As I wrote in The Life Organizer,

Desire is the flow of life we yearn to swim in, the urge to be one with Spirit, and the way to stay in touch with this flow is through knowing what we want without insisting that we get it. It is staying with the feeling of desire, following it with curiosity, that leads us ever closer to what we most want.

It is tempting, however, to ignore desire. To think, “I don’t really want to save the world. I don’t really want to leave my comfy life and go out there… I don’t really want to write this book.”

When you ignore your desire, it is not because you aren’t worthy or strong or brave.

It is not because you don’t want what you want enough.

NO!

It may be because you need a friend, a community, someone to be with you as you desire.

It may be you need to name some baby steps.

It may be you need to let yourself burn, to feel pure desire without ever knowing if you will fulfill it.

In our humbleness, in our not knowing, lies our ability to keep desiring and to keep taking action without becoming ego manics or extremists — and without falling into fear or guilt so deep, we do nothing.

The brilliant Lorin Roche (husband of my wild Dakini soul friend Camille Maurine) writing in Meditation On Desire From The Radiance Sutras, offers this help:

When a desire arises in you, let it flow. Sense the sparkle and flash as the desire springs up. Put your whole attention into that flashing energy. Seeing desire in this way brings tranquility and equanimity. As you absorb the energy of the desire, you glow with satisfaction.

Give the desire space to live in your inner world before you go for it in the outer world. The technique here is to savor the energy of desire and use it as you would a mantra, a focus for meditation. Desires flow, like an electric current – let that flow of juice nurture and energize you. Imbibe the sparkle, dissolve, transcend with that desire and be fulfilled.

I do not want to miss out on life because I was afraid to desire. It burns, it hurts, it beckons, it seduces, and most of all, it’s here.

Why waste time resisting?

This week I relearned that if I put my attention on what’s missing, what’s wrong, what’s not enough, I get depressed.

When I put my attention on what’s good, what’s loving, what’s right here right now, I am nothing short of blissful.

It really is that simple.

Although, for someone with a brain as Squirrel like as mine, never easy.

The Life Organizer Questions for

Week 42

What is beckoning to me these days? What is capturing the attention of your heart?

My novel. I want to write it although I also want to avoid it. Ah, the push pull that I so often find myself in. Another perennial area of learning for me – to let go of the resistance and be here with the full range of wanting to let the story take me and wanting to what? Be mindlessly busy.

What one step could I take to explore this call? Think simple action. Not a project, not a big ding dang do, simply take one step, then pause and see what you know now.

Keep showing up and writing each day. Don’t beat myself up for both wanting to and not wanting to.  Let go of the story that good writers always want to write.

To paraphrase the poet Mary Oliver, what would help me love the soft animal of my body today?

Keeping my mind where my body is, so I actually can love what my body is experiencing. This is how I actually rest and fill up!

Who could I see as holy today? Who could I greet as a part of the light within us all?

My sweet 15 year old daughter Lillian.  I love this question as a way to deepen my love and actually make it less personal, more connected to all-that-is. She needs me to be strong right now and show her options without collapsing into overwhelm.

Want to play along?

Write down the questions and muse upon them in your journal.

Join the Comfort Cafe and do it in community.

Pick one question and respond in the comments.

Or…?

Love to hear how you choose your life this week.

I was upstairs this morning making some various art messes and as I was painting pages in my art journal because I thought that might get me into the creative flow (which feels tantalizing close these days but I’m not quite immersed in it yet) and as I was painting I watched thoughts go by that sounded somewhat like this: “You should be working. What are you going to call the retreats you want to lead? Where are you going to hold them? What about your new speaking topics? This art stuff is a waste of time, you have no idea what you are doing. Why are you even doing this? You should be out making a difference like Michele Obama or raising money to help New Orleans if it gets smashed again.”

Whew, I know that was toxic to read! It was toxic to hear.  I don’t let these thoughts stop me and they sure do get old. My inner critic is of the productivity save-the-world variety which I suspect is part of what keeps me from kindly finding my next step. It’s better to stay lost when nothing is good enough.

But I kept painting and letting my thoughts go, not getting attached, and then after a bit, I came downstairs to my office to check my mail and Facebook page (I joined to see what my daughter was experiencing but found it’s very cool for grown-ups too – want to be friends?) and found this email from Pamela:

The artwork on the site and in the newsletter is so beautiful!! Will you ever offer T-shirts and other items, perhaps a calendar with “Jen-isms” and the artwork together, etc?
It would really be wonderful!

Thanks and many blessings-
Pamela H.

