Everyone has unique gifts, some seeming to deviate from the skills and gifts that society showers with rewards.  So there is a hesitancy to openly express and shine forth, a concern that we are not worthy.   The way to bring out the greatness in others is to show appreciation and gratitude for people as they are, and for the gifts they express.  Then there needs to be the atmosphere of non-judgment where it is safe to open up and express.  Mix this with the vision of adventure and discovery to overcome new challenges and the unknown.  And the cherry on top is remind all that greatness is our birthright, expressing magnificence is our purpose, and our light is meant to shine before all brighter than the sun!

The synchronicity of this question is wonderful.  Just yesterday I was listening to music and searching for more music.  I found a song that I had heard before only while the credits rolled at the end of a movie.  I listened to it over and over and it touched me so deeply that I cried.  This happens to me about once a month with the joyful experience of being touched so deeply by music.  At first awareness I would say I cried from happiness, but the experience is so much more.  It is a joyful release where the overflowing comes out in tears, it is an overflowing of awe for beauty, it is a touching and a releasing of some sadness of yesterday, cleansing it in tears and releasing it in joy, it is a soulful interaction with the Divine that sometimes overwhelms our human emotions and we cannot find the words or speak, all we can do is cry.  And in this we surrender some of ourselves and allow the planting of the seeds of something new.

This being my birthday, I simply must engage the Question and Reflection of the Day  :)

What seperates me from most people in society is the choice to live a life that resonates with spirit and not spend my time trying to master the ways of "ego."  Instead of the "left" or the "right" I choose all possiblities.  Even though I may struggle in this physical world, I know my soul is following the higher path.  I am not perfect, and the more I release from "ego" it seems the more "ego" I see that needs to be released, but I follow the light.

My goal is to follow my heart everywhere, and I am happy to say that I am getting better at doing this.  For me the heart sets the direction and the mind works the details.  The heart flows with broad brush strokes and the mind the fine pencil-precision.  The heart is the strategic general and my mind the tactical field commander.  The heart is the connection with the Divine, the mind is the physical manifester that I have trained and developed all the years.  So when I follow my heart, the proper end of the donkey is leading and moving forward.  When I follow my mind, well .........  you can picture what I look like  :)

First, I am happy to say that the periods in life when imagination was most unfettered and wild was not at any one age.  When I finally learned to express and display my work without judging myself or my work, it opened up the first period of joyous, wild, creative expression.  It was like a spiritual experience, sexual experience and child-like playful experience all wrapped into one!  I would write and write and be suprised to realize it was 3 in the morning!  These times come and go in cycles and my last one was a month ago ..... can't wait for the next one!

First, discovery doesn't happened by "waiting" for anything.  We are explorers of experience in this human existence.  They only way to experience is to go out and live, the only way to discover is to go on a journey to explore.

What I want most to discover is the way to decouple my creations of today and tomorrow from my thoughts and beliefs of the past.  I want my todays and tomorrow to be created solely from my thoughts and beliefs of now.  This is my path to the mountain top.

Recently, after not thinking about her in a long time, I have been thinking about the first "enchanted Faerie" that I fell in love with.  It was magical and amazing, passionate and sensual, exquisite and exciting, but it also had its difficulties.  I learned so much....... the hard way.  But such was the karma I accepted in those days.  Sometimes, I get into the mindset, "I wish I knew then what I know now," but I am now better at releasing thoughts like these quicker. 

So why have I suddenly started thinking about my past experiences with my ex-nature-goddess?  So I can appreciate how much I have grown, and how the wisdom I wish I had then, is with me now!

First a little set up. Most people perform creative cognitive processing in three manners; visual, visceral and aural (not to be confused with three different levels of cognitive and emotional processing: visceral, behavioral, and reflective). If someone says, “hey, I have an idea,” the visual processor “saw” the idea, the visceral processor “felt” the idea, the aural processor “heard” the idea. Unfortunately in the past, some aural processors have been deemed “crazy” for hearing voices. It has been a while but I remember the distribution as being 80% visual, 15% visceral and 5% aural. I am one of the 15% and my processing comes to me in feelings. My memory, however, is visual. If some says to me “remember what Mary was wearing last week” I will examine a picture of Mary last week in my mind’s eye. If someone says “visualize a tall waterfall splashing in a cool blue pool,” my mind’s eye vision goes blank and I feel the water falling and then the spray of the splash on the pool and the coolness of the water. My creative visualization is actually creative sensation. Lots of set up here, now the answer.

So my dominant sense is visual for enjoying the beauty of nature and I communicate in many visual metaphors, but when I close my eyes and only feel, I am the most in the moment, I feel the most alive! I also use many metaphors of tactile sensation. When I kiss, my eyes close for a long time and I do not need to see, I am aware of all motion.

I would love help to release the sadness, pain and discouragement of the past, and stay positive, desiring with great emotion.   My focus on joy, the beauty of this day and the magnificence in the tomorrow being created!

Just yesterday I learned that I was allowing something that a supervisor wrote on my annual employee appraisal  over 20 years ago to unconsciously control my behavior to the day.  I have always done the "day job" and then other activities after work.   These other activities have included being in a signed rock band and touring the US.  And I have always done well in the day job, but over 20 years ago, a supervisor wrote that I would be an even better performer if I didn't have my outside activities.  I actual got him to take the comment out because I made the case that it was none of his business what I did outside if I was able to perform well on my job.  But this stuck with me unconsciously as an underlying fear that I will get fired if the company realized that I may be doing a good job but my "heart" is in something else.  To see this cause and effect in me helped me to release the fear.