Let Me Feel This
Balancing passion with the mundane
I look at my days, how I pass my time, and I ask myself what am I burning for? What does my Soul crave? What is the soaring dance we are meant to be doing together?
I worked most of last weekend on a presentation about capturing water in a little can. Good material, oddly informative. And I could feel the push pull. Enough already. Get up. You’ve been sitting all day.
But I’m almost done. I’m almost there. I promised I would finish the job. And another hour, and another hour.
I told myself I should care, it’s my job. My embers are banked.
How do I manage this balance of soul desire and the mundane? On one hand, the desire to burn with passion, to create, to explore, to deepen and dance.
With the need to pay my mortgage. And buy groceries. And do my laundry, and wash my dishes, and feed the cat.
But I want to sing and write and paint.
And the carpet needs to be cleaned, bedding needs to be changed, the socks mended, and I’m out of toothpaste.
I want to write about burning women. I want to be that burning woman.
But I just spilled coffee on the floor, the cat threw up on the rug, and now my toilet is clogged, and the plumber can’t come until tomorrow.
Last night, I listened to a recording. I’d heard it before, but I had forgotten. Just as we long to connect with our Soul, our Soul longs to be connected to us. She wants to feel the full human experience. That sentence sent shivers up and down my skin.
It made me smile to think that She might relish the impatience I feel talking to my phone company about a crazy bill. Is She tickled when I rage at the idiot who cuts me off on the freeway?
Does She soften when I realize I will turn 60 and my mother is no longer here to celebrate with me?
Does she curl into me, hold me gently? Tasting my tears, trembling with the loss. “This, too,” She whispers, “let me feel this, too.”
I turn towards her like the sun.
I long to feel the burning woman. I want to burn brightly with passion and creativity. I want to embrace this life, get drunk on it, the full of richness of it.
“Then brush your teeth mindfully.” She says, looking at me in the mirror. “Let’s take a walk around the neighborhood and see what’s in bloom.” As I tie my shoelaces.
Sitting on the stoop, eating breakfast, She takes my hand. “And let’s sit and remember your mother for a bit, before the day takes you away.”
She goes on, “There is a time for all things. Perhaps if we burn bright all the time, we burn ourselves out. And the power of the fire dulls.
But that banked ember you spoke of, in fact that you made so little of, that ember is forever yours. To be carried anywhere, everywhere. It can be stoked to a bonfire in a heartbeat. Whenever you are ready. Whenever you need.”
I feel the sun heating my thighs, the cat curling up to my belly, the warmth of my fingers at my neck. My banked ember, always there. To be stoked to a bonfire in a heartbeat. I rest my head on Her shoulder, comforted.
Marianne was born to a family of artists, and has spent her life exploring creativity in its many facets. She is also a long time landscape designer and earth activist. Follow along as she explores the beauty of the every day and the mystery of the cosmos. @marianne-becoming
