The Fury Below

Saturday, February 20; 1:15 pm

The Inn at Serenbe

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to give more attention and better care – to myself. Like everyone I know, I get a lot of pressure from multiple fronts. But I’m more acutely feeling…knowing…that this stress this time around is hitting me harder and deeper than ever and cannot be handled in my heretofore energetic, ‘whatever” way. This time there’s a lot more reverberation going on, the kind that might leave me reeling and damaged if I’m not careful.

So I started eating better. And I renewed yet again my commitment to moving my body more regularly. But this is old hat, right? Probably 7 of 10 of us take these actions the first 3 months of each New Year.

I know I need to go further. Deeper. So I committed to asking myself-consistently-why I do what I do and why I do it the way I do it? How much of it is driven from inside and how much is external? And most importantly, who or what I am doing it for?

Strolling today at beautiful Serenbe, I’m coming to realize that there is ferocity within me that I gotta get a grip on. Just like the grounds stretching out around me: although it looks barren and sad, beneath there is a fury of activity going on. There’s buds being formed, dirt being shifted, and life being born. Its happening precisely, routinely, methodically, and scientifically as it does every year. It’s moving according to Spirit’s holy design and brilliant plan, and knows how far and hard to push and pull and stretch as it prepares for what will be a glorious manifestation in the spring. 

I’ve asked Spirit to help with what’s roiling inside me as well. I’m asking for help to mold, shape, and pray it to a place where it serves the greatest good. Where it allows me to act and react in ways that heal and not harm; ways that reverberate with life and love and hope.

And, just like Serenbe, I’m expecting a glorious manifestation too.

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism...destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”  Thomas Merton