Staying Safe or Surrendering: A Dilemma of Creativity and Spirituality by Rahima Warren Many years ago, I had an awe-inspiring glimpse of the Flow of Divine Creativity. It appeared to me as a cosmic Fountain of Creativity, endlessly flowing upward with an outrageous infinitude of vivid, colorful images: trees, cartoons, volcanoes, tulips, cars, babies, tigers, paintings, skyscrapers, movies, soldiers, roses, stars, drums—everything tumbling upward forever! I saw that what we human creators do is tap into this infinite Fountain, and channel one little stream into manifestation, whether we are a musician or a parent, an architect or a writer, an artist or an engineer. Certainly this is my experience of writing my visionary trilogy, The Star-Seer’s Prophecy. A certain dream character had been haunting me for years. One day, I wrote a short story in my journal about this character, hoping the little story would make him stop bothering me. Ha! I’d tapped into that Fountain and now the Flow was sweeping me away! I could have fought it and tried to get back to my life and my career as a psychotherapist. However, my spiritual path is a path of surrender. Our ego-minds are all about keeping control and staying safe, so any ego-effort to understand or get close to the Divine is doomed to failure. Only by surrendering that ego-control can we open ourselves to the Divine, and to our creativity (which are aspects of the same Flow.) The Divine (however you name it) is not concerned with our staying safe and small, but with our blooming into our full, beautiful, creative selves. If I had ignored this flood of creative inspiration that I had tapped into, I would have stayed in my safe rut, and never discovered the wonders of allowing my creativity full rein (or in my case, reign!), or faced the “growth opportunity” of offering my book to the world. Instead, I surrendered to the passionate outpouring of this character’s story, whose name turned out to be Kyr. With no idea where his story was going, no outline, no plan, I just wrote whatever came through, no matter how dark or brilliant. Kyr’s path is also one of surrender. At first, he has no choice but submit, since he has been born and raised as a slave of the Soul-Drinker, an evil sorcerer-king with vast powers that no one can combat. Then he is rescued and faces a choice: cling to his deathly loyalty to his master, or to take the unknown hard path toward life, love and the Light. Kyr’s journey toward the Light is a journey of surrender. At each step of the way, he has to surrender his old view of who he is and what he deserves, and open more and more to his true nature. I suspect that may be true for all of us, but it is rarely easy. The ego-mind wants to stay with what it knows, no matter how awful, and to stay small, with the illusion that this makes us safe. In Dark Innocence: Book One of my trilogy, there is a scene where Kyr surrenders his pain and remorse to the Goddess. After all these years of rewriting, editing, publishing and now doing my best to let the world know about Kyr’s dark, intense, yet healing and inspiring story, that scene still touches my heart. Contemplation Questions Have you experienced that dilemma between safety and surrender? Does surrender play a role in your spirituality and/or creativity? Have you been “haunted” by an inner character in your dreams or imagination? How have you dealt with him/her? Have you tried letting them tell you their story? I’d love to hear your answers! Please leave a comment, if you are so inspired. About Dark Innocence: In an ancient world of blood sorcery and healing magic, the Soul-Drinker, a vicious necromancer-king, is draining the life from the souls of the people and of the earth itself. Worse yet, he has banished the land's rightful Goddess, and disrupted the Sacred Balance, sending the mortal and divine realms whirling toward destruction.
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My good friend Jeremy has kindly agreed to help me out again. This time simply because, I have nothing exciting to say about my health journey on this #FitFriday. I was watching this documentary on HBO the other day called “Tru Blood” in which these Vampires down in Louisiana have somehow integrated into society, and basically leach off of the system in one way or another. It’s pretty brutal actually, all the blood and gore, but I can only imagine that they know what they are doing. Ok well maybe it isn’t a documentary, but it might as well be. There are vampires among us in just about every facet of our life, and just because they don’t suck your blood they will figure out a way to suck the life out of whatever it is that you happen to be good at. Please keep these things in mind if you are a newbie to the gym, or someone that appears to have a very hard time getting healthy. You need to be accommodating to those that are trying to help you sooner or later, or else you are actually a problem.
