My Autumn Stew

No, I'm not sharing  a crock pot recipe ... although the sudden cold snap has me thinking a pot of slow-cooking, root vegetables in a thick soup does sound warming and grounding. No, I am the one slowly simmering ... allowing myself time to enjoy this season of Harvest by allowing space and time for me to process and digest all that has occurred in the past year or so.

Carving out a chunk of my day to sit quietly, I find it best to keep my hands busy. This allows my mind to do its thing by which I mean churn and process, spew empty out, then reorganize, reconstruct and discover new relationships or new ah-ha's. In addition to writing the last three posts about my trip to Bali, I've been spending time sewing a set a prayer flags started during that trip.

The action of gathering pieces of fabric, creating and stitching has helped me seal in the magic and medicine of that journey. It is my own sort of witch's cauldron or alchemist's brew.

I've also been deeply engaged with making my Inner Alchemy Earth Coven cards. I was a guide for this session so I offered to the collective deck the word Cherish.  

I realized of all the elements, Earth is the one I actively cultivate in myself and my life. Earth is the element I lack, so I must generate it in a conscious manner. Grounding, rooting, centering myself physically and emotionally. It was helpful for me to realize I am actually quite good at it! That I've unconsciously but naturally moved in the direction of creating grounding practices for myself. 

A helpful way for me ground myself is through routine. I may shake up the ingredients: just as my soups and stews are always a free-form play with what is on hand, what appeals to me, what I crave, so too my creative routine may swing from sewing to painting to writing. But creating is something I must do and I realize now it is how I root myself in my life.  It is also how I take the chaos that is my mind and spin it into some sort of crafty/arty object. It is the process that educates me more than anything else.

I've also come to realize that just as I embrace an intuitive approach to creating - allowing the work to unfold in conversation with my creative Muse a.k.a. spontaneous action/inner guidance - so too my day-to-day life is about trusting in the process. It is karma yoga really - showing up and doing my part, but surrendering attachment to the outcome. To be more specific: letting go of believing I can - or want to - control what results from my work, my actions or my words. For this is where the real magic happens.

For too long I've agonized over what I should be doing with my life. There is an intense push in our culture to Make A Difference and Be Important. Of course, who decides what constitutes important or helpful or vital? There's what I set out to teach my daughter and then there is what she learns. I can only do what I can - what feels right for me - trusting myself and trusting her.  A trust stew you might say. 

I have no idea which - if any - of my actions will grow into something bigger, substantial or sustaining. Maybe my habit of a creative practice will be a foundation for my girl. But then again, what may make the biggest impact upon her is the way I wake her up in the morning with a cuddle. Or that I read every night before going to sleep. Or maybe what will matter is not what I do, but what I don't do? 

And by extension, my biggest contribution to this world - my legacy if you will - will have nothing to do with my daughter or anyone I know intimately but will be some seemingly random action that set off a reaction somewhere else. The last minute tossing in of an herb that transforms the stew into some new, exotic dish? 

I just can't know. So rather than squander energy trying to control it all (or plan it all or inspiration board it all) I choose to live. I mean, what is the ultimate creative act but that of living? Showing up, honoring the guidance of my heart and following the creative impulse which keeps me immersed in my life. And then trusting ... it will be what it will be and that is always something marvelous and beyond anything I could have predicted or planned for, never mind create on my own.

  I choose partnership ... with life. I embrace being surprised. Because generally, I always am.