7/31/13—Being Bigger Than That

Today's Draw: Chirping Crickets at Night from My Backyard Deck. ;) How big are the things you allow to occupy your mind on a daily basis? Are they big enough to be recorded for eternity on your soul? Are they bigger than you?

Back in early 2012, I did a series of posts that were inspired by nature, rather than tarot or other oracles.  I used to have a practice of going to a special spot twice a week at sunrise and just listening to nature. Each time I visited, I would get a message. And, now and again, I would have a mystical experience involving visions of others who might have visited the same historic spot. So I have, I think, three journals full of these messages. I meant to write a book, but have been distracted. :D

This favorite spot was on the Potomac River near Mount Vernon. And, long before George Washington owned the land I sat upon, it was stewarded by Native Americans. In fact, the river was named after the Patowmack (Patawomeke) Indians who lived along it. I'm certain their spirits still inhabit the area and one day maybe I'll have reason to tell you a story about some "Indian spirits" that came to me as a girl when we lived in a house high on a hill overlooking the river. It seems to me, looking back, that with all the flooding that goes on, the Indians probably would have made camp on the higher elevations, possibly right where we lived.

But this is about the crickets. And last night.

As I said two days ago, I had quite a stressful and humbling and annoying and insecure and crazy-making week last week. And over the weekend, I feel like I integrated a lot of what I had learned and experienced. So last night I sat on my little storage bench on my back deck to meditate, as I do many nights. And as I was going into that state, I had the lingerings of last week and the insecurities it dredged up on my mind. So just as my head was going blank, I heard a very clear voice say, "you're so much bigger than that".

This wasn't about being superior or "too wise" or "too good" to concern myself with the people and situations at the center of my stress. Rather it was about how the essence of me...my soul...was bigger than the things that occupy my human mind here on this earth.

The thought was profound to me. I mean, obviously I know I'm a soul in a human body and all of that. And I've even got messages about how pedestrian some of our issues are from the vantage point of the soul. But this was the first time I'd considered it in THIS way....that I truly am bigger than the concerns I focus on day in and day out. I have dominion over them. So why let them have dominion over me?

So as I sat listening to the crickets, it occurred to me that some things are truly important here. Some of the lessons we learn and people we connect with. But the lingerings of our angst, the pettiness of things we turn over and over in our minds, the confrontations and the soup of insignificance we steep in...we're bigger than that. 

Some of it is attendant with the lessons we learn. My stresses of the past week ushered in an important lesson for me. But most of the angst and thought around it is stuff that matters not to the soul. The soul will carry the lessons you've learned throughout eternity. But all the other baggage that goes with it? The soul is bigger than that. Which means YOU are/can be/should be bigger than that. 

My friend K will read this and remember when I told her to measure her anger and worries and angst on the scale of "will this matter in my life five years from now?". You can brush off a lot of annoyances and set aside a lot of mundane worries using that scale to eyeball the importance of things and whether or not they're worth wasting your time over. 

But now here's another yardstick—is this thing that's occupying your mind...this thing you're not letting go of...is it bigger than you? Is it, in the form you're thinking of it now, something to carry through the ages? Or are you bigger than it? Have you taken the lesson that's relevant to your soul and moved forward knowing that no amount of whining and marinating is going to add to what you've already learned? 

It's amazing how easily you can let go of something, snap back into perspective and rise above when you remember how big you truly are.