I know you might be thinking what a horrible person this Jeremy Crow jerk must be to say such a thing, but the truth be known, I have been doing this work out thing for an awful long time. I may not be the stereotypical meathead that you would expect to see after 20 years of working out, two degrees, and running a moderately successful health blog. Of course now I should say, “shame on you for thinking I would be,” but aside from that I happen to be the most helpful person in the world, and especially at the gym. The secret to me being able to do that is that I know when to give up on someone. Our job, as a helpful member of society, is in the understanding that some people need help and others just want it. Think of it this way. You know a perfect book on how to do whatever. You tell someone that if they read that book, they will be an expert like you. They refuse to read the book because they expect you to simply explain the book to them, if you accept that as a good idea, then I could have used you when I was a raving and active alcoholic. Now fortunately when I ran out of people like that I was forced to choose between quitting drinking or slipping further into misery without the audience I had grown accustomed to. The person who desperately needs to get in shape, but won’t do any of the work to get in shape is the EXACT SAME THING. They are now completely interfering with your ability to work out, and do things other than work out, and given enough time they will make it so you don’t want anything to do with working out. Now of course you don’t just grab the person by the hair and walk them out the door of the gym explaining to them that you never want to see them again. You simply explain to them that they should probably find someone who they can get advice they will use from. You have to worry about you. On the other side of the coin, if you are genuinely active and obviously take someone’s advice at the gym or in another scenario (accommodating to those that are trying to help), you will probably find that they will never need to push you aside, nor will they ever want to. They most likely will feel that they are doing some good, and I say THAT because that is how I treat every new person that comes into the gym and asks me just about anything. In other words; never be afraid to ask questions, but sooner or later you have to take the advice. If you missed Part One, read it here first. Now the young boy has to hear the newest sounds that trickle upwards to his ears. It is a crunching
sound that could only be coming from the piles of dust that his feet appear to be making footprints in. The eerie acknowledgement that no other footprints aside from the one he and his parents are making makes his stomach a bit queasy. “Don’t think,” he whispers under his breath and his mother seems to wonder aloud what he just said. The boy was done speaking and concentrating on things other than the noises under his feet, which for all he knows could be the floor boards ready to collapse. Yeah stop thinking. Of course you can see the kitchen through the lack of walls but the boy still doesn’t want to go in there. It’s got to be worse once you get in there, and thinking about this brings the odor from out of there, as his mother’s firm grasp drags him closer to the kitchen. Secretly the boy is already wishing that there isn’t a bathroom down here, despite the fact that he suddenly feels the need to use one. The doorway, we suppose, as there really isn’t much distinction between doorways and missing walls, to the kitchen brings that odor sweeping into him, and now he could actually be sick. His eyes are watering. The stove is a nightmare, the refrigerator looks like something out of a black and white movie, but unfortunately the rust and grime on both bring the only color to them both. Inwardly the boy is begging his mother not to open the refrigerator door, but she keeps firm her grasp as she walks towards it. What could she be thinking? There couldn’t be anything worth looking at in there, and even a small child who knows nothing about home ownership can tell that the thing needs to be removed unopened, and replaced, by whatever insane hermits own this home. Her hand is on the handle and the child cannot free himself from the grasp in her other hand. The door swings open. Nothing. The relief washed over the child as apparently whoever had left this home to die had taken everything out of the refrigerator, and even the musty smell that came from it wasn’t as horrifying as the child’s mind had taken him. He still can’t pry his hand from her grasp as she looks over at the nasty stove, covered in paint from the ceiling and grease from eons of use. Why does she feel the need to walk anywhere near that stove? The pleasant surprise of an empty refrigerator, is waning as the lure of a disgusting oven drags his mother and in turn, him over in that direction. How long have we been here now, an hour, two, perhaps four? Sweat literally trickled down the little boy’s nose as he watched his once proud and tidy mother wipe her index finger across the top of the stove leaving a trail of grease and the ridges of it sliming away from the sides of her fingers. She held it up to her nose and took a deep sniff of whatever odor must have been emanating from that disgusting smudge of goo on the end of her finger. The boy knows that he will finally lose the remnants of the pizza he ate for lunch should she put that finger anywhere near his nose. His heart starts hammering as she reaches for the door to the oven and starts to pull it open. He can’t help but think that something evil had been burned in that oven and she was willing to let it escape. Her hand takes hold and swings the door downward. Nothing. A deep exhale left the boy’s mouth as another tragedy is averted. The oven needed a good cleaning, but aside from that there was nothing inside of it, and it could even be said that it was a lot cleaner than the rest of this catastrophe in the middle of nowhere. Now the fear of all fears comes across the young boy as his mother looks towards the corner of the room where, the only door left standing in the entire house blocks, something. Realizing that they aren’t actually moving now, the boy practically jumps when