Stay Inspired

Morning Sunrise from my Home, March 5th, 2024

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” —Howard Thurman

I love that quote. 

Thurman tells us to look within, to find our own heart’s path, to allow our voice to sing mightily, and “to ask,” What makes me come alive?  This is a big question, it can be a lifetime question, and has been asked by the wisdom teachers and students throughout the ages.

What makes me come alive?

Wouldn’t it be great live from your aliveness? There are so many competing deadening conversations out there, grabbing for our attention, from the “buy me and then you’ll be happy” culture, to the news, to the general human culture of complaining, resisting, fixing, strategizing,

So first, we must ask.

And then, we must listen, and listen deeply to the guidance from within.  And we must stay current with that guidance, and trust it, even if it means walking into unfamiliar territory, territory which feels profoundly unsafe. That is the stuff out of which breakthroughs are made.

“What brings me alive?” is a good question, a Life Question.

Music brings me alive.

Nature brings me alive.

People bring me alive.

Engaging in spiritual and developmental inner travelling brings me alive.

Knowing my purpose and living my purpose brings me alive.

I am deeply committed to, devoted to, development, or you could say, “living wakefully,” crossing those inner thresholds which must be crossed if I am to live a life of ongoingly “being alive.”

Three years ago, my husband and I enrolled in a retreat in Ireland called “Turas d’Anam,” or “Journey of the Soul.” We were with other pilgrims, other journeyers, delighting in being guided by an Irish family of musicians, poets, theologians, historians, and teachers.

At the beginning of the retreat, Noirin ni Riain, the teacher/ leader of the retreat, invited us to use the week to stop and “let our souls catch up.”

What a great invitation that was!

In that community was a fellow journeyer, with us, Brother David Steindl-Rast, an honored and revered Benedictine monk, spiritual teacher, wise and loving man, and author, and teacher, who was also on the same pilgrimage, read and appreciated some of my poetry. 

As we left each other that summer, his last words to me, as a parting gift, were an invitation.  What did he say? “Stay inspired.” 

I let it in, deeply, as a teaching, as the Essence of the Work I was to do in my life.

Eight months later, as with the rest of us, I was quarantined during Covid. During that time, I, published an award-winning book of nature poetry. I wrote poems each day, keeping myself Present.  I read Mary Oliver every day.  I read incredible books, including Brother David’s.  I pivoted some of my transformational offerings, those that I could, to Zoom, and created an online course out of my published book. I created a new relationship with my daughter. I supported my husband creating a CD of his own music. And, I “stayed inspired.”

What was my main pathway?

Each day, before any to do’s could start calling me, I stopped. I listened. I stilled myself. I meditated. I read Mary Oliver. Or David Whyte. Or Mark Nepo.

I got very quiet. I brought myself present to whatever was in front of me. I longed to hear my own deeper wisdom guiding me, I asked questions sometimes.  Sometimes they were particular questions, sometimes, I just brought myself to a still point, to nothing. And then the words would come.  They never failed to come. I let my pen write.

Starting a blog as a way to contribute to others, as “your story is my story is everybody’s story,” as the Irish say, the poems guided us through those challenging days of our cocooning time. The cocoon, we knew, would eventually come into being as a creature free to fly.

The poems have taken me, and then us, across threshold crossings, from divisiveness to compassion, from overwhelm to simplicity, from resistance to surrender, from exhaustion to wholeheartedness; they speak to me of Trust, of Patience, of Wholeheartedness, of Meaning, of Living in Gratefulness, Acceptance, Surrender, Faith, Compassion, Patience, Simplicity, of Listening from my Heart.  They instruct me, they guide me, they open me to Trusting that no matter what the outer conversations bring, in their sometimes madness, and Chaos, that All is Well.

May they open your heart and guide you as well!

I invite you to engage the question, “What brings you alive?”

Are you ready?

Then let’s begin.

---

Morning Sunrise

You
have crossed your threshold,
have emerged
out of this foggy and troubled land, 
can see and feel and hear 
the barely apparent 
yet still very clear 
light 
of the new dawn.

Come! 
Take my hand.
Listen for the voices of the world 
that have come to guide you.

You will hear your future calling, 
ever so gradually
making its appearance 
like an ancient god walking
out of the misty dawn.

Follow the current.
Let the teeming fruitful fish 
of your soul 
find their way to the sea.

Listen!

Let your lungs fill.
Grant the spaciousness of your soul 
time to breathe.

“What brings you alive?”