“Living in rapture is health.  Following your bliss is not self indulgent,

but vital: your whole system knows that this is the way to be alive

in the world and the way to give the world the very best

that you have to offer.  There is a track just waiting there for each of us,

and once on it, doors will open that were not open before

and would not open for anyone else.”

- Joseph Campbell

The bloom of such long summer days, here now at the end of June, bring to us the fullness of the summer sun.  They reflect to us the opportunity to live out and into the world: our yards, streets, parks and woods. We are provided with ample opportunity to bring forth our own fullness of being, and live into it with others.  Summer activities bring us to social encounters with picnics, barbeques, vacations, or perhaps more adventurous endeavors, such a wilderness retreats and Hero’s Journey Intensives!

What does it mean to follow our bliss?  How do we confuse this with selfishness, and guilt-laden self indulgence?  How challenging it is, truly, to follow one’s own bliss?   To engage ourselves in a primary way with those people, places and things that truly awaken our own interior?   How often do we fall into a justified way of living out an obligated posture towards life, one that rewards us with an idealized image of ourselves, with no more vitality brought into the mix?   How do we discern the difference?

Perhaps, just for today, we can pay close attention to our own lived experience, and be informed by what happens inside of us as we encounter certain people, activities, and environments that bring forth a “Yes” inside of us?  How do we embody a lightness of being, a pleasant sensation in the body, a clarity of mind, a buoyancy of energy, and allow ourselves to stay with it, to follow it, and let it move us forward into life, into meaning-making, into mystery?   Let us practice this focused attention to our own embodied presence, listening to how own embodied intelligence says to us clearly “yes” or “no”, and watch how our mind will allow that experience, or dis-allow it.

Could it really be so, that when we live in this way, the universe mirrors it back to us as well – through the opportunities to share life with people, places, and activities that would most bring us alive?  And what if that is happening in our lives, right now?  How do we say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to these opportunities?   Let us allow the light of awareness to shine on the potential for doors to open, inside of us, and outside of us, that would not open before, and would not open for any other.  That is one way to be the hero of one’s own life, and bring that life into the world.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Michael's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.