Help From Friends

Energy builds and relaxes by the hour, sometimes by the minute.  As we awaken to more conscious living, our heads swim with the pulls and tugs between new perspective and old habits.

            Exploring the potential of ideas that flood through the opening sluice gates of creative life, my mind leaps and frolics with passion for the dreams, long dormant, now coming more clearly into focus.  In some cases, no previous concept had even existed, but the shifting paradigm invents visions of new dimensions, bringing them to light.  I can do this; I can do that.  The possibilities ahead are limitless.

            Just as quickly, and in the name of love, fear pounds the ecstasy into blubbering bubbles of questions, severing connections between all the little ideas that had felt so strong and good only moments before.

            Dependent on my father for financial support as I transform my life, his patience understandably wears thin, and as weak as he is physically, his mental hold on the world as he knew it becomes all the stronger.  The outflow of dollars is easily counted for him while the mass of words are only so many scribbles even to me, so much harder to quantify and value.

            Reaching out with open heart just to check-in for a brief phone call to know how he is doing opens the raw wound and provides him a moment to vent his frustration in gulps of suffocating fear more than compassionate worry.  My own concern for him, therefore, is heightened to see the pain he suffers over my expenses. It boils to a head and neither of us knows how to resolve it.

            "Just get a job," he commands, "Anything.  Work in a grocery store!" as if the fact of a few dollars in each day would be enough to make it all alright.

            The shock hits deeply in my core, tears painfully at my healing groin and mending heart.  Guilt adds to the fear.  Panic accelerates the pulse of the insecurities.  I heard his solution and cringe as though the poison of it, to satisfy him, would shrivel my dreams once again. He knows from his own experience what it takes to build business, yet struggles with himself to contribute more help.

            Clearly my family wants the best for me, but the epic struggle between father and son, dynasty and renaissance, takes its toll on all the members.  My sisters weep at his side and my mother's spirit rallies to provide comfort to all from afar.

            I consider my experience in the construction industry, weigh the dirty hands and broken body against the income to support my family, half-squandered before, and the postponement of passion once again.  Yearning to please father and heritage, I print resumes and map a route to the various office doors of men I have known well in the past.

            It is the right thing to do.

            An email sucks me in, however, just before heading out the door, a response to one I had sent out.  A link is provided that might connect me to leading workshops, speaking and writing about the business of writing, the subject of love, and the business of contracting.  Sitting down to read the one opens more and draws me back out into the internet, exploring these avenues of independence that stimulate the blood flow much faster for me.

            Instead of constriction, my shoulders relax.  My fists unclench.  My eyes open wider.  Dense fog in my brain that slows every movement and reaction begins to dissipate and clears out the heavy feelings of despair.  My breath expands.

            Precious few dollars return from my efforts right now, none in comparison to what necessarily must flow outwards to fund the education I am giving myself, to explore this noble path.  No clear idea is formulated, no rock-solid business plan under-taken to reassure the skeptics in my life.

            Mere intuition guides me forward, some inner knowing that leaves no real choice.  A strong irrepressible, undeniable energy surges within that risks alienating the very foundation of family and friends.  In balance, out from starry recesses of a universe beyond speaking comes union with like-minded souls, new people in my life stepping into their own journeys, joining hands and exploring together this strange, beautiful, bountiful landscape of our own creation.

            This is a new world that stands strong in love against fear, reassuring me, whispering in soft breaths of abundant energy, "The right thing to do is simply the right thing. The heart knows all."

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