Stepping Stones

ROLE. November 30th 03

ROLE (responsibility)

Beginning and ending each day aware of and fulfilling the day’s tasks, is the only role I need worry or concentrate on. The tasks are not the copious notes I may make myself of jobs, places, people to be involved with but are those of my heart and mind.

Playing my role in building up my awareness of light, love, laughter and life involves less than I am able to give but much more than I would ever wish to lose.

Nothing is asked or expected that I cannot actually carry out as long as I am clear, content and committed to the moment and the moment is filled with active engagement in life.

Nothing less and nothing more is required or needed to fulfil my role but a lifetimes involvement will still find exploring and discovering my role ever changing, ever evolving but always centred on the light.

TASK. November 29th 03

TASK (responsibility)

The beauty of each day is the knowledge that it is blank sheet, open opportunity, realisation of beginning with a sense of wonder, expectation and joy the moment of waking is greeted as old friend.

The sense of familiarity, and comfort overlaid with possibility fuels my heart and mind as with the love of trusted companion. Each day stretches ahead, not as ordeal to get through, barrier to overcome or prison sentences to serve, though others might wish or see it so. No, it stretches ahead as gift to be savoured and unwrapped with care and attention. My clumsy fingers may rip the wrapping, be over eager to see what is held within but if my intent is to reveal the present in the present; the presence of this truth will lift each day into this category and my daily life will be touchstone not task.

WORTHINESS. November 28th 03

WORTHINESS (responsibility)

Building up the opinions of others based on a false premise would not only be stupid but eventually harmful for both myself and for others too.

Only in truth can I reflect upon my life, only in truth can I share my life, only in truth can I ask another to view my life, only in truth will life itself be honoured. Only in truth is found the real, only in truth I give, only in truth may I live.

In truth I am not worthy but in the same moment in truth I am found worthy. Not by show, not by words, not by any action I may instigate or encourage will I be found worthy but by being, cleaving and constantly measuring myself against the truth that finds echo in my heart, moment by moment I may find worthiness in my being.

BURDEN. November 27th 03

BURDEN (responsibility)

Carrying a heavy load may be an opportunity to exercise muscles and abilities I may have not otherwise realised I possessed; gateway to new understanding not a heavy sea to drown in.

With this awareness comes strength both actual in the sense of building up muscles and abilities but also in sense that this brings belief from which I may draw strength and in turn further belief.

This building and sustaining of strength, by acceptance and exercise of life and its living as responsibility, not whim, brings relief from any thoughts or feelings of burden; enabling me to continue on my journey both externally and internally.

ONUS. November 26th 03

ONUS (responsibility)

Recognising that the buck only stops with myself is a very liberating discovery and is a continued delight in the journey I make through life. But is also reminder and responsibility for there is really no room to suppress or pain on some part of my life, which is difficult or painful. To share, discuss and recognise all elements of my life is good but when talking stops it is I who must make whatever movement is required be that to leave behind, embrace, alter or accept.

Each stage and step is my responsibility, no others. I may be effected by outside forces but it is me who makes the choice what the ramifications of this effect will be

I cannot not be affected, but my response, interpretation and use of the ongoing interchange with others and the world, is solely on my shoulders.

But rather than this be weight or burden let it be gift.

CARE. November 25th 03

CARE (responsibility)

Each action or thought can carry many ramifications for myself and for a wider circle than just friends. Like an echo bouncing off the wall of my life and the way I live it sends out reverberations.

To conceive of laughter without cause is like living without care – meaningless.

To incorporate into my daily life a responsive, questioning, empathic sense of others and myself is to begin to acknowledge that this is an essential part of my living with a fruitful and fundamentally joyous heart.

To be thankful and aware of the great good and sweetness of life even when it is rough, uncomfortable or plain painful is to know how much I must continue to cherish and nurture life, mine and others

CREDITABILITY. November 24th 03

The cycle of repetition and renewal that my life goes through is important in as much that it enables me to continue along a path with purpose but also it offers me the opportunity to review and revise my behaviour and attitude to the journey I am making through life.

Each step may be of renewal, repetition or response given the circumstances of self and setting but each step I make I must try to make it true, purposeful and positive even if self and setting are less than good.

With true intent and honest journeying I may look myself in the eye and in the eye of others knowing that I own my life and live it with as much honesty and openness as I can manage and know that what I and others see is creditable.

BURDEN. November 23rd 03

BURDEN (responsibility)

I am aware that pursuing a positive life and expressing that in ways positive and productive for myself and others, who I may or may not come in to direct contact with, could be onerous task or heavy uncomfortable burden.

However, I have the choice to reorientate my emotion and thought towards the task and its weight upon my heart and mind.

By accepting that there are facets of this way of living that are both onerous and burdensome I have the opportunity to see the obligation and oppressive nature, that could be my lot, as the chance to find the weight of the good, the worry of the right and the firm responsibility owned as enabling not disabling my life and the path I tread towards freedom of heart and spirit.

The headache I might get or the knotted stomach muscles I experience from the helplessness that engulfs me is part of the acceptance and process. It is not in a finished shiny item that I exclaim freedom from any sense of burden it is in the ragged, stitches dropped, paint splashed, miss-spelt world I create with my life that is the real freedom. There is nothing to finish; it’s all about the process and only in honestly and openly accepting that I am the process, a work in progress, is the burden no burden at all.

OBLIGATION. November 22nd 03

OBLIGATION (responsibility)

Feeling I am forced or coerced to live my life in a particular way is means to escape the truth. No one or no thing can actually force or coerce without first recognition from me of their power be that consciously or not. So my first duty to each moment is to realise this and actively respond with delight at the prospect of saying no. Not out of some sense of pique, malice or obstinacy but from the great sense of gift that my action can be.

In this expressing is found liberation whatever power may rally its forces against me. So too does it feed my own strength of purpose and sense of being in the moment. I can do no other if I am focussed and fundamentally committed to a life lived at peace with myself and all other living things.

To say this is an obligation is not to infer it is onerous rather it is because of the deep indebtedness I feel and the great joy I wish to express to life and the possibilities it enfolds for me.

LIABILITY. November 21st 03

LIABILITY (responsibility)

In my daily living the interaction with the world around me is full of possibility and consequence.

It is possible for me to reach great heights in perception, to plummet to the depths of despair, to touch another’s life for good or ill, to hold onto an idea / thought, to actively pursue some creative activity. However all these possibilities and many more besides, bring with them consequences.

For I do not inhabit a void or am myself an island so that my actions, reactions, inaction all have ramifications not just for myself but for the world around me.

By accepting that I am interconnected with the world around me I also accept that in living my life I affect the whole and these affects and consequences cannot be passed off as if nothing to do with me.