Which is to say:  “Start where your are” since where ever you are is surely the beginning of something, or it can be if you so choose. Last post I spoke of heroes.  A favorite quote of mine (it can be found in my thesis written in 1996 or 97) on heroes can be found in a discussion between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell in the book (also a PBS series), The Power of Myth.  It follows:

Bill Moyers: Unlike heroes such as Prometheus or Jesus, we’re not going on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves.

Joseph Campbell:  But in doing that you save the world.  The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there’s no doubt about it.  The world without spirit is a wasteland.  People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who’s on top, and so forth.  no, no!  Any world is a valid world if it’s alive.  The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.

Makes me think of another quote I picked out of a magazine, long lost, so I can’t give attribution.  It went something like this:

We should pay attention to those around us.  We should note, out loud:  “You look as if you love doing that.  You should do it more.”

A gift of attention, along with permission, which all of us seem to need at some point when we’re waffling between the way it is and the way it might be.

Anyways, this quote shows up in the front of a book I started this morning, Make Magic of your Life,” by T. Thorn Coyle.  He of Kissing the Limitless I mentioned last post (“Seaweed-slick and Barnacle-Encrusted”). I started reading and started underlining and then stopped underlining realizing that I was going to underline the whole book if I did it like that, and started jotting my reactions.

I rarely jot my reactions.  Mostly I think marvelous thoughts – profound, earth-shaking – and then lose them because I fail to attach them to something concrete like paper and they’re off to the next person who might take more time and attention.  As I may have mentioned, I’m transitioning (the last stage before birth), or in labor birthing something and since the restlessness beforehand is the same I never know which (in the end something new this way comes).

So this post is something like a conversation between underlines and thoughts.  It is always amazing to me to find someone writing things I think every day – more than an affirmation that I’m not the only one, more of a, at least at the moment, synchronicity of being reminded what I already know, and an urging to take that farther than I have before.

There you are, living your life, when suddenly, the call comes. (all italics are from the book)

Thomas Merton says, “Your life is shaped by the end you live for.  You are made in the image of what you desire.”

Christina Baldwin, in Calling the Circle,  says it this way:

In every path that leads to maturity, there is some form of dark night, a readiness finally to enter into shadow, to explore that which we have kept hidden.  We enter into darkness by dealing with the wounding we have endured and the wounding we have caused.  We enter the darkness by walking off the edge of our life maps into unknown territory.  There is no more meandering.  There is no more escape – not one more errand to run, not one more load of laundry to wash and fold, not one more phone call to answer, not one more word I can write until I take the next step.  Until I am willing to fall…I shout…’Are you sure I’m ready for this?  I already feel as though I’ve been hurtling from one experience to the next.  How do You know I’m ready?’  I am staring into the bright eyes of an angel.  ’You cannot know if you are ready until after you fall,’ she says. ‘This is a leap of faith.’  I face the edge.  I do not jump.  It more subtle than that.  I simply let go. [quoted in my blog, “A Woman’s Guide to Breaking the Rules”]

Me:  What is manifesting in my life – what have my “recent” [say last two or three years] choices let me to in my day-to-day life?  How are these manifestations clues to my own Soul Work.  How do these manifestations compare with the spirit cards I’ve made to date?  Have I done Tarot lately?  What showed up there?…..No I haven’t done Tarot lately but is it by chance that Kissing the Limitless has a new-to-me spread called “reading the Moon” that I found flipping through the book – and I found it the day before the full moon?

We can also get caught up in thinking that our purpose needs to be some earth-shattering thing.  Most often the soul’s work is what feels most ordinary to each of us. [emphasis mine]

Me:  We are always at the beginning of something [see my title?  aren’t I clever to wind this in here?  I digress, patting myself on the back.]    I remain incomplete, yearning, in transition, unknowing so that I can write about it and others will not feel so alone.  Not so earth-shattering, and certainly not the glitter and dazzle (and income) I’d have chosen given a choice in the matter (or moreso to the point, maybe it is exactly what I’ve chosen to date), but not bad soul-work.  Certainly gratifying from time to time when feedback happens.  Granted that’s few and far between but if you get a carrot every time instead of randomly you aren’t as inclined to continue whatever it is you are doing that wins that carrot.  Pavlov proved that already.

There is some work – some practice, joy, or way of being – that only we can manifest in this world.

Me:  Yes.  I believe that totally (when I’m believing anything)

I like to look at the parts of the self that want to reject the idae of a life purpose of the soul’s work and ask ‘Why?’  Is there anger present?  Or cynicism or a sense of betrayal….we can invite our ears, anger, or cynicism to the table of desire.  The add spice and savor – cinnamon and chili – to our dark chocolate.

Me:  Anger? Cynicism? Betrayal?  Indeed.  All of it.  And it’s not bad and wrong, it’s spice. I’m nothing if not spicey! My conclusion for today (and this is only a taste and about 5 pages of the book) this transitioning/birthing I’m moving into is soul work.  I have “done” lots of stuff – those were the

strands of my unique piece of the web that I have been (and continue) to weave.  Time now to focus on integrating the doing – letting it move through my body as the impetus to art does, and the impetus to write does – to let that flow – which is unique to me because it gets my “spice” – move out into the web.

Heart work is weaving the strands.  Soul work is giving them strength and resiliency and long-lastingness.

A light clicks on around what’s been happening in my work life the past 3 weeks or so (well that’s really a culmination of about a year of events).  I keep trying to figure out (take control) of the situation when really it’s only there to remind me it’s time to go deeper and that’s more of an inside job.

I am also reminded that if I am exhausted, psychically and physically from giving way too much energy to the outside, the inside won’t have anything left over.  Or maybe you have to get to that exhaustion before you surrender to the transition period of birthing.  I don’t know.

What I *am* coming to understand is that if you get the solitary, the Self down (understood), you are moving toward wholeness.  Wholeness is the most you have to offer the rest of the world and your own piece of the web.  And there are ramifications you will never be aware of by getting there or not.