Words to divine by
The beauty of my life is I am surrounded by artists who create excitement out of even the most mundane. My artist friends have encouraged and helped me start my collage project. They have supported my writing. An artist friend, whose design sensibility and dance moves have taken her all over the world, threw a party last night – always lovely – a covey of female artists. Whether through photos, food, writing, painting, fashion, curating, music, gardening – their beauty enriches my life.
There at the party, an artist friend gave me an intention candle. She had prepared it for me with beautiful tissue paper and a butterfly, and told me to add my own words to it – what I want to call into my life and then to burn it so all of these desires enter my universe.
I wrote down my words this morning:
Fun * Play * Vitality * Spirit * Book * Vulnerability * Family * Friends * Adventure * Creativity * Clarity * Support * Love * Power * Resistance * Pleasure * Peace
This exercise reminded me of where I was over a year ago, at the end of 2023. I sat in a coffee shop in D.C. and listen to a meditation by Darius Bashur, and he asked the same question. I was not in a good headspace. I had moments alone, my home life was blowing up, and I had nowhere to run for solace except these stolen moments at an unknown coffee shop. He said: without pausing, write down 20 words. Not what you want to call in, not what you want to get rid of, just 20 words. And I did. And it surprised me, these words of mine.
Excitement * Joy * Clarity * Effortless * Support * Resources * Flexible * Creative * Color * Expansive * New * Mysterious * Wonder * Partner * Risk * Book * Podcast * Music * Health * Harmony
Darius then asked us to imagine a color palette:
Orange * Ochre * Fuchsia * Royal Purple * Ruby Red * Gold * Cerulean * Chocolate Brown
It was indeed a conjuring, a way to get rid of words that no longer served my narrative and to embrace words in color that stirred in me. My end note to this exercise was: Asked how she did it, she answered with the profound response her teenage son had offered to her, “I don’t know.”
In the margin of my notebook I also wrote: Life is precious, there is pleasure to be had, seek it, enter your own life intentionally, and see what you bring forth. I have policed my own pleasure for too long.
