Hello my friend,
Awake and creative.
Here we are.
Let's talk about words.
They aren't just language.
They're not simply modes of communication.
Of course,
That is the main reason words exist.
To help us communicate,
Share,
Experience,
Learn.
But they're more than that as well.
Words can change the very fabric of our being.
They make a world.
They destroy a world.
For about a decade now,
I have chosen a word of the year.
I tend to forget it or need to come back to it at regular intervals.
But because I've asked my intuition,
My soul,
To give me this word,
I've found that it's pretty darn insightful each time that I come back to it and revisit it and spend some time examining how it has transformed or held value in the experiences of the year as it's unfolded.
In the days of the desert dwellers,
Desert fathers and mothers,
In the fourth century as these nomadic spiritual beings decided to leave the constraints of Rome and seek out a simpler way of being,
They informed one another with these words.
They kept spirits and hearts aligned with a good word.
Many spiritual traditions have this idea of taking a word,
Or a good word as it is,
A phrase,
And ruminating on it,
Meditating on it,
For a duration of time.
Oftentimes,
In the case of monks and hermits,
It could be an entire lifetime of exploration and inquisition.
In our day and age,
Words can become daggers.
Social media has opened an entire new platform for using words in constructive and destructive ways.
We're learning our way as a culture into being more mindful and considerate.
But along that path of learning and growing with these new tools we have available to us,
There are a lot of missteps.
Dangers pop up and we have to learn how to sidestep them or use them more wisely.
So we build rules and regulations and set parameters.
That's as a system these things come to be,
But what about the individual?
We each have to take responsibility for that larger system to work.
It's tough.
We see so many others,
Leaders,
Heroes even,
Not using self-awareness and control and mindful living in their use of words.
Despite this,
Our heroes and leaders not leading,
We as individuals still can take responsibility,
Make the choice to use our words more wisely,
To choose a word,
To impact our every choice,
And to be responsible to the impact those words have on the world around us.
It's my belief that when we do this as individuals,
Take responsibility,
Despite the rest of the world,
We grow in strength.
There's a power behind owning the choice of one word,
One decision,
One movement,
Over and over and over.
This empowering starts from within.
It demolishes the victimization or victimhood that seems to be something of a pandemic in the social media strata right now.
Think about it for yourself.
Perhaps you're lingering over your morning coffee and just giving thought to what is to be your day.
What if one word could become a mental mantra,
Not just for this moment or even this day,
But perhaps for this decade.
Kindness.
Generosity.
Consideration.
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Do unto others.
We know them.
We've heard them.
These words,
These statements.
We can open the dictionary of their definitions,
But I'm asking you to go deeper.
To sit quietly.
Linger over the words and statements as I've read them aloud to you,
And also let them blur and fade and see what lingers there in your own instinct and intuition.
What word lingers or rises in your soul?
Calling.
Shining to you.
Long ago,
When seeking direction,
I heard my soul say,
Create an environment.
It lit me up,
This phrase in my core.
Yet also,
It was extremely vague over the years of recalling this phrase to myself.
I've come to realize that the vagary of the statement was a gift.
I didn't need to beg for more clarification or definition because I'd gotten what I asked for.
My assignment,
If you will.
From there,
It was up to me.
My free will was being called into action.
My mind was being asked to engage with this heart and soul calling.
From this statement,
Create an environment,
My mind engaged with the questions of what it means.
I was asked,
What do I hold in my hand?
What excites my intellect?
My drive?
My will?
Art?
Painting?
Color?
Design?
This is what it meant to create an environment for my hand and my life's trajectory.
Someone else who received the same soul calling might work in an entirely different field and translate this assignment,
As I am calling it,
Into a different stratosphere.
The beautiful reality is that it's a dance.
It's a harmonious interplay.
And the use of words are the way in which our soul calling,
The divine impulse in all of us,
Speaks to our intellect.
So that our each individual will and drive and passion can hear it,
Comprehend it,
And join in the dance of putting that calling into action in the world.
What is your word?
What is your phrase?
Don't look for the perfect statement.
Don't decide it's not it when you hear a word and it furrows your brow.
Perhaps more often than not,
It may be puzzling,
Wondering what that means or where that came from.
But write it down.
Move away from it.
Come back to it.
Sit with it for a while.
Do your life.
Be surprised at how you see that phrase as the beautiful word that is everything to transforming your will in the world.
And little by little,
Your transformed will and walk begin to transform the wall of the world.
What is your word?
Awaken.
Create it.
