I am what I am

It has been an electrical storm in Sydney tonight and as I lay in bed, the room is illuminated over and over again. I am so wired from it that I cannot sleep, so here I am, in the middle of the night with a storm raging outside, writing. How very gothic!

What has been stirred up in me is a realisation of a process that I have been sitting with, felt in some dark place of my being, rather than consciously understood for this past week.

I knew some awareness or breakthrough was brewing for me because the week has been curiously free of clients. It is unusual for there to be this sort of universe-imposed holiday, but when it happens I find that some kind of personal shift can occur if I do not fight the emptiness and fill it with worry or activity and instead allow some space for growth.

I am a mystic at heart. One that as much as breathing, needs to contemplate and understand the mysteries of life and how consciousness grows and unfolds, that is part of my reason for being, my spiritual purpose and the nature of who I am as a being. No matter whether those that live by more prosaic values tell me “not think so much”, I am what I am (thanks Popeye!).

My partner once described how he sees what I am and what I do, and how I am seeking to live, as being like an artist. This is the perfect description. As an artist who needs to paint, for example, will wither up and die inside, becoming a much smaller self if they cannot give their channel expression of the inspiration they feel, if they attempt to force themselves to live a life that works for others, but stifles their own creativity (not as some immature desire to ‘express themselves’ with little regard to any other needs – we all need to eat!) but in a deep and profound sense of needing to live as they are, be true to their own soul type, and to express it, no matter how much ridicule, judgement or misunderstanding they may encounter in doing so, in a world that doesn’t much understand what it is to be built this way, let alone support and encourage it (unless it is posthumously).

What is my art?

What is the creative part of me that demands expression either consciously or unconsciously as depression and addiction?

It is the conscious maturing and nurturing of consciousness!

It is soul gardening, it is living a conscious life of spiritual communion.

This is very different to the 9-5 world that so many people believe is the ‘real world’, yet I wonder if those same people might benefit from incorporating some of the qualities of the artists’ way into their lives?

My art demands that I have solitude and downtime, undoing or not doing rather than always doing. Many would look on and say “what on earth is that about? Drawing images from her dreams? Colouring them in?” but inner work like this, working with my dreams and visions in contemplation to better understand my own psyche and the nature of spiritual growth in me, and extrapolating that to understand human spiritual growth, is the lifeblood of my existence, my art, my passion. As silly or pointless as it may appear superficially, it keeps me alive.

All that this spiritual art entails does not distil itself solely into sitting down with a client and doing a spiritual reading or healing (although that is definitely one valuable channel for the awareness that is elucidated from my art).

This vocation, to be conscious spiritually and to live as a mystic –spiritual philosopher requires me, this lifetime at least, to live on the front line, so to speak, to be where the action is in the mass conscious physical world. And I want to be here. Life here is interesting and exciting, though fraught with conflict as the inner world that I seek to bring to engagement here used to exist only in monasteries and spiritual retreats on mountaintops!

So often, the world doesn’t get it, and there are times when I do not wish to explain it to those that cannot even begin to understand (for what purpose would I do that?) yet I need to share myself, odd and eccentric as that may seem to people at times (though I do get a lot of “oh, but you are so normal and down to earth!”) with those that may see and know Life very differently to the way that I do, as much as with those that need the affirmation that they are not the only ones seeking to live a conscious spiritual life and encountering the odd challenges that come with being open and visible in doing so in this world that is just learning about spirituality in so many ways.

What prompted this blinding clarity about my art tonight?

Friction from this physical “real world” (to use my mothers’ oft loved phrase, ie she believed I inhabited some other reality – she was right as it turns out!) which I love and relish, but find very challenging as it pushes me to articulate my difference, to not hide from it but to embrace it and seek out that which feels painful to understand such as where I don’t fit or where I am judged, ridiculed or where others, even those who truly do love and care for me, struggle to know or just accept me as I am. Ironically perhaps I am drawn to these places of pain at times for that is where I can find an even stronger sense of Self and be true to it with compassion for the struggle that same Self can encounter simply for being who she is in this world at this time.

