We wrapped up the May Blog Series on Conscious Eating with posts containing plenty of tips on coming back to dining at home versus fast grabs, and some of the ways you might make it easy and sustainable.
Recent statistics on food waste in the USA, combined with increasingly shocking stats on hunger inspired me to get with it and share some ways to bring it back home and keep what you eat cycling from fridge to table to tummy. Have fun going back to the May posts if you missed it!
June brings me to another topic, perhaps less joyous but just as practical and necessary for a sustainable future - facing fear. I'll share my own take plus resources for you from several vantage points.
For today I offer you some material from the Mystical point of view.
The Center for Sacred Sciences says this about the fear of "being on the path":
"Almost everyone who walks a spiritual path will experience some form of fear.
Initially, we may be afraid of what family and friends will think of our spiritual interests. We may be afraid of our teacher, or the teachings, or of certain practices, or going on retreat. Later, we may develop a fear of losing all interest in worldly affairs, going insane, or finding out something about ourselves we don't want to know. We may also become afraid of such things as impermanence, death, or even God. But all these different kinds of fear are actually rooted in a single fear, which is the fear of Enlightenment itself."
For more on this, go to the article Facing Fear on the Path. It's short but meaningful and well worth the read.
Noting the Christian mystic, St. Teresa of Avila in Interior Castle, who compares what happens on a spiritual path to a silkworm turning into a butterfly, she additionally warns:
Note very carefully, daughters, the silkworm has of necessity to die, and it is this which will cost you most.2
The necessity to die. I quote Marianne Williamson who speaks from the perspective of Course in Miracles as she reminds us "It is not your darkness you fear but your light."
So if we put these two ideas side by side, what then is expected to die exactly, and why are we afraid of it?
For starters we must die to the idea of our former self.
We must die to the belief that we are "alone" on the journey.
We must die to our smallness.
We must die to our need to blend in, stay safe, not stick out.
We must die to our plan and open to what is planned for us.
We can find ways to do this - we must. The journey is ongoing, but I remind you how very necessary it is, and that you are not alone. Each and every one of us must cast off the ties that bind us and rise to the occasion of our biggest self and our truest vision.
Whether the way you do this is deeply personal in the quiet of your own soul, or live out loud "look at me now" stuff, the breakthroughs are what will enliven and sustain you, and me, and us together.
Each step you take toward the most authentic expression of your deepest longing will give you greater presence and a deeper connection to fulfilling your dharma - the reason you are here. Once in alignment with this, you will not be afraid.
May it bring you great joy.
More to come in upcoming posts - what's your take?
namaste,
Gael
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