Insight Bliss: the euphoric and empowering state that accompanies a remarkable insight about oneself.
Ruminature: ruminations inspired in and by nature (you know this is happening to you when you can’t help but see the wonderful metaphors around you).
I love these moments. I’ve kind of operated my life’s value system around them. They thrill me, give me meaning, direct my intentions, attention, love and especially my career. When I get those moments I tend to want to run around and share them. “Look what I found!” “Isn’t it BEAUTIFUL!” “Can you believe it?! Isn’t this just the answer to things? To love? To life?” “Don’t you feel the magic it contains?” I run around holding my little gem of truth, preciously cupped in my hands, showing it to those I love and to those whom I think might relate, and maybe it might help them too.
I never really shared them though. I was always afraid that the meaning would be lost, misinterpreted or worse yet, be a negative judgment on me as trying to draw attention to myself (not something I like) instead of just seeing it as true sharing. Thankfully, I am in the process of unwinding this fear.
Here is the insight bliss, the idea that has given me the freedom to share publicly my ruminaturing. It is also the most important disclaimer to everything else you read and hear. (And not just here! Everywhere!)
The “Truth” About Words
You see, once I share that gem using words with someone else, it transforms and becomes something else- something entirely new. It is no longer mine.
Once my words enter your vision- they are words in your world now, and I cannot control how you interpret them. Your experience of them will depend upon all of the beautiful, unique particles of YOU and even what each of the individual words mean to you, and how they make you feel based on your story and how you see things. This includes where you are in your life, what you are going through, have been through, your perspectives, your conscious and unconscious beliefs about yourself, and what you long for in your heart. All of this stuff drives how you experience words written and spoken. So for me to try to stay attached to the idea that if I share something I need the receiver to hear what I’m saying only from the perspective that was meant in my heart is kind of unrealistic, silly, and limiting.
So, I’m going to share because I want to, not because I have an expectation for your experience. Would it be lovely if you found something helpful for your own journey here? Of course! But really, what lies within ruminature are just bits of my own process of discovery. And the words themselves? Well, they are just WORDS. They aren’t actually the stuff of it. It’s the magic that matters to me. It’s the stuff inspiring the words!
Writing for me is this—- That breeze, that bit of truth, the aha, the insight bliss singing in my heart—- and THEN I go looking for the words to best describe what it is I just felt. Sometimes they all come tumbling in at once. And I’m usually not anywhere near pen and paper when this happens! So it’s not the words that matter. I’m not a “writer”. I just get excited about what I find when I turn the light on. It’s the light I want to share, the words are arbitrary and relative. So in sharing, all I wish to share, is the experience of light, to possibly ignite that memory in you that you have it too. You have everything you need.
Nayyirah Waheed wrote: “listen to my poems. but do not look for me. look for you.”
I’ll talk a lot about the word “light” in the coming pages. But please remember, if you can, that the word “light” is just a word. It works well as both a metaphor and a feeling experience for me, so that’s the word I use. If you don’t connect to that word, feel free to replace it with some other word with which you do connect.
I’m also giving myself permission to change my mind about stuff. As we grow and learn and experience more, the light shifts around us for us to see and feel new and different things. What means something one day may not mean so much the next. It doesn’t make what was in the past for you (or for me) untrue, it is just more important to BE where you actually are, and that includes allowing new and changed feelings, thoughts, and ideas to be okay.
So friend. Welcome. I invite you to connect, not just with me, but with you! If some words or story here stirs your soul, then that means you’ve taken them, and made them yours! Even if our meanings are similar, they are and will always be, different, so take what stirs you, and leave the rest. If you find the words boring or upsetting, then that is a good sign there’s no need for you to keep reading! 🙂 Whatever it is that stirs your soul, I hope that you follow it, so that you can spend more time in your life with the light on.
With LOVE & LIGHT,