As an aside, would I choose to be different from what I am or live in any other way? No. I love this Self and am so grateful for her.

Anyway, the discussion with my partner which fuelled the inner fire of revelation only starting to brew now, with an impulse to write so strong that I started scrawling words on a notepad in the dark, with occasional lightning bolts to illuminate that yes, the pen was actually working (!) and then led me to purge my thoughts onto my computer, though it is so late (songs in my head were helping guidance get through to me – the theme from glee “don’t stop believing, hold on to that feeling!’ and a dance track “its getting late but I don’t mind, this would be the best therapy for me!”) , I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I numbed back and tried to let this go. So often I have had a moment of such clarity in the middle of the night, seemingly so simple and I think “ah yes, of course! Wonderful!” only to wake up and not be able to recall it! Frustrating to say the least. Those moments of insight are worth recording until they become a more conscious part of me, as much as my knowledge of my own name.

So back to the discussion! My partner and I were discussing housework. Since moving in together a month ago, my housework load has easily quadrupled and I am struggling with the demand on my time and energy which takes me away from my mystic’s life. I don’t mind the work, it can be soothing and inspiring in that it engages the body but doesn’t strain the mind and I can have time in active meditation, but the activity also requires planning and focus and energy which is OK but takes away from my inner world. I don’t begrudge it, I see its value, but I struggle with accepting it sometimes without resenting the intrusion into my spiritual life. I consider this to be my task now, balancing these parts of my life. But also learning to rely on another more, instead of always doing for myself, but the inevitable came up tonight – I am home so much and he is ‘at work’ so why shouldn’t I do this work?

And the pain that this brought to me was so great. I felt so lonely and misunderstood. I felt frustration and anger. I thought you knew, I said to him. Most of the time I do, he responded, but I had a tough day at work and that’s that. Such a human encounter.

But the pain was so great I wondered if I could even begin to fathom it. And over the hours that ensued, helped by the energy of this storm, I began to realise it. More truly, it came to me in an epiphany. Of course I want him, my beloved, to understand or if not understand, then trust me enough and respect me enough to accept who I am, and my reality as having value.

I haven’t had much of this during my life, very little infact, until I learned to give this to myself (now I get so much appreciation from so many around the world – for which I am grateful indeed) but the disconnect between us was typical in that moment, unfortunately or fortunately, of what happens between me and mass society.

The gift in that moment of pain? It forced me to bring forth a statement of my truth, to reaffirm to myself what I am about and reinforce my own truth in the face of what seems to be so ordinary and inoffensive – just do the work yourself, Alana, you can make the time to do it more easily than he can. Yet that would collapse the very core of what I am about – not only freedom and equality, this is a gender issue too, but even more so what I felt was actually a spiritual issue, to be able to say “that which feeds my inner world and seems to be nothing to you I claim as essential to my being and I will tolerate great pressure from the external world if needs be in order to honour its integrity and keep my spiritual work intact.” Now that is a powerful and affirming declaration of self!

Who knew the gender issue of division of labor in the home could spark self-realisation and affirmation in such a deep and profound manner?

So here I am and I realise that this is my soul journey, my soul truth, my soul manifesto.

I seek to live a life that is an expression of my consciousness, not an act of my will. Then there is no struggle or force or imposition on Life. There is natural manifestation of that which is within. This is my soul journey.

To love Life. To seek to embrace it and live consciously with acceptance of all the seasons of my Soul. To not always have to know and to not have to attempt to control, but to enter consciously into the mystery with patience, grace and trust. That is my soul commitment.

I seek to be true to who I am and live that authentically, creating a space for it within my own Self, with acceptance and respect, as a way of birthing that awareness into the world that so needs it, one accepting day at a time.

So I affirm to myself and to all Souls seeking to live their unique way in a world that prefers the apparent safety of conformity, you must serve your art, whatever it may be. Do not seek to quash it into conformity or make it comfortable for those that want to put you into a box within their own limited understanding!

The basic demands of physical life are necessary, but it is the non-rational colours of our Soul art that imbues the physical world with such depth, elevating Life from a battle to survive, to an elegant constantly evolving creation in which we can participate and thrive.