread. I have been dancing with this long-legged, graceful spider lately, worrying about how things will seem, what people will think. There is no reason to compromise, diminish, darken my experience in this world, because truly, what is there to lose? What is it I am afraid will happen? I will be laughed at? I will be alone?

“Oh tie me to the end of a kite, so I can go on, I can go on with my life… every time the wind grows stronger I will feel the spirit rise.” ~ Rosie Thomas

My wise friend, Michelle, says (and she says this to me a lot!!) “Who cares?” and its true… big deal!! I’ve been laughed at many times in the past and survived… and I’ve been alone so why would I cower and restrict myself in the face of some event or action about which I have manufactured a terrifying story. Why am I allowing myself to live in the darkness of these fairytales I tell myself? What would my life be like if I truly committed to telling myself the truth, if I completely, finally, let go? If I allowed myself to stand, stark, in the face of all my insecurities, my trembling heart pulsing and vulnerable, behind my open ribcage for all the world to see, what could I achieve? If I stopped trying, stopped wondering, stopped worrying like a dog with a bone, what marvels, what enchantments could I conjure? What secret words would I hear my heart whisper if I finally chose to listen? What wisdom and guidance is waiting for me there? If I close my eyes and listen with my whole, quaking being what will I hear, what path will be illuminated?

I’ve heard lately about some research about decision making and how the value is in quickly assessing the given information and sifting out the important bits and then being able to rank them easily, quickly. This is more effective than analyzing every detail, every fragment of information. If I evaluate every situation that requires a choice to be made with efficiency and faith and then pledge to take immediate action my life would instantly become extraordinary. There would be no space for the mediocrity of fear, for my old familiar, warring insecurities. I have an awareness of the tragic futility of “the science of selling yourself short.” I have a totally unique mind, a distinctive awareness and perspective of the world, an inimitable skillset that allow me to fit in my place on this planet precisely. I click in exactly as I am, like fuse into a panel box and the Universe reaffirms for me again, that truly everything is unfolding as it should… every molecule is in place, in its right place, in the only place possibility could ever allow it to be…

“So I turn to you and say ‘Awake is the new sleep… awake is the new sleep, so wake up and do it, whatever it is, go on and do it, whatever it is.” ~ Ben Lee

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.