Day 39
Someone requested I post a pic of the Fear-Chair and I said I would "very first thing" tonight. So, while I am not going to write anything until later, I DO have time to post this:
Back again, it's about an hour later than when I posted the photo. Sitting in bed. Thoroughly exhausted from another full day of painting prep-work and actual painting on the house we are working on getting all painted by September 25th. I've been posting some about this on my "30 in 30 challenge" in the daily descriptions of each painting I'm doing. I didn't post there however, something I told my husband tonight. I realized that, yes, I AM thoroughly and bone tired with the days of painting and prep-work, still keeping up with what I can get done at home, catering every other weekend, painting one piece every day for 30 days (a friend is keeping up with the percentages and today I am 17.5% finished with this challenge!!!), while also carrying a Fear-Chair every freaking place I go! YES, I am tired. The big BUT though is that I haven't felt so fully alive in many many years. And for this I am deeply grateful. This fact has been niggling at my consciousness for the past couple of days and finally I can articulate it. So too I can see that this is what carries me through the days of relentless added prep-tasks (if you've ever painted an old house you'll know that the more you fix, the more fixin' that shows itself needing to be done), early mornings (to get started early, when it's cool so the paint doesn't coagulate on the brush or board), long days (take care of animals, head to work, head home, take care of animals & family & home, paint a painting, post painting, blog), hauling of the Fear Chair (insert in every one of previous parentheses items "carry Fear-Chair) and the fear brought up by waking to another round of the same until September 25th when this house is due to be completed. Oh,... yeah, and I heard today that rain is on the way next week, which we badly need and for which I am grateful yet, oy....
Anyway, the feeling of truly and fully living life is a wonderful gift, and it does carry one through quite a lot of what, really goes into making it a time of fully living. That is, the effort it takes to experience as fully as possible the opportunities that show up in life. So, to identify the experience related to living life fully, I'd say, I am feeling gratitude, joy, peace, harmony, love, compassion, abundance, exaustion, fear, sorrow, a pinch of anger. So, really, what I am experiencing is really the total NOW. (I haven't any einergy to feel beyond now in either direction - past or future) Wow, cool. Again, I feel grateful....
I've been clinically depressed a total of 3 times in life. The last time was over 20 years ago, but one never forgets. I don't dwell on those episodes, nor really like to think too much about them; but I don't hesitate to draw upon them when the opportunity arises. Tonight, I must say, coming from what seemed years ago to be a destiny of chronic depression to seeing that G.U.S.S. (someone asked me to explain this today - G.U.S.S. is what, years ago I found myself realizing my God's name is -- "God, Universe ,Spirit ,Source") and I can collaborate to create a present that fills me with a sense of living fully astounds me.
So, the Fear-Chair? It stays. I am not done with it. It is a big part of this now that I am living. A big part of this full-living. I still have much to learn about Fear, about my Fear. Living fully does not cure one of Fear. Nor does carrying a Fear-Chair for that matter. "Cure" isn't really the right word anyway. I am not after a "cure," or an eradication. I really am simply on a journey. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a pilgrimage. Now is a good time in the journey. A hard time; but a good time. I am seeing a lot of beautiful sites/sights that feed my soul along the long arduous path. And, I know there is more. around the bend, over the next hill, in the next challenging place the chair must go. Or simply in the act of carrying the chair. I must say, on these full and exhausting days, the physical act of loading and unloading the chair in and out of the car and the act of carrying it along with all that I often need to carry is in itself quite a task. Sometimes I really would very much rather just not have to physically pick the thing up. I am SO tired. But, I harken back in my head to the notion of the strengthening. Even when I don't understand a challenging task, to meet it is strengthening and that sometimes is enough to carry me until enlightenment comes along.