he hears that strange crunching noise under his feet but not actually from his feet. His feet haven’t moved. Now a squeak, then a bang, and it is all coming from underneath them. Is the house about to collapse? Where is his father? He hasn’t heard anything from his father in what, an hour, two, maybe four? No more is the boy leaving footprints, the trail behind him is solid drag marks, because that is what his mother is doing to him now, dragging him by his weak hand grasped tight in her much stronger one. He even tried to give a pull out of her hand and she paid him no notice, no firmer, no softer the grasp that she has on his little fingers. She drags him, less willingly by the foot along to the door, which the boy has decided must go down to the basement, the basement where all that noise is coming from. The fear and now the anger, that his mother has lost all common sense as she drags him along to that door, that probably could be kicked in as easily as it could be opened. Her hand is now around the handle, and the boy is tugging on her other hand as hard as he can, but it won’t free him. The door swings out towards them. Something. It was the most horrible yard attached to the most unattractive house. Most people would have sped along past this house as the river behind it appears to be doing. Miles upon miles of tranquil river beside the long winding road that followed along it, and as the car pulls over to the side of the road in front of that hideous house, you can see the water trying to escape its space. The boy in the back seat of the car could understand what the water knew and his oddly fascinated parents could not. The amount of coercion it took the parents of a growingly terrified boy, just to get him out of the car, and onto the lawn, would have been quite a site, if anything or anyone had been within miles of this house. Looking down the young boy could see nothing but a mass of poison ivy that crawled throughout the yard, where a normal house would have grass. There was nothing normal about this house, and the boy was at a loss for words, on the off chance that his parents were even listening. Dead center in the middle of the swarm of poison ivy stood a big hideous tree, that had spent centuries at least dominating this spot in the middle of nowhere. Strange old ropes hung from the largest branch, like once there was a swing, but in this scenario it could have been the noose to hang the old owner from. The boy looked past the ropes to the river, the strange river that hit maximum speed from where there wasn’t even a ripple. It was very intimidating, despite all else that seems to be so horrible in this spot. The last sign the boy had seen was the one that said Selinsgrove and before that he had seen one that had said Shamokin Dam, which coincidentally was where his parents had stopped to get pizza. They seemed so normal back then, all 30 minutes ago, as they drank an elixir called “birch beer” and ate pepperoni pizza. Now they are in the middle of nowhere for no reason, standing in front of the ugliest old house, in the worst lawn, under the shadow of a dark and scary tree. Yeah the boy was quite convinced that the river had the right idea as it tried to escape this place as he wished he could. Dragged along by one arm, the boy starts realizing that he probably had seen the best of this house, the minute his parents got him inside of it. The paint hung from the ceiling like moldy bats, and the walls had been torn down leaving exposed blackened moldy beams. Not a single bit of this made his parents wary of what an awful place this truly was, which stunned the poor child, who had always thought his parents a practical pair. Even if he didn’t know at this young age what practical was, the absolute lack of it, made the definition of practical seem pretty obvious, despite his knowledge of the word. Every third stair appeared to be intact, and every first and second one seemed to be dangerous. The parents were practically giddy and dancing through the house, like they had never seen a more beautiful place. One of them managed to make it up the stairs and was shouting down the instructions of what is needed on the second floor. The boy was terrified of this floor as it was and wanted nothing to do with the second floor, when the parent upstairs yelled down about a third. Now the boy just wished they had never left New York, regardless of how much he enjoyed that birch beer with his pizza, in what has become a lifetime ago. The house even appeared to make noises, the most hideous noises, as it sat there being disturbed for the first time in God knew how long. The boy has deduced that it isn’t an animal, or even the wind. There is no wind, so despite all of the open access from room to room with no walls it definitely isn’t the wind. It is more of a sound of despair, the sound that the young boy would be making if he wasn’t afraid of being heard. Heard by what or by who he doesn’t quite understand but there is something here that can hear him, and it probably knows all too well that the boy is afraid. The parents appear to have no fear, but they also appear to have no sanity, and haven’t from the moment they looked at this house. Jeremy Crow is the nom de plume of Jeremy Fink, who has been writing blogs entries for almost a decade now. He has had varying degrees of success along the way, several nervous breakdowns, a few “I quit and I’ll never do this again!” moments, and so many get rich quick ideas that you couldn’t count them on two hands. None of any of this has been a failure it’s just been a trial run, for what, he does not know, yet. His brain doesn’t turn off, and he loves to see his own words. To read more of what Jeremy has to say, please visit his site. He writes about fitness, blogging, politics and MORE!
There are so many independent authors who have written and self-published their books, you can find them on Twitter, on Facebook, on Google+, on LinkedIn, or just about any social networking site you can name or have participated in over the years. Many of them are there to promote the books they've published others are there to promote the company or blogs they write on. They all seem diverse. They all seem to have countless tweets or comments, or followers.
