Imagine

Ceaseless fascination with the songs of light, the turning of seasons, and the camera’s invitation to co-create with the eye of god.  photo:  ss

Hey Friend,

This is an invitation to pause.

Imagine, just for a few minutes, the world you really want to live in – the one Yoko and John showed us, the one where you get to romp in the grass everyday, where the sun warms your skin, where your body is radiantly healthy, where everyone dances regularly, and where our parents  and children and partners and lovers and neighbors are true friends.

Bring in the color.  Tune up the sound.  Make a smell symphony.  Melt into it… just for a minute, let yourself have the world you imagine.

Where are you?  Perhaps it is the home you never fully let yourself dream of, the relationship you thought was impossible, the business they said would fail.  Or, perhaps it is the healing practice they said wasn’t valuable, or the art that nobody listened to, or the the silence you thought you needed to cover in order to be heard…

Go there.  Extend the instant.  Extend the interval.  That is where your real power lies – right there – in the center of your imagination.  That’s god power at work.  Don’t let it die.

What can you imagine into existence?

“BUT…” you say, “I’m not sure I deserve this.  I’m not sure it’s possible.  I won’t be supported.  What if I die?”

Imagine, just for this moment, that the universe loves you, that every single thing that has ever happened to you, is happening to you, or will ever happening to you, is perfectly aligned with your soul’s plan for itself and god’s plan for you.   Just let that in.  And, just for today, take another few steps into LIVING INTO the world you imagine.

 

Two(+) keys for today:

Give the world the benefit of the doubt. 

‘Notice whether you imagine (project) good intentions or negative intentions onto the actions or others.  Withdraw the judgement and simply imagine that that person or situation is doing it’s very very best to come to a higher order of resolution with challenge or change.  Notice how this is profoundly relieving for you, because then you are no longer carrying the weight of that judgement.  Repeat… notice.  Find a more charged situation.  Do it again.

Imagine new life where you currently perceive dysfunction or death.

We all have those things we look away from because they are unpleasant, or deadened places within our selves or our world.  Often, we don’t know what to do about them, so we ignore them, or simply cope with them.   Examples:  the knee issue you’ve been nursing for two years but “have just gotten used to living with,” the homeless person whose particular energy and presence speaks mysteriously to you, but who you’ve never said “hi” to, the bare rooftops I’m looking at right now, that I imagine everyday as gardens, solar catchers and water movers.  Every single thing you see that tugs at your body, heart and soul for an authentic response is an opportunity in latent form.  These things invite you to apply your imagination to co-create a higher octave of being, of response, of solution or resolution or connection in your own life and in the world.  Where in your life are you ignoring a potent opportunity to turn towards a challenge or a pain with creative openness to grow, to give and to be changed?  Where are you pushing something away because it doesn’t fit your preferences or fantasy image of your life?  Choose one thing or situation.  Imagine it as a part of the world you want to see – with your heart wide open – and see what new responses arise.

Bonus Key:

“Better Than Imagined”

For me, the most potent key (or prayer) is the one where I use my imagination to conjure and coalesce the most beautiful, elegant, lovingly created thing (like Dancing Freedom, for example, or the organic feast I cooked on Saturday night), then I GIVE IT UP TO GOD, trusting that’s the Greater Intelligence of creation is a more brilliant, diverse, genius co-creator than me alone.  This is where true magic happens.  All you need to do is to allow yourself to engage a dialogue, a conversation, with whatever you perceive that larger intelligence and love to be.  Just try it – dance it, talk it, meditate it, use your gratitude power to engage with it.  See what happens.

More on imagination, creativity and liberation next week…

I love you so much,

Samantha

Courage

Mid-August.  It is Monday night in Tokyo: hot, sultry weather and a room full of bodies in full motion.  Thirty dancers reveal the soul dancing as I “hold space” – just being fully myself and weaving light in the room.  The whole place vibrates, and I feel the earth sending waves of gratitude to us through the floor.

