Discovering great pearls of wisdom from the mouths of some of my favorite wise women. Martha Beck offered a free online class this week called "Paths to your Purpose," where she spoke about spoon theory, the concept that if you are suffering from a chronic illness, you have fewer "spoons" of energy with which to get through the day. Beck, in discussions with friends, has elaborated on this, suggesting that there are activities or passions in life that give you new spoons. You can feel fully drained and yet when something you love enters the picture, energy is miraculously restored. She says, not surprisingly, to pay attention to this, this is your life purpose asserting itself.
I experienced this almost literally this week. I wouldn't call 61 "an illness," but there is no question that one's energy and patience levels are so much lower than at 21 or 41. It has taken me almost a week to feel back on slightly solid ground after the previous week's nonstop train, subway and bus travel. And yet as we all know, it was a shocking, draining week on the news front and additionally, several of my anticipated work "gigs" appeared to have gone up in smoke. I felt exhausted by yesterday afternoon, battered, abandoned, even uncharacteristically tearful.
Enter another wise woman, less than half my age, to whom I presented my disparate passions of England/English church music, women's spirituality, mysticism, art and writing. She saw enormous creative potential. Some of the "crazy" ideas I've had about how to bring these factors together didn't seem crazy to her, and she was able to share some feedback and resources that could help me move forward with one or more of them if I can drum up the courage to learn some new things about technology. I walked into the meeting spoonless and nearly lifeless, and walked out with spoonfuls of new energy and purpose. Thankful, thankful, thankful to her, and to God/Goddess/Universe/Source. Just hearing one little voice say "that sounds really cool" changes everything. "That sounds really cool" is a new tune for me.
I may be trying to move beyond duality, but by the same token, what Abraham-Hicks calls "contrast" can be enlightening. I literally looked at life from "Both Sides Now" this week. In the bright light of that full moon, it's pretty clear which side is preferable.