What most writers don't look for is the similarities between this diverse group. One can argue 'they want to be seen.' This is true, we all want and need attention, but there is something more that makes them paradoxically, unique and common. They are fighting against a glass ceiling of self-publishing. It's not everyone who is a bestselling author, nor is every writer earning millions of dollars on their books. What there is is a glass ceiling where only so many writers have a chance to make money. As much as writers like to say they are different from others, the reason they aren't is more compelling. They understand, although they might not agree, they are in direct competition with others, from independent writers, freelance writers, self-published authors, independent authors, and the list goes on. The law of averages about self-publishing still holds true. What is the law of average? I'm not suggesting your book is average, I am talking about a law of averages. On average, most authors sell 41 books outside of their immediate network. This network includes family and friends and they will, in general, be supportive of your efforts when it comes to your books. This means if you have a reasonably large circle of family and friends you will sell some books. On to the next network. These are the friends of friends. They will not buy your book simply because they know you. They probably don't. It will take a bit more effort to get them to buy your book, or your e-book. It is this larger networks the law of averages holds true. This is the glass ceiling, and it's a hard one to crack. On average it takes longer to connect with these people. Not to mention the world. The next two or three networks are what most writers tend to think about: the strangers, the people whom you will never meet, the Internet. These are the ones who will help you grow your book sales. Writers know this. Writers understand they need this support. However, they are competing against millions of others who are doing the same, and this net result is lack of book sales. If this is the case, how can you improve your chances? If you have a properly edited book, a great cover, a good team of people around you, then your chances for success will improve. They won't be sky high, but they will make a difference. The biggest difference comes in the form of marketing yourself. It comes in the form of marketing your book, and getting it out there to your readers. This won't break the glass ceiling of self-publishing but it will crack it. When the next book is published, there is already momentum on your side. Keep on writing and expanding your networks, but also know that there are many others out there doing the same, so aim to go to every network you can and grow from there.
It is an honour and a privilege to be invited to guest-post on the lovely Rachel Rennie's blog. And now all I have to ensure is that I don't put off her regular readers with my sheer randomness (but I'm afraid that's what I do...randomness, that is, not put people off...not intentionally, anyway). Since Rachel is writing a wonderful fictional series on her blog entitled 'Cold', in which the heroine is ever a bit chilly and needs to wear more clothes than the average person, well I thought I could identify with that - which makes a handy link to today’s random post. Because I am infamous for being cold (temperature-wise, not in temperament...well no, sometimes I'm that too). Here in England, the season of summer is a short and wondrous thing. I do not exaggerate when I say that our former few summers have endured the sum-total of 2 weeks. And then that's that; back to endless winter. Honestly, we are still harping on about the summer of 1977 - a long and blisteringly hot heat-wave; that's how rarely it happens here. If you're English, you'll back me up on that. But when we are graced with summer (very often it's in May or June while July and August [when the kids are on school holidays] pretty much sucks), everything changes. At the first hint of warmth, people prance from their houses with gay abandon in their droves, clad in...well, far too little. This is a bit of a bugbear of mine because 'cautiousness' is my middle name. I don't like to be caught out. When summer first shows its face I am scornful, ‘ha, summer? I laugh in your general direction!’. As I drive past the sea of people sporting their short-shorts and vest-tops I narrow my eyes and I scoff at their naïvety. I shout to myself, ‘it’s too soon for that! Put it away!’. It takes approximately two weeks of consistent heat for me to believe that, actually, summer has indeed arrived and it may be time to put away my parka coat and knee-high boots. So I gingerly slope off to the wardrobe and scour through to see what items of light-weight clothing I have left from the last time warm weather graced our fair isle. And even then I am judicious and mindful of making an error. ‘I may just adorn that pair of shorts – but not with a vest! That is just too much flesh on show for one day! Hmm, yes I do like that vest – but not with that short skirt! Put on some skinny jeans, girl! You know the rules!’ . Or, ‘Gosh, it is hot today...Havaianas or Birkenstocks? Have you gone completely insane?! Does this look like the Sahara to you? Converse at the VERY MOST!’. You see, the coming of warmth creates a huge internal struggle within me. Even though the voice of reason in my head is screaming at me to wear less apparel, the jaded realist who has just survived another arctic winter, bundled up in the largest coat, scarf and hat that money can buy...well; she just can’t accept it. I’ve always been somewhat prone to the effects of cold but when I lost a couple of stone in weight a few years ago, things became far worse. Friends now mock me. I kid you not; I am openly mocked due to my penchant for too many garments for the current climate. But that is my way - I cannot be cold. If you asked me which extreme temperature I would rather be the cause of my untimely death, well I’d say neither; but if I had to choose – I’d rather the heat kill me. And yes, you ridiculers, I’d rather carry around an enormous bag containing extra clothing for myself and my children than be caught unawares! I’ll have the last laugh, you’ll see! So just to recap – being cold is not an option. And if I’ve made a heinous mistake and come out of the house in less items of clothing than is optimal, I like to reassure myself that my neck and my feet are protected. I won’t have a cold neck or cold feet; that’s just basic common sense. In fact, I’ve already decided on the epitaph to be chiselled into my tombstone (and you’re welcome to borrow this for yours if you feel the same way); ‘She came, she saw, she mourned. She wished she’d brought a cardigan’. (c) Adele Archer A big thank you to Adele Archer for honoring me with a Guest Post on my site.
