It’s the first day of spring over here in the Western half of the globe.Which means for one moment there is balance.
Which is not the actual moment of the equinox but actually a bit before, depending on where you are on the Earth’s surface.
And then bang: we’re off balance again.
Which is the way, come to think of it, we spend most of our lives.
What? Did the Comfort Queen just say that?
I don’t like that balance is in the sub-title of my first book.
I tweak the request when someone hires me to speak about balance.
Because balance is like the vernal equinox – it is momentary, fleeting, and it doesn’t even happen when your 7th grade science teacher told you it happens.
So why do we spend so much time trying to get balanced, be balanced, why do we set it up like the holy grail of sanity and safety?
Because it means we don’t have to be here, accepting life as it is.
It means we don’t have to acknowledge hard choices we might need to make, things, people, roles we might need to let go of.
It means we don’t have to mourn the losses of youth (remember those long days of just hanging out with your best friend doing nothing?)
It means we keep believing there is a promised land where we will finally start living our lives the way we want to because we are balanced.
Not that you believe that.
I know, I don’t either.
But boy, it is a tempting idea.
Instead, we recognize (sometimes with grace, sometimes with a bit of grumbling and soupcon of chocolate to ease our way) that we are creators and our power is inside ourselves and thus balance is a choice, a way of seeing, and not a destination to reach.
But if it was, I bought the most perfect dress yesterday to wear there, in balanced land.
I bought to wear to this wonderful benefit tomorrow night. If you live in Seattle, come and then say hi and give me a vernal hug. Not I did not say a venal hug.
P.P.S. Just a few more days until I’ll be helping you create at Kripalu. Please join me and tell a friend. I have a feeling these are going to be amazing blazing events!
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Amethyst Wyldfyre Mar 20, 2009
This is really great Jen – I love how authentic and truthful you are about the “game” we play about balance. I’ve just “received” an opportunity from the Universe to make some hard choices that will lead me to a much better place I believe but doesn’t make making the choice easier – we SO struggle sometimes with the “letting go”!! Enjoy the NEW energy that comes in for you today and may your release of that which needs to be gone be made with ease and grace.
Amethyst Wyldfyre’s last blog post..The Visionary Vibe Report – Energy UPGrades!
2 Mark Silver Mar 20, 2009
I totally agree- and I love the way you put it. Balance is fleeting, very fleeting. Achoo- there it went again.
Mark Silver’s last blog post..Luddite Offline Marketing
3 Melinda Mar 20, 2009
Balance is about balancing balance. And that is about process. Which circles back (in a crooked line which often does not even remotely resemble a circle) to balance. Thank you for letting us know your cicle can be all squiggley, too. Boy! Isn’t it great to be human? Fun and full of motion and chocolate. And crooked lines.
4 Ingrid Mar 21, 2009
Hi Jennifer, I love words. And I think balance might still be a good one, even worthy of fondness- maybe just overused or cloaked with projections or impossible longings for a pain-free world. Maybe we reject the word for the striving for perfection that we think it implies- or the stopping of a seesaw while holding a ball on our nose? Still, there’s emptiness and fullness; day and night; yin and yang; joy and sorrow; giving and receiving; spiritual and material….yes and no…thought and no-thought…. I don’t want to throw out these babies with my balance bathwater… How about Harmonious Coupling? Maybe that’s a kind of balance? And gentleness, patience, humor, tenderness…. Again, your wonderful post gave me much to ponder while on my walk. Thanks!
Ingrid’s last blog post..New Gifts from the Studio: Mini flower bouquets and Cameo Necklace Cards, and A Joyful Discovery
5 Joely Black Mar 22, 2009
So true! I think of balancing my life as very much like the act of balancing when I studied ballet.
En pointe, you are constantly readjusting, making tiny subtle movements from your toes all the way up to the top of your head. There’s one fantastic and very difficult maneouvre called the le promenade, which involves turning very carefully on one foot with the body at right angles to the leg. One moves so slowly around in a complete circle. Life is like that, a constant reassessment of the position of every limb, every muscle.
Like a ballet dancer, if you get it right, it looks effortless.
Joely Black’s last blog post..Learning like a six-year-old
6 Jennifer Mar 22, 2009
I wish I were feeling more bright and creative I would write a poem from all your great comments, with words like ease, achoo, every limb, squiggly, and most certainly entitled Harmonious Coupling!