Find Your Tribe

Yesterday, I wrote very briefly of the significance of our tribe ~ the people with whom we feel most comfortable. This motif has repeated itself recently, including bringing forth this image and quote.

Though we hear the call to live our passion, we don't always do that every moment of every day of every year. Many find ways to keep it alive within us even when expressing it is difficult.

The more important task is finding those who help kindle our passions and those who inspire our pursuit of them. These people comprise our tribe ~ the ones who call us on our laziness and support us through our dark moments.

Our tribe doesn't always reside in the same place. Sometimes those individuals we call part of our tribe don't like or even know each other. We aren't stagnant, single fixtures even with our passions. So our tribe may not be either.

Obviously, I write. Each person who reads my blogs is part of my tribe. By showing up and reading it, you encourage me to continue to write. Is that important? Yes. It fans my personal flames even when I feel discouraged.

I have other writing tribe members. Some are friends who've read my letters, blogs and stories over the years, encouraging me to continue. Writing course and group members who point out phrasing that strikes them in a positive or negative manner. Writers whose works I read and whose style I may in some way emulate or incorporate into my personal voice.

Beyond writing, I have tribal membership with spiritual groups. I have learned about different forms of divination, including tarot, dreams, astrology, shamanism ~ each of them calling forth their own tribes. These tribes sometimes overlap with each other as well as with my writing, family or work tribes.

Everywhere I go, in every form of passion I have, I find people who fan my flames. And whose flames I, in turn, also fan. Being part of a tribe is like that. It's as important to have others who provide you with true inspiration as it is to provide them with inspiration.

What tribes do you belong to? What passions are awake within you? Who fans the flame of those passions? How do you fan the flames of others' passions? What support do you need? How do you ask for it? What support are you willing to give others? Do you find yourself supporting others who do not support you? Do these relationships feel tribal to you?

Don't Go Back to Sleep

Five mornings a week through every season of the year, my drive to work takes me directly into the sunrise. [The rest of the year, it's either full dark or the sun's already above the horizon.]

The scene is often breath-taking at dawn: fog rising off a river, hillsides covered with greenery, clouds playing peek-a-boo with the light. Of course, there is also the traffic, the mile markers and the exits. Yet through it all, what I see, what wakes me up, is the beauty.

These things make up my version of Rumi's world. As I drive through these adjoining worlds ~ akin to Rumi's doorsill ~ I often find myself seeking something. I ask for guidance for the day. Or I express gratitude for the beauty. Or I request blessings on friends, co-workers or loved ones in distress. Until I found and read this poem again, I didn't realize that I was following Rumi's advice to "ask for what [I] really want." The moments of growing light are the grand doorway to the world's beauty. Beauty captures the heart and leaves it grateful.

One of my favorite phrases of Rumi's has always been his charge: "Don't go back to sleep!" In the midst of that morning beauty, it is easy to express gratitude. It is a wonderful reminder of the glory of the Earth and the great gift of Life.

I start my days that way because it is so much easier to 'go back to sleep' later in the day, when the beauty is not quite as breath-taking and visible. If I practice gratitude and awareness first thing in the morning, it creates a rhythm within me to continue to be awake, or to return to wakefulness, later. Rumi reminds us to be mindful of the 'breeze at dawn' because those are the moments when we can breathe in that awareness of the side-by-side worlds before getting bogged down in the mundane routines of our day. It helps keep us focused.

How do you begin your day? What is your 'breeze at dawn'? your 'doorsill where the two worlds touch'? What did you ask for today? How do you make your requests? How do you remind yourself to not 'go back to sleep'?

Mirror Pieces

Have you ever heard the story about the blind men describing an elephant? Each one had touched only one part of the elephant and insisted that his view was the most accurate one.

This is Rumi's description of the same action. One piece of something, one side of the story, one point of view, is not the entirety of the truth.

