passion reminders

a friend called the other day.
she was in a funk and was wondering 'where she fit.'
ahhhh......a topic i was well familiar with.

i suggested the funk might be a good thing.
that maybe her passion was tuggin' on her and wanted her to
pay attention.

and we talked about passion.

another friend, many years ago, gave me the best description of our
passion that i've ever heard.

he said 'if god came and tapped you on the shoulder and said
'if you don't stop doing this, i'm going to take everything away from you' -
passion is the thing you just couldn't stop doing.'

isn't that wonderful???
that seems so helpful to me.

what's the thing you couldn't stop doing?

it might not be something really tangible like painting.
it might be more abstract like 'searching' or 'expressing'...

i had forgotten about the conversation until i saw this morning's
quote of the day from bone sighs.

'it is not enough to find your passion...
you must dive straight into the fire of your fear -
where you can grab it and hold it
until it transforms you.'

i have been getting a kick out of the quotes showing up lately.
due to some technical thing no one needs to hear about, the
early bone sighs.......the ones right from the beginning......haven't
shown up until recently. so all the first bone sighs are now popping up.
and my gosh, they're bringing back memories.

i know exactly where this bone sigh was written and when.
i remember it clearly.
it was when i totally committed to bone sigh arts.
it's a great story for another blog.

but when i read it today, i looked at it from eyes that are at least ten
years past that bone sigh. and i stopped and i asked myself.......
are you doin' it, ter? are you letting that diving transform you?

it certainly has quite a bit.
but it shouldn't stop.
the diving and the transforming shouldn't stop.

the funks will keep coming.
we don't just conquer them and then they go away.
different ones will surface.
but i think that's a good thing.
i think those are reminders and nudges.

have we found our passion?
are we still following it?
are we still diving into our fear?
are we remembering it's the transformation we're after
and not the settling in?

good stuff for me to keep in mind this morning........