Ever finer distinctions on fear, toxic waste and enchantment
Today, a public holiday in my state, started with the “super” moon lighting me as I lay in bed. It’s quite lovely to be dozing/sleeping in full moonlight.
Then a walk on the beach, there in time to catch the sun rising over the Pacific. One of those perfect days, hardly a cloud, warm autumn sunshine. The king tide, however, seemed to have purged all the garbage we humans had so recklessly thrown. I spent much of my time collecting rubbish. Every bit of plastic made my heart hurt…for the sure knowing that this was the death of some of the sea creatures, the birds, their exquisite ecosystem.
I just couldn’t walk blindly over the bits of plastic bags and countless plastic straws, knowing they would be the death sentence for some innocent creature.
After my walk, I sat in the warm sunshine and reflected on life… on how our litter, our random throwaway society, is harming so much. Not just physical rubbish, but our trashy thinking, our emotional and verbal toxic thoughts.
That to be vigilant of our toxic waste as individuals is such a full-time job.
New job description…..What do you do? When asked at my next cocktail function. Well, I am a full-time garbage collector. Forever catching my own and others’ garbage and transmuting it.
And my fear…the good thing about fear is that it can be quite a motivator to action. The pattern I am recognising is that when the fear is not there, I tend to waft along…with less focus. So the next level of learning is how to keep in sharp focus out of motivated passion and aligned intent… a moving towards… versus being motivated by moving away. Quite a big distinction.
Finally, when reflecting on my lifelong patterns, and the patterns of my mother and her mother, I recognised that we have been carrying the DNA of ‘life is hard’. Quite a heavy little way of being.
That to break this pattern is not so much moving away from fear, but living in enchantment. Cultivating the enchantment, the miracles, the mystery, the beauty. In all things, in how I dress, what I read, how I write.
Revised new job description….Enchanted garbage collector...I can just see me now, stepping right off the pages of Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a wand and faery dust, collecting all the toxic residue and turning it into light. I like it. It’s whimsical and very positive deviant. With a twist of Puck.
Are you motivated by fear, or paralysed by it?
