You Must Not Fear

 Mary-Lynne Monroe ©2015

"You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, ... you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith."

~ Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-47

In 1944, Anais Nin was 41 years old. She was famous for her diaries, her openness about the fullness of life and her expression of that fullness with passion and gusto. Earlier in this passage, she also writes:
What is it that attracts me to the young? When I am with mature people I feel their rigidities, their tight crystallizations. They have become, at least in my eyes, like the statues of the famous. Achieved. Final.

We live in a world both blessed and cursed by rigidity and crystallization. The rigidity creates the rules that keep order and flow in a reasonable fashion. It also creates the rifts as people grab for the tight space that they can call their own ~ forgetting that we get farther together. The crystallization polarizes us, freezes us into one form. We act as though we can't be flexible, can't change, can't learn new views on things.

I've found myself in that rigid, crystallized position a few times in my life. As though I had all the answers and no one could tell me anything. As though there was nothing new to learn. Most of the time, I'm there out of fear. Is it possible there is something I don't know or am not an expert in? For a knowledge-junkie, that is a frightening position to be in. Hence, my rigidity born of fear. Then there's the crystallization born from judgment and/or privilege. I've been guilty of thinking because someone holds a certain position or status (youth, inexperience, handicapping condition, socio-economic status), they don't have the capacity to know something I don't.

Fortunately, those times have been few and far between, but even being there once is something for which I am not proud. I'm humbled by the sharing, acceptance and knowledge of  others. Most of the time, I am no longer fearful to say there's something I don't know. I've learned to share the emotions as well, to open to the mystery ~ and the greater Mystery, and allow my intuition to lead. Then my "great art" ~ my writing ~ flows from the depths of me. Then I am willing to be with and among everyone, learning and sharing. All without certitude.

Where do you find yourself to be rigid? What crystallizes your attitude? your interactions with others? What is your "great art"? How do you practice it? What creates flow for you?

Hair-pulling Stars

From the time I was a child, I would go outside alone at night to listen to the stars. Although some may have considered it odd, no one ever denied that the stars sang. Somewhere along the line, I simply stopped telling people why I was wandering alone in the dark staring up. It was becoming a common practice for many people. Enough so that people stopped questioning it. When sitting with a friend in a hot tub late one night, I shared with that I was listening to the stars sing. She sat quietly for several minutes, looking up at the stars. Eventually, she asked how she could learn to hear the stars. It was only then that I realized the stars didn't sing for everyone.

When I read this quote from Anais Nin, it brought those memories quickly to mind. Its words reverberate in a language I recognize. I'm restless. That's so very true. It's a restlessness born from the wild calling of the stars. I feel closed up after a time of being inside. Like a bud reaching for the light so it can to bloom. Things are calling me away.

The line that nearly brought me to tears was the final one. My hair is being pulled by the stars again. I love the terminology, the imagery. I can see the hair-pulling stars. When I wander outside, it is almost always at night. I am forever looking up, taking pictures of the moon, watching the planets gather and pass. For me, it's not my hair being pulled. It's the call of the stars and the planets echoing in my ears. It's my personal symphony; my music of the spheres.

What part or parts of nature call to you? How does that call happen? What sense experiences it? How do you respond? What happens if you don't?

Dream World Solitude

Anais Nin ~ one of the world's most incredible diarists ~ had much to say about solitude, quietude and exaltation. She lived her life to the brim ~ and often overflowing. She was also a very strong, confident and self-reflective writer.

This particular quote of hers surfaced when searching for quotes about 'letting go' ~ her unique point of view.
"In the world of the dreamer there was solitude: all the exaltations and joys came in the moment of preparation for living. They took place in solitude."

Solitude arises as I set out on my journey into each day. Mornings bring quiet and light and nature's sweet waking songs. Joy bubbles into those moments. Not only the lighthearted passing moments of appreciation of the beauty of the day, but also the deep-set, amazed joy bringing warmth to every beat of the heart.

I wake within the dream state. Mostly, I recall my dreams in that instant of awakening ~ barely stepping into the interstice between the veiled world and the solid one. Sometimes, I record the dreams. Generally, I grope my way into them, allowing the sensations to wash over me. My constant expression is gratitude. Thanking the Divine for the gift of dreams, memory, veiled world, and breath.

No matter that I wake alone or with another. In the moment when I awaken, I am in solitude. Totally. Completely. I feel the Glory of contact with the Divine, the Breath of the Divine entering my body. Connection.

How do you feel when you dream? when you wake from a dream? Do you like solitude? Do you appreciate it? Does it feel more like joy? or loneliness? Do you feel awake? aware? lost? afraid? How do you relate to Anais Nin's view of dreaming, solitude and joy?

Original and Unconventional

I don't really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits.

~  Anais Nin

Much of the beauty in this world slips past because my mind is set to a pace that has become the norm for our culture. I miss smelling the roses, noticing a waterfall between the tree branches. dancing to music only my soul can hear.

I've always been an original. In the terms of Clarissa Pinkola Estes' stories, I felt as though I was a 'misplaced zygote' ~ as though I didn't belong in my family. Nothing big or bad. I simply felt 'different.' I felt that way everywhere I went. In school, at church, in gatherings of friends. Even when I participated in the same events as everyone else, I felt like an oddity, an outsider.

What Nin describes is not only allowing, but encouraging that originality. Perhaps even basking in the difference, the unconventionality. Her focus is on strength and courage, two traits I've been consciously cultivating recently. For me that means letting go of how I've defined myself for the past 20 years or so.... well, how I've allowed myself to be defined. How I've hidden behind some of the definitions. I believe it's time to move beyond them, to redefine myself. Or more precisely, to let who and what I am, and am growing into, shine. I don't need definition!

What defines you? How do you draw on your personal strength? your personal courage? Do you believe in your own originality? How does that manifest for you?