Luscious Soulful Beauty:

September 22, 2016.

Hello Dear One,

I am writing from bed. Pillows piled on my crossed legs, laptop balanced on top of a large book on top of the pillows. Another several pillows support my back and keep me from slumping too much.

I feel cocooned.

I am aware that working from bed is a bad idea. One of those rules “they” tell you. I do it anyway. It is the only place that feels comfortable. Today it is the place where my body does not revolt in pain, where I am able to find the words that want to be found in this moment.

I am watching the sun set out of my bedroom window. It faces west so the afternoon sun keeps the room warm even in the dead of winter. Another reason I often find myself here. 

I watched Netflix and knit this morning. I am halfway through re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is easy to knit with. I have seen it before, but long enough ago that I don't remember much. Mostly I have vague of deja vu. Binging might be a more accurate description than watching though. Re-watching sounds measured and controlled. 

I am not much interested in measured and controlled right now. I am more interested in following the flow of my energy. Trusting it.

I wove in the ends of a sweater I finished knitting and then washed and blocked it this afternoon. It is very light weight wool and is already dry. It is a bit quirky, not very flattering, and I love it. 

I didn’t start “working” until about 4pm. And now it is 6:30, the light is almost gone and the crescent moon is coming to take her place in the sky.

I feel even more cocooned. 

I have these old rules rolling around in my head. Work at your desk only. Keep standard work hours even though you work from home for yourself. It is more professional. Don’t watch TV during the day, only after everything else is done. Your knitting is a hobby so it doesn’t belong in the middle of the work day. I’ve cycled through and shed some especially brutal layers of these kinds of expectations of how I am suppose to be over this past year and the guilt associated with them. 

The cycling continues ever deeper because this is the ongoing practice. Ongoing attention and devotion to the unfolding becoming of myself. For once I release an old belief or habit a new one forms, which then becomes the rule that I most likely will rewrite or at least modify at some point in the future.

I have been describing myself as a “quiet heretic”. One who in my own private, individual way is creating the path of my life in alignment with my elemental nature. I am bit by bit throwing out the the rules that work against myself, my organic energy, my life force expression. Continually honing and adjusting, finding myself in ever more intimate and truthful ways. It is a path of homecoming and self trust. The one I have been wanting to take since I can remember but fear has held me back. 

I am not with out fear. I worry and I get stuck in other’s perceptions of me. But less and less so. It is a practice, remember?

It is courageous to live your own life. Others often don’t understand. For me, staying true despite the the subtle and not so subtle assessments and judgments of others (and too often myself) has been a messy and a painful path at times. Can't be everyone's cup of tea.

The surprise is that it is especially courageous when no one else notices. These are the most intimate moments of facing myself squarely and honestly, not looking away and choosing the mystery of me. 

It takes being a heretic to live your own life. The world conspires to pull you away from yourself; it is your homecoming to pull yourself back.

So I watch multiple episodes of DS9 and knit and then settle into my official work from bed. This is the heretic today.

And the thing that feels the most heretical of all? That it is all my work and all my pleasure. That casting off the inherent guilt woven through the expectations that there is a right, conventional way things are done and choosing to please myself is my most intimate work. The fact that this also leads to me to also be of service in the world is my blessing.

The most radical thing anyone can do is live their own life.

What are your quiet heretic ways and moments?

I know you have them.

If you are seeking your own inner heretic, the one who knows she has a unique path to find, a session of Lumina Guidance may be for you. 

Together we engage intuitive wisdom and practical actions to light your way. I bring the mystical tools of Tarot, oracles and Human Design (a synthesis of astrology, Kabbalah, the I Ching and the charka system) along with coaching mastery and deep intuition to help you find your way.