I love you Pamela, not because you made me feel talented or that what I was doing in the studio was worthwhile but because it reminded me that our story (in this case, the one from my pushy inner productivity bitch) is just one story. It is not the truth. As I was feeling conflicted and doubtful in my mess making, Pamela was deriving energy or delight from my messes. That doesn’t mean I’m signing up for art school tomorrow – that would be dumb but fun – but that I (we) can trust our desires and let them lead us more than we ever can our stories about what those desires mean or don’t mean. Or we’re being mean to ourselves.

Do you have an inner productivity bitch? Do you think being satisfied is one of the keys to kindly find yourself?

I should make this retreat deeper and richer.
I should be meditating more, asking for guidance more (or at all!).
I should be using my time more wisely.

The language of should can be (mostly is) so automatic that is it the linguistic structure that helps create the mood of not wanting? If so, where does it come from? I ‘ve always loved the idea that it’s a way that women have been taught to give up their sovereignty and power–by shoulding on ourselves we put the power to decide our lives out there, with them. Given that desire and power are intimately interrelated, it doesn’t surprise me that when I claim my desire by asking “What do I want?” then the shoulds come sneaking around, eroding the feeling of desire so that it becomes grim or flat.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this — feel free to be inarticulate like me!

~~~~~~~~~~
And now a poem that has sharply reminded me why I’m on retreat and why I need to recommit to my time in the void:

Flowers of a Moment by Ko Un

It is said that nothing can become new,
unless it first turns to ashes.
For a whole decade,
my misfortune was not having turned to ashes.

Burning a mound of dead leaves in late autumn I want to weep.

Translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taise’, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach

As I wrote a few moments ago in an email to a friend, “My job these days is to burn everything I have been unwilling to burn in the past — all the times I stepped back from the edge and didn’t let go when I knew I needed to– let go of work, identity, relationships… I must burn this time and I’ve been hiding from doing that since I began this retreat, at least a bit.”

Burn, more burning? ARGH!!!!!

A bit from Michael’s newsletter:
“In ‘You Can Have What You Want”,‘ {his very useful and powerful book} I identified three keys to
recognizing that you are living an inspired life:

1. You are doing what you love and want to do

2. You feel guided

3. Things seem to unfold as if by design

I then suggest that in order to get to this point, there are really only two things you need to do – consistently ask yourself “What would I love to do today?” and whenever possible,
do it.”

Which is the major theme of The Life Organizer, my hope is the weekly questions keep bringing you back to desire, true deep desire, and helping you see it and hear it and feel it.

But here is where I have gotten tied in a knot which is confusing desire with mood. My mood these days is low – I’m doing a ton of deep grieving – and that low mood convinces me I don’t want anything. That mood likes to say, “What the point of anything?” So this nine month retreat I’m in the midst of is is being eked away, without renewal happening, because I don’t feel like renewing! (And this lack of deep renewal is also because life and work goes on and I’ve been subscribing to the swaths of time theory, which is another retreat boondoggle i.e. don’t wait for them, those swaths of time are often deadly anyway). Then enter Michael’s brilliant distinction which is…

“…the difference between navigating by desire and navigating by
mood.

Navigating by desire means you base your decisions about what to do or not do on the question “Do I want to?”. If the answer is yes’, you do your best to move forward; if the answer is ‘no’, you do your best to stand pat.

Navigating by mood, on the other hand, is when you attempt to base your decisions on the answer to the question “Do I feel like it?”. If you don’t feel like doing something, you put it off until later; if you do feel like it, you move forward.

While at first these two ways of making decisions seem similar, they take people in two completely different directions. Since our moods are often tied up in old habits and patterns of
thinking, following them tends to just create more of the “same old, same old” in our lives. Somehow, we just don’t get around to making those changes we know we’d love to make, and things that seem like they’ll take too much effort are put off until the last minute or don’t get done at all.

Your wanting, however, is a living, breathing, fluid process. Each time you do what you want (or don’t do what you don’t want to do), your actions seem effortless and inspired ideas become
almost commonplace. Over time, it becomes easier and easier to read and follow your inner compass. Life gets a lot simpler, and the pursuit of success becomes a lot more fun.

Today’s experiment is a simple one:

This week, before deciding on any course of action, ask yourself “Do I want to?” Wherever possible, allow your answer to influence your decision and guide your choices.

Do this irrespective of whether or not you’re “in the mood” – if you do, you’ll notice that your mood begins to change “all by itself”. ”

Desire says, “Let’s write” or “Let’s paint” or “Let’s call a friend and then Mood says, “Why bother?” In that moment between the two impluses, there is choice!

What might happen for you today if you became very curious about the distinction between mood and desire and if you remembered that moods are always malleable, even when we are depressed or have PMS or are otherwise sunk in the mire.

“You are what your deep driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.” From The Upanishads