Purpose
Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 11:17AM 
{Path to the forest from Esalen Institute}
This week I kneaded dough. I dug my hands into the earth and planted a small herb garden. I learned about taking care of the 300-year old oak tree that sits in our front yard. I walked my dog. I bought groceries.
And it has been one of the most serenely joyful weeks I've had in a long, long while.
Which is not to say I have been unhappy during the other weeks, it is to express the calm that came with these rather mundane chores and activities. They existed in a long river of time that was able to expand and stretch and move with the needs of the day, as the needs and inspirations came about. Keeping a constant eye on the clock - a habit I had grown so accustomed to - was not necessary. What time is it? It is time to go buy potting soil. It is time to mail this package.
I have been a Pursuer for most of my life. I see something - an idea sparks, a vision appears - and I go after it, I create it. While twists and turns have always been part of these journeys, they have been, overall, linear pursuits. I see beginnings, middles and ends, each linking to one another in a long chain of stories.
These days I am trying to learn a new kind of exploration, a way of moving through the world that is less about going after something already fully formed in my mind and more about letting the gifts of each day reveal themselves. I risk becoming aimless, and I fear losing my sense of purpose.
But it is that last word that is with me through all of this: Purpose. What is my purpose? How can I best serve the world? My answer has been basically the same for as long as I can remember - to inspire others - but how I have been called to express and live this has changed over the years. It is such a big, broad phrase - "to inspire others" - able to hold so many different possibilities. Right now those possibilities aren't going much farther than my own backyard, and they aren't about anything more exotic than dirt and trees and flour and laundry. They are about the dirty plate on my kitchen table, now sticky with remnants of the eggs I fixed my husband this morning. They are about my dog sleeping at my feet, and the way the white roses are bending towards the sun outside my window. They are about right here, right now, the day ahead of me, and all the mystery it still holds.
Blessings...Christine
Reader Comments (1)
lovely...releasing ourselves to the rhythms of life...something I would like to practice more myself.