Please visit Adele's blog to read more of her writing and to learn more about "International Relations" check it out on Amazon. Please comment below and tell me if you enjoyed Adele's writing as much as I do, and if you too are cold and overdressed, like us! Jeremy Crow is the nom de plume of Jeremy Fink, who has been writing blogs entries for almost a decade now. He has had varying degrees of success along the way, several nervous breakdowns, a few “I quit and I’ll never do this again!” moments, and so many get rich quick ideas that you couldn’t count them on two hands. None of any of this has been a failure it’s just been a trial run, for what, he does not know, yet. His brain doesn’t turn off, and he loves to see his own words. The attitude of gratitude is one of the hardest things to teach, when it comes to the healthy new you. Problems arise when we forget that it took us many years of neglect to get where we are when we finally decide that it is time to do something about it. Instant gratification is something that we can expect from out local Target or Wal-Mart, but not exactly something that we can expect when we decide to get healthier. Most people will sit by and sigh in agreement at this statement and then totally forget about it when it comes to diet and exercise. Think about this, but if you keep your mind in today like I do, you can accomplish a lot more than you think. I like to workout first thing in the morning because then I can spend the rest of my day being happy that I did it. Some days I can just spend the rest of the day happy that I got it out of the way, but it IS something. I can now worry about the things that either pay my bills, or get my children fed, or keep my spouse happy, but behind all of that I can be happy that I got my workout finished. I tell everyone that the hour or two I spend at the gym is nothing compared to the many hours of self righteous bliss I get afterwards. What about those days when you just didn’t get that workout in like you know you should have? Here’s the best part! You don’t need to wake up tomorrow carrying that regret; you just need to start the routine over again. In time you will start really being proud of yourself because THAT doesn’t happen as much as it used to. Then it is all about the ideas that you think up that work well for your physical and more important MENTAL well being that a great workout gives you. Oh did I mention that they are ALL great workouts? Well let me tell you that they are all great workouts and that is how you need to think about it. It isn’t about the how, or the how much, or the how often, it is about the how you feel after the workout. Concentrate on that, and don’t worry about how long or how often. Start with one and then go for two. Back in my days of trying to be a personal trainer, I would send the new health aficionado off to the treadmill, for a good long walk. Not a run, not a whacked out recumbent thingamabob, but a good long walk. Because if you can do a good long walk you can do anything, and it is also good to learn to be grateful that you can actually do a good long walk, since some people can’t? Pat yourself on the back because you worked out today, and don’t forget to hold onto that feeling, I promise you it will be better every day you do it. A grateful heart can accomplish great things. (c) Jeremy Crow This post touches close to home for me because my son, who is a track runner, can no longer run, or walk without crutches, due to a recent injury. I think I'm going to go for a walk now!
To read more of what Jeremy has to say, please visit his site. He writes about fitness, blogging, politics and MORE! Please comment below and tell me... Are you going to go fora walk too?
I wear foolishness well. Almost like a badge of honour. Where others exercise prudence and sensibility, I run headlong into situations doomed...that's when I ride the waves... Waves Sit here feeling the breeze that gives birds flight Wondering to myself if today is real or just an illusion Like the pinpoints of stars in the depth of night Listening to my own thoughts come to an orchestral conclusion Does the mind register truth or just the emotion it perceives In the cacophony of psychological silence another symphony starts Every synapse misreading the impulse it receives Like the percussive pounding of a thousand hearts A rhythmic beating of tympani and snare An overture of pure emotional delight Operatic displays of happiness you can't help but to share Time proving relative as days last minutes at the speed of sight This Wagnerian sensation of riding the winds of emotion As this feeling of elation is both surreal and sublime in turn My thoughts are scattered like debris in an ocean Waves of thought extinguishing fires of doubt before they burn © Christian Touchet Please comment below and tell me if Christian's poetry has touched you, as it so often does for most of his readers.
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