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Listen With Your Heart

March 20, 2015 By Dave Leave a Comment

"Listen With Heart" by Len Matthews

“Listen With Heart” by Len Matthews

“The things which hurt, instruct.” – Benjamin Franklin

As a boy, my one true love . . . was basketball.

That’s right. Like Juliet to Romeo, basketball was the sun, only . . . okay, well, that may be stretching it a bit. But the idea of playing, the feeling I got from being on the hardwood or the blacktop found its way into every corner of my brain, it climbed beneath my skin, so all I thought about was shooting hoops.

Now, I was a skinny kid with asthma who couldn’t run fast, couldn’t jump high. So, you know, me and basketball were the perfect match.

I loved playing basketball so much, I spent every day, rain or shine, shooting, dribbling, running, jumping rope, trying to get better. I sought out coaches I respected and asked them for drills. And they shared them with me, even though I didn’t play for them. That struck me as quite generous.

It was that way all through high school, too.

The summer between my junior and senior year, I averaged 10+ hours of basketball every day. I played in a park about six miles from my home. It took me an hour to walk there every day after driver’s education, dribbling my ball, stopping at two other courts along the way for some practice shots, maybe a few games of one-on-one.

I won’t go into the whole story, not here, but suffice it to say, my dream was to play Division I basketball at UNC. Syracuse would have been my second choice and Virgina third (James Worthy, Louie Orr, Ralph Sampson were all playing back in those days). I spent all my energy chasing that dream and, even in retrospect, those were the best days in my young life.

I spent every minute I could doing the thing I loved. I lived the thing I loved. I was the thing I loved. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

Just after the season started during my senior year, I blocked a shot in practice and came down on a teammate’s foot, snapping my ankle. My season was over. I worked hard to rehab, hoped that if I gave myself time during my first year in college to fully recover, I could try out for the team as a sophomore.

But as Robert Frost put it, way leads on to way.

Over the years, my dreams have changed. I wouldn’t say they’ve been abandoned, as much as that they morphed. Other interests rose up. Of course, for much of my life I didn’t listen to those interests, not beyond having some deep down feeling in my gut.

I think that’s true of many of us. We get swept up in the whole way leading on to way and, for some of us, we forget to listen. We stop listening for any number of reasons. But it’s important to listen. I think that’s where happiness lives, in the listening, and in the doing . . . in both.

It took me decades before I heard that voice inside letting me know that I had a new love, a new passion. There was this completely different thing I never expected that filled me with the same kind of feelings I got from playing ball (and i did it most days without getting sweat in my eyes).

You’re here because you’re a creative – a writer, or a painter, or a singer, or a photographer, or a gardener, or a mixed media artist, or . . . You’ve already done some listening. On Fridays we tend to look back on the week, or further, and reflect on the action steps we took related not just to our goals, but to our intentions. What things did we do to honor that voice deep down inside us?

Some weeks we may do more than others. Some weeks we may find ourselves on a different path entirely. That’s the importance of listening. Of paying attention. Sometimes our dreams change. And that’s not necessarily bad or good. You have to decide – by listening . . .

Sometimes an obstacle arises that is painful, that keeps us from our goals, from our dreams for a time. But those are the times we learn about ourselves . . . if we listen. We learn different paths to those dreams, or we learn those dreams may have only been part of our story. That is why understanding our intentions is so important. Why listening . . . to our hearts, to our souls is so important.

The photo at the top is titled “Listen With Heart” and it claims that a true friend listens with the heart. Sometimes we forget to be a true friend to ourselves. That’s all we’re suggesting now.

Take a few moments today and be still. Take a few deep breaths and listen. What is your heart telling you? Your soul? What is your dream? And what steps have you taken toward it?

If you haven’t taken any, well, that happens. But let’s not except that as the only outcome. After all, you just listened and that’s a step.

Now answer this – what is the first step or the next step you will take?


Photo Credit: “Listen With Heart” by Len Matthews photo above is used as per Creative Commons License on Flickr.

Filed Under: creative living, Obstacles, personal story, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: creativity, distractions, emotions, follow your bliss, happiness, listen, obstacles, who we are, your passion, your true self

The Hidden Paths

February 27, 2015 By Terry Price 1 Comment

images“Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate

And though I oft have passed them by

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, part of Frodo’s walking song from Lord of the Rings

 

A few years after Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee return to the shire, Frodo makes up new words to an old song and sings it softly during a walk as he prepares for a new journey. Aside from the beautiful lyricism of the poetry and rhythm, it is the words that bring magic to this walking song.

This is a song of adventure and of faith. I use the term “faith” here in a spiritual sense rather than a religious. In this case, it is a return from a grand adventure of a lifetime that fosters Frodo’s faith and it is his faith that compels him to seek another adventure. Faith is a belief in the intangible, in things unseen but sometimes, things sensed or felt. It is a belief in something better, a working form of optimism.

What is adventure?

It’s not what happens to you. Rather, adventure is how you perceive the events of your life. For some, driving cross-country is a routine job to do as quickly and efficiently as possible. For others, a trip to the local grocer holds promise of the unknown. You define adventure. You determine whether you live a life filled with it. You.

