To figure out what am I not doing right, I’ve asked the wise ones for guidance – I’m not talking of business experts here. Each time I’ve asked, one and the same message keeps coming at me: forget about making money! A week ago a man, looking into my energy field, said it again with such clarity, I was awakened to face what it means for real. This is what I realized – it means letting go of assuming control over where I am headed, it means radical surrender to the unknown aka the higher intelligence, it means allowing spirit to be the priority over all else. Simply put it is a reminder that monetary exchange is just a side product of the real thing, which is devoting myself to what is truly calling for me.
Truth is – I resented trying to put what I do into a business perspective. I'd much rather just make art and let the rest take care of itself! If it only worked that way! Alas! The belief that things work out by themselves seems no more than just wishful thinking. Of cause I prefer to believe that if I follow my true calling, universe will conspire to support me. But my first 5 years of artist life, I did just that and ended up having very little to support myself from. So making an effort to allow the money to come in seemed the right thing to do.
But the message has been clear – forget about making money! So I got deep into my fear of “what if things will not work out for me”. In that moment of inquiry another message came. It came through the lips of a friend who had just returned from a spiritual journey. The message said: let go of expectations – all is possible, if I ask for it, as long as I have no attachment to the outcome.
It spoke straight to my fear. It showed me that if I wish for any positive outcome, first I have to really embrace my fear – embrace the terrifying prospect of it not working out. I have to come to peace with the idea that the journey I have been on, since I decided to quit my academic aspirations, might not lead to anywhere at all. Unless I appreciate every step of the way and accept even the worst outcome I can imagine – complete failure – nothing better can come.
I just want to stop for a moment on the theme of failure – I never considered success or failure to be something measured by income. To me success is living a life that is aligned with my truth, a life that may inspire others to seek alignment with their deeper truth. I believe that deeper truth speaks the language of the higher intelligence. So If I feel called to paint, success is just that – to keep painting; if I feel called to be a hermit, it’s being a hermit; and if I feel that a rice field view would fuel my inspiration, success is to have a studio with such view.
I cannot afford the view right now. But when I started off, I used to enjoy painting surrounded by the concrete walls – it was perfectly fine as long as I got to paint. So I’ve been feeling into letting go of my expectations, surrendering to the unknown, feeling into placing my trust in the higher intelligence, struggling with accepting the prospect of failure, feeling the failure in my guts, questioning whether such thing as higher intelligence even exists or is it a make-belief to comfort those who would not conform. As I’ve been processing this, I received another message through an article that caught my eye:
"Often these experiences can seem like indicators that we have failed in some way. To this there are more heavy layers added which may be comparing our own path to other people or having others worry or show deep concern or indicate that what you are doing is wrong.
These are rites of passage and they are sending us messages on a much deeper level. They are telling us that we need to bring change and or a deeper shift in attitude to some area of our life.”
Odette Nightsky, https://contemporaryshaman.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/1010/
Reading this I realized I had become so concerned with how will I survive as an artist, that I forgot why I chose to be one in the first place. I’ve had an inner need to express myself in creative ways since I was a child. My spirit craves for creative expression; my soul rests in the process, I feel in alignment with myself and the greater whole when creating. While when I think of how this will make me money – my spirit withers and I am left feeling alienated…
I recognize that the shift I need to make is stepping out of the space where I feel alienated and coming into the space where I feel aligned. It calls for me to re-examine what is my deeper truth, to reconnect with the voice of my spirit and let it be my guide and my guardian. And from this space of alignment I might even think - in a playful manner - of how this could serve me in material world.
And then came the wild boar – it came into my dream running at me with such fierceness that there was no escape. But I didn’t scare away. As I read that wild boar medicine stands for courage to face the unknown, confront my fears and have the wisdom to overcome them, I felt it was the spirit’s way of saying I am on the right track.
It was necessary that I worked on unblocking pathways for monetary exchange over the last year. But it’s essential not to get stuck in expecting this to bring about the change in my monetary affairs. And above all it’s important to stay aligned with my deeper truth, my spirit, my inspiration and have that as the baseline for the rest. And not to forget – it can only be an intention, not an expectation :)
One may still say that I am being irrational. That is alright with me. I never felt any attraction towards rationality. My attraction sticks to inspiration. Also I am an Aries, so I can always blame the stars for my hardheadedness :) :) :)
Wishing you all expansion into whatever is your next stage of development!
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