i am on retreat inside my life.
i am giving my introversion my introspection while exploring my curiosity with a wide berth.
the navel gazing aspect of this blog is indulgent – it seems – until I remember, it is just a mirror for me, and thus, for all of us that resonate together and walk along with the same wind and rain and sunny days.
here is the puzzle for marga today.
i am saying no to improv – the formal kind and focusing on the real life moment to moment kind and it feels so wonderful.
some voice asked isn’t quitting failing?
But I can choose a different question.
what is it i want to create? does that occur on stage?
Our world is so full of distraction from the main game. Nothing wrong with any thing i choose to experience at all, but how do i choose? no one can answer but me. Which me do i listen to?
Filling the cup with activity, entertainment, indulgence has been a common pattern for most for a long time in this particular, still-comfortable corner of the world.
The thing is this…i know what the number 1 thing is. I know. and it comes before everything, everyone.
knowing this –
what shall i do, what shall I do, do , do?
What is it we are to do?
walk in nature. nourish our bodies. care for each other. open our hearts. be present. When you talk, i listen. when i talk, i listen. who is talking?
listen. do the next thing. here, that is grade some papers. make some juice. pet some cats that I invited to guard my front door. laundry, sweep. make things, learn, get messy, cook, shop at the grocery and vegetable bin, hold others. love. experience all that crosses my threshold of awareness.
now to make the telephone call. what shall i say? ooooh, the dreaded task for the flow of an introvert. the telephone call, the choice of words, how to convey my appreciation and respect from my heart as I decline, step back, honor the inner signal.
help me here heart, help me send my being through the wireless waves and find words still out of reach.
I am hovering here. why the delay? Okay, now I switched to an email. Easier, more my style – i can group the words together the way I want.
watching marga turn and turn again to embrace the moment – this unknowable, out-of-loop uncertainty, always unconstructing – and appearing again.
Life as Improv 
Oh to do or not to do, that is the question, isn’t it? And the dreaded telephone call, boy can I relate to that! Love the free flow of consciousness and the beautiful picture of the tree.
I am from a small town you may have heard of, Ambivalence. Such a nice gift to be able to share in a comfortable way the small experiences with those who can relate. So much is falling away right here right now and your year, Erin, is already more than half over ! Now i’m Off to your corner now for carefully selected boiled down YES!
Oh yes, we have a town like that in our area too! I know it well. It is a half year over, oh my! Welcome to Yes! 🙂
Oh yes lovely, it seems the beauty of the doing of not doing is afoot in all the best corners of the flow… we are all learning to use our entire lives as a larger improv stage these days.
Grace filled exits out one door always leave one facing in the position of a graceful entrance in the direction one is clearing space to make room to move into.
In my experience, it is impossible to fail by running away from or to quit anything too soon. If you leave something by being dishonest with yourself, doing so because you really are afraid or uncomfortable about something found in an experience so you leave it before all the lessons there are learned, you are guaranteed that the universe will serve up a similar experience just with new players in your future so you to have the opportunity to again master what you missed. In this way, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO EVER FAIL.. we can slow our progress, but the potential lessons learning to truly love oneself never leave. 🙂
Whoever or whatever is on the other side of the phone/email needing to be sent, if they have any true worth in your life at all, will understand and support your decision to follow your inner guidance at this time.
For me anytime a “negative emotion” enters into my experiential array of feeling, as soon as I can get to the place of observation of it, I do a little dance of celebration. Any dread felt by taking action is always available as a beautiful teacher for helping me be true to myself first, all while learning of the areas where I still allow the “need to do” pressure to come in from anyone and anywhere else :).
Kudos to you for taking yourself and your happiness seriously and for having the courage to come out from behind all the comfortable improv scenes. – xou.M
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Awareness that one/i cannot fail does help one/me stop taking each move on the board game so seriously. my shifting to the new open empty pregnant space becomes less of a wile e. coyote move off yet another cliff and more of a dive into the treasure chest of possibilities. So strangely quiet, so full of non doing, i am content and barely aware of the fall-out behind. grateful for such a beautiful walking mirror as you 🙂
Well, that could have been the word flow (or very similar) moving through this brainscape. It’s just how it is ay? thanks! such openness in that…..
thank you, Kai. So cool to hear your reflection on the similarity – how else could i know? I had a image of prisoners talking through walls to each other, saying, “you too?” ay, me too – and then the cell doors open up and the building falls down. 🙂
That’s a fantastic image! Oh, thanks for that!!
Beautiful. And after I just said no to a request .. after feeling the answer in my heart and arguing with my mind.. choosing to follow my heart…
Namaste,
Laurie
Sometimes the mind can make the heart hard to hear. so nice to overlap with the heart listening with you.
🙂
One thing I know for sure is that the periods of limbo are necessary for me, for many, right before a new way takes over. Trust in that awkward time, trust and know that nothing stays the same, and if it does, it’s artificial. I always admire people when they are willing to give up the familiar for the unknown. It takes courage which comes from
le couer, the French word for heart.
Your layered, rich sharing resonates from experience on the path. Trusting the limbo and the unknown moving toward is a good area to recognize and allow – I learn, remember and recognize anew each time. Thank you for your words du couer!
Yes, experience on the path and a certain number of years lived. What makes life worth living as we get older is what we know: not what we lose, but what we’ve gained. It’s rich if one can taste it.
Love the post and the engaging resonance that follows here. Do the next thing, yes, even if it is to sit in quiet, or run until it hurts, do the next thing. 🙂
🙂 So much less to temptation to “think” about anything when that is all it is – the next thing –