If you wishcast with Jamie long enough, you start to see that what you wish for — your desire, your longing, your hunger — is the same no matter what she asks, no matter how she phrases it. And yet, the specific prompt each week allows me to see those wishes in a different light, from a different angle.
This week for example I consider what it means to immerse myself, what that looks like, feels like. There’s a particular sense of sinking, relaxing, a single minded focus and intensity, doing just what I’m doing, being exactly where I am, in the flow, allowing everything else to fade, go quiet, tuning in to my own truth.
And how interesting that the animal card reading Rachael Maddox did for me recently called for a return to my own wisdom, to flow and play, and recommended water cleansing rituals, and this word immersion means “to dip or submerge in a liquid,” to baptize by submerging in water, but also to involve oneself deeply in an activity or interest, be absorbed in the flow, to lose oneself in it, to engage wholly and deeply.
I wish to immerse myself in comfort and ease.
I wish to immerse myself in reading, words, stories and narrative, magic and medicine.
I wish to immerse myself in eating, whole food that satisfies all of my appetites.
I wish to immerse myself in home, that sense of safety, belonging, intimacy and truth.
I wish to immerse myself in practice, showing up with an open heart and no agenda, allowing whatever might arise.
I wish to immerse myself in stillness and quiet.
I wish to immerse myself in creativity, my hands covered in ink and glue and paint and dirt.
I wish to immerse myself in connection and conversation, present and listening deeply.
I wish to immerse myself in love and joy.
I wish to immerse myself in my own inherent deep inner knowing, my own authority.
5. Wisdom from Danielle LaPorte, “With envy out of the way, you’ll have more room for your own greatness.”
6. Wisdom from the Dalai Lama,
When the teachings say we need to reduce our fascination with the things of this life, it does not mean that we should abandon them completely. It means avoiding the natural tendency to go from elation to depression in reaction to life’s ups and downs, jumping for joy when you have some success, or wanting to jump out the window if you do not get what you want. Being less concerned about the affairs of this life means assuming its ups and downs with a broad and stable mind.
We use our emotions. We use them. In their essence, they are simply part of the goodness of being alive, but instead of letting them be, we take them and use them to regain our ground. We use them to try to deny that in fact no one has ever known or will ever know what’s happening. We use them to try to make everything secure and predictable and real again, to fool ourselves about what’s really true. We could just sit with the emotional energy and let it pass. There’s no particular need to spread blame and self-justification. Instead, we throw kerosene on the emotion so it will feel more real.
10. No One is Coming from the Positivity Blog. Oh how I wish the right person would read this, really hear it. *sigh*
11. Hello 35!, a list of lessons Tammy from Rowdy Kittens has learned over the last thirty-five years. She’s one smart cookie.
12. Wisdom from Ronna Detrick, “It is one thing to admit, maybe only to ourselves, what we most want, need, and deeply desire. It is another thing entirely to trust that we might be worthy of such, to give that internal voice any semblance of credibility.”
What in your life is calling you?
When all the noise is silenced,
the meetings adjourned,
the lists laid aside,
and the wild iris blooms by itself
in the dark forest,
what still pulls on your soul?
In the silence between your heartbeats
hides a summons.
Do you hear it?
Name it, if you must,
or leave it forever nameless,
but why pretend it is not there?
~Terma Collective
23. A 4-Year-Old Girl Asked A Lesbian If She’s A Boy. She Responded The Awesomest Way Possible, a really great talk Ash Beckham gave at the TEDx Boulder, shared here by Upworthy. I especially loved, “Hard is not relative, hard is hard,” and “When you do not have hard conversations, when you do not tell the truth about who you really are, you essentially are holding a hand grenade.”
You want to know “how” you will do your dreams. You want a guarantee. I’ll give you one. Commit to tasting the nectar of anything that brings you joy or peace. Get hooked on your own idiosyncratic ecstasy. You will have found your reason. You will have experienced an undeniable power. Then you will listen to yourself. And that is how you find your how.
33. Wisdom from Parker Palmer, shared by Curvy Yoga, “The heart is where we integrate what we know in our minds with what we know in our bones, the place where our knowledge can become more fully human.”
It can be indescribably difficult sometimes, to follow through with our desires. For me, the main push-back comes from intangible socieital pressures. I don’t want to care what others think about me, but holy crap do I ever. I really care. I want people to like me. (Why is that made into such a despicable sentiment? Doesn’t everyone want to be liked?) More importantly, I want people to respect me – or at least accept my choices. The problem, then, arises when what I want isn’t what society wants me to want, and I must overcome that natural instinct and step beyond its draw.
36. Stunning Portraits Of The World’s Remotest Tribes Before They Pass Away on Bored Panda. Makes me think two things are natural about, fundamental to humans, that honoring these things is essential to our survival: we are creative and we have a relationship with the earth and its creatures.
43. New music on SoundCloud. I am obsessed with Furns, and Sales is good too. Furns “Power” might be my favorite new song.
44. Are You Happy And In Love? Here’s Why That Makes You So Sad. from Upworthy. The only thing I disagree with here is that he says the Buddhist practice of non-attachment means you don’t care, and that is just wrong, a misunderstanding of the basic concept.
45. The Control Myth, a brilliant blog post by Michael Baugh that combines dog training with the wisdom of Pema Chödrön and Brene’ Brown, and says “What do we want, control or connection?” Thanks for sharing it, Sarah (and thanks for about 100 other things too), my favorite dog trainer.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 