Inviting Passion into Our Lives

It has been a very long time since I wrote in these pages. Rather than staying inside and writing these past weeks, I have been outside where, for the first time in several years, I have been able to garden, connecting once more with the earth, one of my passions.  Previously a vocation, touching earth and tending her has become a simple joy. The garden responded and I feel renewed, able to listen to the calling of my heart.

For me, this begs a question: How do we hear the calling of our hearts, our passion?  And once found, how do we open to it and feed it so that in turn, it can feed us?

Passion is easily confused in our culture with the desire of the moment, constantly changing as though it lives outside of us, appearing at the will of another, the whim of today’s fad. Or we may have been taught that our passion must be dampened down or it will control us rather than being the music we play when our own fires are stoked with the truth of our whole being.

But consider what your life would be like if you noticed to the voice of your passion.  Suppose you considered it as an inner truth that once discovered could take you towards realizing your life’s purpose.  Rather than following a learned message, what would it be like to hear and acknowledge the tune that plays only for each and every one of us?

Finding our passion requires that we step up and take a risk to know ourselves deeply.  Perhaps your passion focuses on tiny details.  Or perhaps it connects you with the wild.  Perhaps you come alive in small, still moments.  Or through dancing or tending the home fires.  Whatever your passion, it requires that we recognize what truly matters to us.  We might have to blow on the embers of our passion, embers that may have been banked before our memories began.  We would have to trust that our internal fires live on somewhere in those embers.

What would happen if we breathed life into the banked embers of our passion?  Imagine, slowly, a tiny wisp of flame and we feel ignited with a burst of new energy. 

If we continue to feed this first awakening of our passion, feed it by paying attention to it, we will soon see true flames.  This is our internal fire, the strength of our passion.  It is these flames that will carry us forward into the lives of our own making.

Here, now, during this season of growth and abundance, take a deep breath.

Feel your strength deep in your belly. 

Feel your heart swell with joy. 

Step outside under starry skies, or sun lit skies; under skies wreathed in clouds, or sodden with rain or drenched with the fragrance of flowers. 

And breathe in your love of being alive. 

Invite your love of life to grow during this season of growth. 

Invite it to show you the path towards your passion.

Invite passion into your life.   

Recognize that your passion feeds you and brings you whole.