It is a remarkable and brave thing to dance your soul.  Naked, vulnerable and free, I see dancers opening body, heart and spirit in the motion.  Sweaty and blissful, I see people in divine radiance.  I see courage.  I see the whole person.  I see the dance of life, death and birth.  I see timelessness.  It’s exquisite!

As I witness, I begin to contemplate this remarkable courage, expression and beauty.  I think about who these dancers are as people, as spirits, as wisdom keepers.  I shiver.

What is a person? A person is a collection of perceptions, feelings and actions.  A person is a skin bag full of bones, blood and heart.  A person is a miracle – with arms, legs, spine and a mouth to speak.  A person is a spiritual event happening one moment at a time.   A person is a body that includes the physical, emotional, mental, higher self, soul and spirit, all weaving together in one unfolding conversation of Self.    A person is a dance.

What is a dance? A dance is an act of essence.  It is a set of motions dissolving in space and time, never to be repeated again, known only through the experience of the dancer or the awareness of the witness.  A dance is a deeply courageous act.

What is courage? Courage is what I witness every day when these remarkable beings called humans come to do this incredible action called dancing.

Courage is naked self. It requires a willingness to perceive, feel and act.  It requires presence.  It takes guts.

When I see people connecting deeply to what their senses perceive, their bodies and emotions feel, and their dances express, I see raw humanity.  I see incredible, wild, truth.  I see diversity, and I see unity. I see divinity.  Courage is what I see when a person deeply perceives him or herself in the movement, allows that perception to be totally felt, and finds the willingness to express that into the dance.  It is risky.  There are no guarantees.  The gamble is our own freedom.

Courage means being your self totally, without apology, shame or doubt.  It means being vulnerable.  It is a tool for being wide awake – totally alive and free.  Without the courage to be vulnerable, we can never know true power.  True power comes from embrace of life, not control over it.  The dance asks us to loose control and thus experience being – totally.  It asks us for real embrace.  You can’t dance if you are busy editing your own feelings and actions.  You have to be unconditional.  This is how we learn self-love.

Here in Tokyo, we are dancing.  People are coming together – body and soul – to Dance Freedom and sweat prayers.   Everything is breaking open: hearts wide open, pores wide open, voices wide open, expression wide open!  I am in AWE of what I see.  Awe.  There is no other word for it.  It get kundalini waves just thinking about it.

The freedom to experience and express the self is such a radical thing here in Japan.  Just the concepts of self-awareness and self-leadership are radical.  There is no word for sovereignty in the Japanese Language.  In this culture, there has been so little space to feel, so little room for individuation. Space is tight.  You get by.  You do what you are told.  You fit in and work hard and live in responsibility to your family and ancestors.  You live in the context of a larger culture, an older order and continuity over which you have no control.  Yet, there is an incredible momentum towards self development and a growing drive towards sovereignty.  There is also a call to release the old pictures of cultural identity to enter new possibilities of beauty.  People are claiming their power and recognizing that they are creators.  There is a spark of passion – soul fire! – coming alive everywhere, like the day glow colors on the billboards of this endless city.  These people are so courageous!

This new Soul Fire is idiosyncratic, self-affirming and radiantly alive.  It arrives as a wordless drive, or a will to know, and it opens the gates of the heart.   People are shedding the skins of culture and asking WHO AM I?  WHAT DO I WANT?  WHAT AM I HERE TO CREATE?  HOW CAN I LOVE – MORE?  HOW CAN I BE FREE?  WHAT IS MY PURPOSE?   HOW CAN I LET GO OF EGO?  Each place I go, I meet people struggling with the Great Questions.  It is time to dance.  In the dance we arrive at sensation, feeling and action: the simplest building blocks of our humanity.  We remember that the answers are not external, like new clothes or new jobs, but are held in the heart and in the ways in which we experience our lives. We find the courage to be ourselves, and THIS is the only real answer.  Let life be an endless question.  It is much more interesting that way.  This is where the Dance of Freedom begins.

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estes