This has been a watershed year in so many ways. As hard as it is to believe, here we stand on the threshold of Autumn and the final season of 2013. As most of you know, I have dealt with losing my old job & having to find a new one, apartment/landlord drama from A to Z which has necessitated a move and finding a new place to live, the suicide of Thomas (a close friend and mentor of mine since my earliest days in New York), and most recently a difficult transition into the new job (which includes misbehaving coworkers and other issues I won't get into here).
And yet here I am. Still standing.
More than just still standing, actually: I'm stronger, I'm wiser, I've grown in ways I can't even yet comprehend.
I was talking to my friend Andrea about some of this, and she really hit the nail on the head and summed it up so succinctly and perfectly (I hope she won't mind that I'm quoting her here): "These things are sent to test us...but I do believe in a sort of stoic way that there is a surmountable challenge in all these people situations. It's never the work that is challenging, it's always the people. Find strength within."
And it is precisely tapping into that inner fire that has sustained me and kept me charging ahead through all of this. I have returned home from some hellish days at work and the first thing I did was drop to the floor and plunge deep into my inner depths through the wonderful and transformative vehicle that is meditation. In this space I discover and rediscover a fire that cannot be tamed, a creativity that cannot be quenched, a cascading source of passion that cannot be dammed up. This is my undiluted essence, or what in the Western Mystery Tradition would be referred to as the Divine Spark or Higher Self.
Thomas used to tell me, "You have a VERY strong inner core. You just need to keep returning there."