A sense of adventure says there could be a new road or a secret gate around the next corner, a corner that you’ve come around most every day of your life. But this time…this time, maybe it’s different. And how does one believe in a hidden path, let alone find and take it?

This is the adventure of a creative soul. This is the life of the artist. We wake up believing. In what?

In everything. The creative believes in possibilities. The artists go to the medium with the faith that an adventure will take place, that on this page, one that looks just like all the rest, a new road might be found, a secret gate might be revealed. It is a faith that leads to the adventure.

The artist lives a life of faith and adventure because she knows anything less is not living. The artist develops and nurtures a creative practice to which she returns again and again, finding things that heretofore did not exist. Faith is knowing that one day she will take the hidden paths which shall be revealed only as the first step is taken and not before. Anything less and magic is removed from the adventure, faith is rendered unnecessary.

It is the same with a creative life.

It is the difference between waking up excited at possibilities and waking up dreading the routine.

This past week, we had a great deal of snow for the Nashville area. Crossing a parking lot I saw two pennies on a bare spot of concrete and picked one up, leaving the other. “Good luck!” I said to my friend as I held it up before pocketing it. “I’m not bending down for a penny and take a chance on messing up my back,” he replied. “You don’t believe that stuff, do you?”

It made me think. No, I don’t believe that the serendipitous discovery of a copper coin will affect my fate. But I’m glad that I keep looking for those things not because they bring me luck, rather they remind me to be present, to remember the good things I am blessed with. They are keys to a secret gate, not the gate itself. One/one-hundreth of a dollar will not get you anything anymore. But an object can become a talisman in the hands of an alchemist. It becomes a symbol of the magic constantly surrounding us so, in a way, it can actually bring us luck.

I left the other penny hoping another traveller finds it on another adventure. As for me, it’s time for another walk. I feel a song a comin’ on.

Filed Under: creative living, Creative Writing, Creativity, New Harmony, Obstacles, personal myth, personal story, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing, Writing Retreat Tagged With: art, creativity, expression, feelings, flow, follow your bliss, happiness, Joseph Campbell, Mediation, our essence, painting, photography, who we are, writing, your passion, your true self

A World of Gentle Possibility

December 29, 2014 By Dave Leave a Comment

A young boy dreams big dreams of what lies beyond by desertdutchman

“A young boy dreams big dreams of what lies beyond” by desertdutchman

Ideally, we want WEST OF THE MOON to be Your Path to a Creative Life. We want to help you live in your own world of possibility.

We want you help you Imagine, Discover, Create.

Not just a particular project you’re called to work on, but the life you’re called to live. We want you to find your own secret gate, to follow your own hidden paths, to live the life that is true to you. That is our intention.

Creative and all around kind heart, Erin Julian, recently posted the following quote on her Facebook page and it seemed very apt because, ultimately, we want you to “come into rhythm” with yourself.

In the Western tradition, we were taught many things about the nature of negativity and the nature of sin, but we were never told that one of the greatest sins is the unlived life.

It is a lonely experience to be at the deathbed of someone who is full of regret; to hear him say how he would love another year to do the things his heart had always dreamed of but believed he could never do until he retired. He had always postponed the dream of his heart.

We are so privileged to still have time. We have but one life, and it is a shame to limit it by fear and false barriers. The divine has such passionate creativity and instinct for the fully inhabited life. If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm.

The shape of each soul is different. There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavor to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mold, you betray your individuality.

We need to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul. We need to feel the dream with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery. When we rediscover our childlike nature, we enter into a world of gentle possibility. The false burdens fall away. We come into rhythm with ourselves.” – John O’Donohue

One of the most rewarding aspects of WOTM for us is creating an environment that allows creatives “to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul.”

Tranquil Fountain & Labyrinth

Tranquil Fountain & Labyrinth

New Harmony is an ideal setting for such solitude. Yet, we also encourage you to spend some time with others rekindling or building on your respective dreams “with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery.”

It’s the combination of community – the creative energy you share and the sparks you create in each other – as well as the tranquility and equanimity of the place itself that make West of the Moon so special for me and Terry.

Hopefully, that is what makes the experience special for you, and allows you to recognize that part of yourself that you may overlook from time to time, and, in doing so, allows you to “be the person that you are,” so that “everything will come into rhythm.”

As the year comes to a close, consider this time one of transition. One of beginning. One where you “enter into a world of gentle possibility.”


“A young boy dreams big dreams of what lies beyond” photo by desertdutchman courtesy of Creative Commons.

Filed Under: creative living, Creativity, Flow, New Harmony, Obstacles, Retreat, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing Retreat Tagged With: art, create, creativity, discover, dream, flow, follow your bliss, imagine, obstacles, our essence, possibility, solitude, who we are, wonder, your passion, your true self

West of the Moon Blog

"Listen With Heart" by Len Matthews

Listen With Your Heart

March 20, 2015 By Dave Leave a Comment

“The things which hurt, instruct.” - Benjamin Franklin As a boy, my one true love . . . was basketball. That’s right. Like Juliet to Romeo, basketball was the sun, only . . . okay, well, that may be stretching it a bit. But the idea of playing, the … [Read More...]

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