Hand-sculpted clay statue, Dragon Baby:  Prayer, by Tammy Vitale of Tam’s Originals

Sometimes you have to take a break:  from work, from planning, from life.  Especially when life is coming faster than a roller coaster.  That’s a signal that it’s time to breathe:  take an intermission.  Sit back.  Sip something wet and cool.  Gaze at clouds.  Breathe some more.  Watch the ants who aren’t taking an intermission and be glad that you aren’t set on automatic like them – you have a choice.

Tama Kieves says:  "You can’t cling to the old nest and soar to the flowering branches at the same time."  When you want to know what’s next, stop and listen and feel.  Let go.  "Who are you?  What do you believe you can achieve?  What do you believe you deserve?  Can you trust yourself?  Can you trust the world?  I doubt you can respond to these questions on your lunch hour, while picking up the dry cleaning, visiting the post office, calling your husband (who, of course, wants to tell you what’s wrong with managed care), and chewing each bit of your turkey sandwich about a thousand times like skinny people in diet books advise." (Tama again, This Time I Dance…and following, some more).

"A period of self-discovery is a lot like falling in love.  No one pays you for your commitment to wandering in the old rose garden of your own enchantment and birthright.  Yet you won’t do anything, at least not in this lifetime, that provides more value…

"When the mythical hero Odysseus sailed past the seductive and illusionary Sirens that would attempt to lure him into the rocks, he asked his men to tie him down.

"I am asking you to do the same thing.  Tie yourself down to being as untied to ordinary life as possible.  Sail the unfamiliar seas of unabashed time.  Ignore the voices that will shame you into cleaning out the garage instead of ambling around an art gallery basking in colors and shapes and undiluted encounters of the soul.  Sure, you can answer the questions, ‘So what did you do today?’ with something ordinarily laudable that makes everyone feel safe and comfortable.  But while this is a journey of elbowroom and euphoric puttering, it is not one of comfort.  We are bucking the tide of a workaholic society and listening to the renegade rivers of our creative spirits instead…

"This is womb time, a time of safety and extra-rich nurturance, meant to feed a precious new life that grows strong and wondrous only when given what it needs to grow strong and wondrous…

"To the untrained eye, it may look like empty space.  But as you being to reclaim your strength, you will know that this was the time in which everything good and true took place."

So, what did YOU do today?