Water, Fluidity, Calling, Currents and Creativity

Watercolor by Tehroma Lask: Indigo

What currents remind you of the dynamic vital life force that flows within you and makes you every cell of your being feel alive?

How creative is your relationship with movement and stillness, silence and sound, the inhale and exhale, visitation and absence, appearance and disappearance, your relationship with work and rest, friendship and family, day and night, time and the changing seasons?

What calls you to create and connect?

Are you a spectator watching the flow of life go by? Or, are you immersed in the everchanging current of life? Somewhere in between? One foot in, one foot out? Both feet in, whole heart immersed?

In my own life, I find this relationship to be a fluid dance --- at times more and less graceful than others ---  dynamic and anything but static. Moving in and out. Spaces in between. Observing, imagining, jumping in, creating, stepping out and drying off. Reflecting. Assimilating. Integrating. Sometimes ruminating. Overanylizing. Hesitancy. At time, fear moves in. Grateful when I remember: Where there is fear, may there be awareness, and faith. Where there is faith, there is love and where there is love, faith and courage: Wholeheartedness.

When I hold back, creativity is stalled. When I step in with both feet, my imaginings have a chance to come to life. I have an opportunity to see, feel, learn, connect and grow. Sometimes thrive. Other times, fall on my face. I have a scar on my upper lip from falling face first on a jagged bolder during an afternoon hike. I fell down, felt the light knocked out of me, the earth beneath my body, saw the bright blue sky, clouds moving by, found my way to standing and kept walking.  The scar is a reminder of resiliency and humanity. On an inner level, wisdom earned from many different ways of falling.

We live in a destination location, one often referred to seasonally as: High and low season. Several years ago, I began taking notice to this reference. Our winter is known as "high season". Making summer "slow season". Energetically and in cooler climates, winter is a slow season. A time for introspection. Reflection. Quiet. It became and is important to my life, living in a location year round, to create space to experience the four seasons and feelings of the year: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.

Throughout the seasons, I feel: Life is experienced sometimes as an observer, others as a participator and often a fluid dance between the two. There is value is moving into the water then back to shore. Move with and observe the natural ebb and flow of the tides. What if remembering: The fluid breath that carries vital life force into your body is also the vital life force that flows into this heart, body, mind and soul, the ocean, plants in your yard, my yard, our mutual barking dogs, stove that sizzles, boils and simmers in each of our kitchens, and water that flows from faucets and hoses everywhere --- on water days, of course ---  then, I recognize: I am always two feet immersed in the current that flows within us all. There is no separation between spectator and participator. 

Whatever we call the seasons, in recognizing transitions and the constant flow of changes, we are noticing the same thing: We all come and go, ebb and flow in some way. All ways of viewing, moving and being are equally valuable, when seen with the heart just as all ways of breathing are equally valuable around the globe. There may be many that are difficult to comprehend and I believe all are capable of change. Peace begets peace. 

The kidneys move water. Hip opening poses in Yin yoga stimulate the kidney meridian. Jing is stored in the kidneys. Jing is also known as "essence", soul on the ineffable level and body on the tangible level.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Sea of Cortez, living by the water called me here like it called many to appreciate and step into it's serene beauty. Wind and waves of winter and summer further south offered me connection and reminder of oneness, a feeling I embody, a spark I feel when I see kites in the air above the deep blue and white capped rolling swells. Lines in my mind of design have called me to move them on paper and screen to develop a dwelling, a space, inside or out. Words that string themselves together, ocurrences of the mind, create a communication within that calls to be shared without. Desert trails, trees that sprout leaves after rain, bolders, moutains and the vast blue sky call me to walk amongst them with gratitude for their existence. Kindred souls met along the way, a spark to meet up and share conversation, a meal, walk, time and space. Nature, creativity, art, work, recreation, friendship, my dear family and honoring these callings, the time to appear and disappear with reverence for a deep connection I feel with the ever changing current of life that flows within me and the life force that flows within you. However that fluidity, calling, current and creativity manifests in each one of us is unique, beautiful and life expressed in a its own equally valuable way. 

Water is a wonderful reminder of fluidity, callings, currents, creativity and change, as well as, a relationship with these occurences of the mind. 

In the words of Deng Ming-Dao: 
"The essence of life shall never be known by a human being as long as that person seeks to observe life like a viewer and subject. The absolutely essential nature of life can only be comprehended by merging fully with the flow of life, so that one is utterly a part of it. "