Fear

Last night during a guided meditation on balance with Clover Grove (the CUUPS group for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Harrisburg) we were asked to think about what in our life is out of balance. What element is missing that we need to grow? (As a dandelion seed needs sunlight, soil and water to grow)
As I thought about it, I was overall pretty darn pleased with my life. I have a secure job and a beautiful home with the man I love. I’ve made friends and found a spiritual community to belong to here in Harrisburg. The rest of my family and friends are only a call, text or email away. I’m the healthiest and strongest I’ve ever been. The things that I most want, to get married, to start a family, are visible on the horizon.
The only thing lacking, the only part of me that feels out of balance, is that I’m not using my creativity. I’ve always been creative. As a kid, I loved to write stories and poems. In college and after, I used my creativity to create adventures and worlds for role-playing games with my friends. When I was going through my divorce and after, I wrote as a way to express my needs and frustration and anger. So what keeps me from writing? What keeps me from using my creativity? What came to mind during the meditation is simply this: Fear. Fear that what I write isn’t any good. Fear that writing will somehow take me away from my other goals. Fear that it will take away time from other things I want to do, like working out, playing with the cat, spending time with Tim. Fear that it will take time away from things I need to do, like laundry, cleaning the cat’s water fountain, grocery shopping. This is an irrational fear. It is something that was planted in me by someone else, who didn’t want me to spend time doing things that make me happy. I will not let this fear keep me from being in balance any longer. “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - Litany Against Fear - Frank Herbert Last night I wrote what’s keeping me out of balance – Fear – on a slip of paper and burned it in the cauldron. Cauldrons are an important tool/symbol; they transform things - lead to gold, death to rebirth, fear to courage.
How do I bring about change? How can I act in accord with this act of power and work to feed my creative fire? I discussed it with Tim last night, and he suggested blogging. Blogging about anything and everything, writing about different things each day, whether it be something I saw on my morning drive (how often do I see something strange and think, I should write about that!) or something I read about in the news. I think it’s a great suggestion (He’s not just a pretty face you know, he’s quite brilliant.) Starting today, I am making it my goal to write something every day. I’m not yet ready to try to work on a novel or a script every day. So I am starting a new blog – separate from the old one, The Daily Rede. I haven’t touched that blog in over two years. It was a useful tool and documented many important events in my life. Many of those events are things I want to leave in the past. This will be a fresh start. I’m not sure what direction this blog will take. But I have decided what to call it – The Daily Rite. I like playing on words. And this is my new playground.