It Starts Here With Me
I'm sharing this journal entry from today with you. Feel free to replace the word "God" with "Universe" or whatever works for you (none of them feel sufficient to me).
I'm so afraid that my voice is actually no good. Nothing special. That it will never be truly heard in its fullness...
I want to tend to my own voice β to my own self β for a change.
β This is the way. Not by tending to everyone else. Tending to myself is how I can tend to others.
Because God is the gardener β I am the conduit.
When I open, the Gardener tends to others through me. And I get to tend to others with the Gardener, in cooperation. Indistinct from the love which flows through me... When I am open.
I open when I feel safe, supported, tended.
I then tend to artists and leaders βΒ more people like me. They then feel safe, supported, and tended... they then tend to others.
Aim them at their community and community will be tended.
Artists have been aimed into nothing. Their connection to community has been severed. Their energy has been wasted on a lie:
"You must get the attention of everyone if you want to survive β if you want to matter."
It's a lie. Our greatest resource has been piped into an abyss βΒ an infinite nothing. You can call it "the internet," but it's really the empty promise of stability through mass attention. Deeper, it's the promise of stability from something other than what is here.
So many of our artists and leaders have been wasted by fear.
They have felt unsafe, unsupported, and unseen. They've questioned themselves. They've lost their sense of belonging. Home.
But they are still here. So am I. And here is where our home is. Here is where we belong.
Aim them here. Tend to them here. Then they'll feel safe, supported, and seen. Then they'll open. And love will flow freely β unrestricted, unlimited, unattached β through them and into their community, where they are.
They'll tend to their community, and their community will feel safe, supported, and seen. Then they will open. And love will continue to flow, through them, to the world. Not through fame, but through growth.
The garden will grow. Healthy. Beautiful. Alive... because it is being tended. Not by us; through us.
It starts here, with me.
Can I open my heart and allow myself β my voice β to be tended?
I feel my familiar "make it happen" voice rise up against this question. "No one does it for you." "If you let up, you'll lose everything." "This isn't safe."
I feel the fear in that strong, brave, exhausted voice.
When I notice, I feel it settle. My body sighs. I begin to notice the other sounds in the room I'm in. My senses open a little. And I realize how tightly I've been holding on, for so long.
Be at rest once more, oh my soul.
This is the beginning of opening. Of growth. It starts here, with me.