living authentically

this has been a thread running through my year. live Authentically. in case you've just joined in (and you really really should start at the very beginning), after last year's most magnificent gifts, i've struggled this year with overflowing schedules and the taming of my inner menopausal shrew. i've felt out of sorts since february. i've struggled recently with whether or not to go back to full time at the Big Girl Job. i've struggled with whether or not to leave it entirely. i've struggled with finding my footing and my Place. struggled struggle struggle. hmmm. clearly i need to just stop. breathe. stop struggling with my life and just ...be. let my life flow around me. through me. once again Be my life. stop with the worries and demands and frustrations of a thousand temporary situations. ask me what had my flame on high a week ago, and i probably won't remember. but at the time, i wasted precious time fretting and fuming. unlike what feels like Me. i always feel like an actor playing a role when i get so upset. as if i am reacting the way i "should," but it's as if i see that person from a different vantage point - looking down on me (with a lower-case "m") playing the role of fill-in-the-blank. and none of this has ever been Me. when i take a breath and visualize where i'd like to be, i come back to last summer....earth mother...centered. i see myself above all the shallow skirmishes. and when i visualize the essence of the Authentic me, there is always art. and of late, my art has deserted me. or perhaps it is still there, waiting. waiting for me to silence the racket so it can get a word in edgewise. the brain bouncing from this to that so fast, that the hands gave up. picture blind rage. Blind. Rage. i picture a dervish in a frenzy...chaos and confusion surrounds. no rational thought, just instinct and emotion. now quiet that down a bit.....replace the dervish with its opposite. the frenzy with calm. the scene shifts to a place that draws you in to sit by it's cool stream on the greenest grass....your feet dipping into the water....lilacs fragrant as the bees buzz through their purple and white blossoms...the sun warms your head. so much better. so very much better. what is gained through the dervish? much less than through calm. a more lasting result through calm. this weekend is again a weekend of obligations, as is part of next. this will signal the end of an overstuffed calendar. an end to the crack-high of chaos once again. because although the adrenaline rush of busy-ness is real, it offers no profit for the soul. and it must be fed constantly. a lesson i seem to learn over and over. i will breathe in the calm, and re-center myself. and watch as the synchronicity returns. L.