Funny, the topic of my last blog was “watching sadness” and now this one is about being uhhhh…..happy! I figure I ought to express it before……NO! Not going to say that! I am in the now and the now is eternal, all there really is. I AM HAPPINESS! At the start of this year, I made a deeper commitment to manifesting what I want in my life. For many, the new year actually begins on September 21st, the beginning of harvest time for many people around the world and the fall equinox—a day where there is equal day and night, energy ripe for planting your desires into the universe.
So at the beginning of this cycle, I made an oath to myself to go hard or go home! I have decided that every single day I am going to work toward my goals. As many of you know, I’ve been working on my poetry book this year but what you might not know is that this project began over six years ago! I started compiling my work before I got pregnant with my son—who is now five! And then I got caught up in the windmill of life (read Married and Divorced by 30 my very first blog). So, somehow this huge creative aspect of my being got shut down, packed away, put aside and placed on a shelf marked “Dream Deferred”. I even began to feel like my creativity had leaked out with my son’s amniotic fluid. And yes, giving birth to a child is probably the most single creative and miraculous act in the world, but now I am giving birth to me!
In my young days—I mean real young days—I was no joke! I was no regular sour face sitting-up-in-my-bedroom-why-does-life-suck-youth-poet, I became a national award winning writer by the time I was eighteen. I performed my poetry at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., I spoke at the White House on the importance of arts education and was one of twenty young artists in the nation to have the honor of being a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. I was also first place winner in Philadelphia’s Young Playwrights competition; my play got produced at Temple University, The Philadelphia Theatre Company and countless high schools and youth detention centers. Whew! I was a beast at 18!
So the past two years, I’ve been looking back at my life like WTF?! I took all of that, all my writing, all my voice and stuffed it inside of me! Why? I could blame getting married too young and having a child but the root of it was really something else….a four letter word that is the seed of destruction in the world: FEAR! Fear that despite all of these damn awards and accolades somehow I was not enough. Illogical right? Fear never is logical. It makes no sense. I do not believe in a devil but if one did exist, it would have to be the sickness of fear within ourselves that causes us to doubt, worry and worst of all, deny who we really are inside. The devil is looking in the mirror and not seeing who you truly are, greatness!
So, when something has been planted in your spirit, when you have come to life with some kind of mission, you either must fulfill it or you will self-destruct. Period, end of story. It don’t matter if you put it off for five, ten, fifteen years even, it is always going to resurface as a itch in your soul telling you that something is not right. We all know those people who surrender to the pitfalls of life, get lost in security and live a life of “I usedtos”…I usedto sing, I usedto write, I usedto be healthy etc. and have now resigned to being comfortable and safe. Nothing wrong with comfortablity or safety per se but life is about expansion, not stagnation. Whatever is not growing is dead…
("Common Threads" mural by Meg Saligman in Philadelphia. I was actually so self-conscious when this went up, lol!)
Last week I got a sign from the heavens! My sister sent me a text message showing an article published in the Philadelphia Daily News about a mural I posed for over 15 years ago being retouched to last another 30 years! I was only 15 at the time, in high school and at the budding of my creative exploration. Being chosen to be the largest figure on the largest mural on the east coast was amazingly scary! The craziest thing was, I didn’t have to “do” anything to “get” it. We can say it was some good karma I had, a gift from the universe or my ancestors. Folks want to know the story but it is very simple. Artist came to my high school, photographed a bunch of kids and chose me. This mural being rededicated is symbolic of me being recommitted to my purpose for expansion and hell, greatness! And even deeper than that, the ability to allow good things to flow into my life! All that is required is that I be me, period.
This is not my normal tone, I am sooooo not one to go around tooting my horn or singing about the great deeds of my past but pardon me while I indulge this moment to connect to the fact that we are ALL magicians and have the power to create whatever life we choose. I am all of these things yet I am none of these things, what I am mostly is creator.
(In this video Will Smith talks about the power of thought and creation. I listen to this EVERY morning!)
So when I wake up these mornings, I do so with excitement! I’ve been getting up around 5am almost every morning to meditate and “launch my rockets of desire” into the world. I can feel the pool of my spirit becoming clear, the waters calm and wet with expectation…get ready for this tsunami…