To illustrate this, let me tell a tale ~
At a friend's house for a party, I got into a discussion with another guest about the contents of a particular dessert. The other person insisted that the dessert was "healthy" for diabetics because it was sweetened with honey rather than white sugar. I asked, "Is that true?" At which point, the other guest got angry and insisted it was true and, besides that, it wasn't her fault if it wasn't. Then she turned and stomped off. I was dumb-struck. I had asked a simple question ~ not sure (1) if the dessert was sweetened with honey or (2) if it was, would that made it a healthier choice. Afterward, when mentioning the incident to the host, I was informed that someone with whom this other guest worked had died in the month prior to the party. She was still in shock and grief.
My "piece of mirror" was that this guest had over-reacted to my query or was a grumpy drunk or something of that sort. Never would I have suspected that she was emotionally spent.
Her "piece of mirror" may have been that I was challenging her and she was too psychologically stretched to handle it.
The host's "piece of mirror"? The incident had gone unnoticed.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation like this? How did you discover the different facet of the mirror/truth? Did you have an "aha" moment? How did the new information change you?

Come, Wanderer

"Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving -
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times.
Come, yet again, come, come."

—Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkh, or Rumi

(September 30, 1207 – December 17, 1273)

I share a birthday with Rumi.

Maybe that shouldn't be my most first thought when reading this. Yet, I've always loved Rumi. I first found his work when I was in high school, working in the library. It caresses me with its passion and intensity.

Wanderer ~
I've been a traveler, a nomad, a gypsy since a very young age. My mother said I habitually wandered off. When I was 5 or 6, I climbed to the top beam of a house being built in my neighborhood and she needed to climb up to get me. I promised to be good, to stay close, to let people know where I was going. Alas, I have indeed broken that promise at least a hundred times.

Rumi speaks from that deep place of love, the knowingness that someone is always present in your life, will always return to you ~ or allow your return. The call to that return is exuberant ~ "Come, come.... yet again, come, come." The invitation is not only real but overflowing with emotion.

Rumi's voice can be heard also as the voice of the Divine, the Lover of us all, hailing us, reminding us that there is a place for us whenever we choose to return to it. It's that open, passionate invitation that keeps me returning when I feel less than charitable toward myself, when I need to be held by the essence of Love.

Is there a place, solid or spiritual, that beckons you? How do you feel when it does? What draws you back? How do you "hear" the call?

More of What Matters

Rumi. One of my very favorite poets. One of my favorite commentators on life.

What is calling me has changed from what called me 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. My life situation is changing ~ has changed ~ and I find myself looking deeply in a different direction. There is a new-found silence that bubbles from a well I'd almost forgotten lived within me.  The spot had grown so very, very still that any movement or noise drowned it out.

Recently, the bubbling began. And I knew that the Wild Iris bloomed within me, in the dark forest of my soul. There's a beauty there that draws me ever deeper into it. When I get there, I wonder if there will be another direction, another calling, pulling on my soul?

What pulls on your soul? How do you silence the noise enough to hear the calling of your soul? What blooms within for you?

Drawn by Love

One of the best ways to take care of yourself is to find out what it is you truly love. Not who you love, but what you love. Really.

I've been reaching for what I love for awhile. Nothing big or important ~~ Ha! It's what brings my heart to life.

What draws me? Writing. I love to sit down with pen and paper or with my fingers on a keyboard and write. Sometimes I'm better at expressing what I want to say, but I love to simply get thoughts, ideas, dreams, notions down in some form.

What else draws me? Teaching. When an idea I have presented lights up a student's face it's one of the most satisfying feelings in the world. I want to expand my teaching environment from the public schools, where I've been lucky to teach for a bunch of years, to .... I'm not quite sure what yet. Part time? Private school? A totally different venue? We'll see where it draws me.

What about you? What draws your heart? What have you found that you love? Are you pursuing that path?

Playing Small, part 1

Last week, I was participating in a renewal/review of a visioning event from the year before. The leader handed us part of a famous quote from Marianne Williamson of which these words popped out:

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

Today, the Rumi quote showed up on my Facebook feed. I believe in the power of coincidence ~ when we choose to notice it. The Ineffable One is saying something here.... something I have resisted much of my life. I recognize there is humility in my hanging back; yet it has grown beyond just being humble to that level of false humility that says I have more than someone else so I need to temper it. What I have is not more of something, it is uniquely my expression of Spirit rather than what others see or expect or express themselves. It is time to unfold.... more to come.

How do you 'play small'? Why do you do it? What is the gift you have that you are holding back from the world? Why?