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fire

Brave, fire

And she gets it.

February 19, 2010

“Believe me, the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is – to live dangerously.” – Nietzsche

 

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I’m scared of the dark.  I’m scared of the dark, mushrooms, violent images, cooking, failing, putting pictures of myself on my blog, and so much more.  But another thing I have been scared of is quotes like the one at the top of this post: quotes that make you think that in order to live a “wild and precious life” (Mary Oliver) you have to throw caution to the wind, bite the bullet, and streak naked through your life.  Talk about scary!

But this morning a light went on.  In the spirit of my red year, I have picked up Sera Beak’s The Red Book again. Nervously reading it (it feels like a streaking naked book!) this morning, I suddenly got it. At the end of the introduction Sera writes:

“Ask yourself: How intensely do I want to exist?”

Click.

Yes.

Crap.

It’s not about causing trouble or being naughty or being dangerous.  It’s not about shaking other people up, or pushing societies’ rules, or reciting poetry in your pajamas standing on your head on a busy street corner while blowing bubbles out of your ass.  It’s about how intensely you are willing to experience your life.  It is about the choices you make in every moment of every day of your very own life.  It’s about being conscious.

I am ashamed to say that I have been consistently choosing the least conscious, and therefore easier option lately.  But is it easier?  In the long run is it easier to choose easy and then live with regret and self condemnation or would it actually be easier to make the more difficult choice and live with self esteem and pride?

How intensely do I want to exist?  How can I live dangerously on my own terms?  What am I going to do with my own wild and precious life?   I’m not sure.  I am going to sit with those questions for awhile and see where they take me now that I am not afraid of them anymore.  At this point even baby steps feel gloriously dangerous.

“Ask yourself: How intensely do I want to exist?”

fire

Red

February 15, 2010

“The point is to put the energy out there, to light that first twig in the bonfire and then keep stirring the pot. The rest will unfold in due time.” – Sera Beak

 

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Yesterday was the first day of the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar.  As I am a tiger, a friend told me that this year is going to have a lot of influences on me.  She also said I need to make sure I wear something red every day to ward off the negative ones. (Pardon me if I have butchered that explanation!)

But it seems to slot very nicely into where I am right now.  Fire is red.  Passion is red. Love is red. Red is energy and emotion.  Red is awake and full of feeling.  Red is very very very far away from beige.  Red is awareness that I should choose more bravely, pay more attention, and take bigger bites.  Red is joy and abandon.  Red is bursting into flame.

So for the next year I will attempt to wear a little (or a lot of) red every day.  And while I hope that it will ward off all negative influences, my intention is that it also reminds me to stay awake and to keep stirring the pot.   It scares me.  It feels like a combination of liberation and heavy pressure.  Catching fire isn’t easy.  It requires fuel, air and a spark.  But somehow I know that it is what I need to do.

Red?  Yes.

xo

fire

dry your wings in the sun

February 12, 2010

“You are a phoenix with your feathers still a little wet/ Baby, the ashes just look pretty on your eyes…” – Deb Talan

 

broad-scarlet-dragonfly-crocothemis-erythraea(photo from iberianature.com)

Questions. That is all I seem to have had for the past few months: questions.  Mostly the question has included ‘why’ and it has been directed somewhere around me.  But I have become bored of that, and myself.  In the movie The Man with Two Brains, Steve Martin asks for a sign telling him whether or not he should do something and everything around him shakes and rattles and his dead wife’s portrait screams ‘No!’ at him, but he keeps asking for the sign.  I have felt like that.  I’ve kept asking why, but this morning I realized that I need to start asking ‘what?’

The Universe has been sending me fire.  The examples of the signs are many, so I won’t list them, but from my house catching fire to huge bonfires set in front of my house (the biggest examples) fire has been a distinct theme.  Two nights ago I asked the Universe what I was meant to do next, ‘give me a sign,’ I said.  That same night a ladybug landed on my chest as I lay in bed. (Odd as it is February and far too cold for ladybugs.)  I looked up the symbolism and it said, “Ladybug, ladybug fly away home.  Your house is on fire and your children are alone…” Fire.  This morning I was getting dressed in the dark and the static charge on me set off several sparks as I got dressed.

So sitting at my computer in the very early morning I wondered where to go from here.  Not ‘why’ but ‘what.’  It’s all very well getting signs, but I have been feeling so beige lately I haven’t had the courage or the energy to do anything about it.  I moved my computer a few inches to make writing easier and there in front of me on a green Post-it in my very own handwriting was a quote: “Remember, you are not here to play it safe. You are here to start fires.” – Sera Beak

Fire.  I’ve had none on the inside.  It has all been external.  Inside I have felt empty and a little lost.  But Deb Talan‘s lyrics have been haunting me for a few days: “You are a phoenix with your feathers still a little wet.”  I’ve been poo-pooing it because I have never felt less phoenix-like in my life, but perhaps that is what the external fire has been about.  A phoenix rises from the ashes and flies.  The space around them doesn’t continue to burn when they have taken flight again.  I am in that place where the fire has surrounded me and I have been left feeling quite wobbly and unsure.  But I guess it’s my turn now.  It’s time to get those wings flapping again.  It’s time to get my own fire burning.

“Remember, you are not here to play it safe. You are here to start fires.” – Sera Beak