An email from Southern Dharma

Today I am feeling the weight of the huge transition before me. the excitement of it, the nervousness of taking a loan out for that much money. for my dreams, for my ambitions. i don't like blogging. i admit it. but i also feel the desire to share all the miracles that are happening in my life. how the Spirit that moves through all things works in my life. what if we all shared that more often? my friend rebecca says that to write and speak well, you let the words roll around on your tongue and you feel if they are true or not first. then you say the ones that feel true.

i am volunteering at southern dharma meditation center for a week in july to help get me ready for this transition and because i want to be there and because now that i've moved out of my apartment without a place to move into, i need good places to sleep. 

after i looked over the figures in my loan, clicked the "e-sign" button and signed my life away to sallie mae, i recieved an email from the manager of southern dharma with this poem attached:
i'm blogging now because i want to share it with you.

More than ever...

More than ever we need art.

More than ever we need imagination.

Not fantasy. No, not that.

We need IMAGINATION.

We need to take real pain, 

real suffering,

and real injustice

and transform it (with art)...into

something meaningful and empowering.

More than ever...

We must call on our gifts...

to dream, envision, and birth

a more noble way of life.

Art is the way.

And surely, something needs to die when something is birthed.

Life needs death.

Let the ways that cause harm...die.

We need edge-walkers.

We need shape-shifters.

We need fierce warriors.

We need light-holders.

We need hospice workers AND midwives.

We need nurturers and protectors.

We need initiators.

We need elders.

We need visionaries who speak from the heart.

We need to breathe into each moment as if it is our first-last.

We need to rekindle the soul spark

that will sing us into the next steps of our human journey...

If you have a gift,

offer it up.

Where there was a wound, 

there was a gift.

Share it.

-Lindsay Wilson