It's an important word to explore.
What does it look like to you?
Because we certainly live in a time and a place when there are very definitive ideas of what makes a person successful. And our sensitive bodies are bombarded by these notions every moment as they are splashed across all forms of our media and entertainment. However, most of us are merely watching the news from outside of it - we are not the news makers. So, how do we define this crucial need (to feel important and a sense of achievement) in our everyday lives?
Traditionally speaking, working to pay the bills and providing for one's family was a demonstrable way of feeling successful. Yet, the nuclear family is a 20th-century relic as we no longer live such conforming, regular lives. Today's post-modern family comes in as many hues as a Crayola box - two moms; two dads; single mothers & fathers; pods of polyamorous lovers; and tons of shades of divorce! I can only imagine how hard it must be to feel successful when one's family has been split in half and while raising one's children part-time. So, how do we re-define this word for ourselves, in every moment?
As a graduate student, I intellectually understood that my 'success' was not dependent upon the amount of work I produced - unlike Warhol's' mid-2oth century "Factory" led us to believe. However, tell that to my body ~ peeling away the layer that is sewn up with the comparison to everything else around it takes time. So, as this procrastinator struggled through a self-motivated master's program, I kept asking myself the question: "what does success mean to me?"
Over the last few weeks, I have had two very direct experiences that embody answers to this question. While serving as a one-day mentor at this year's culminating Spirit of Leadership Conference, I sat with a group of ten teenage girls. Together, we spent the day coloring, writing, talking, eating, sharing and enjoying. We were celebrating each others' leadership. One of the last activities we did involved a small, blown-up beach ball. We were instructed to write our personal dreams on our ball with a black marker. E, the 17-year-old sitting beside me, began by writing "COMPASSION" on our ball. Our collective dream, in that moment, was to harness compassion, to be compassionate. WOW~! The other small hands then went on to write, "Happy," "Healthy" and more, before we elevated our dreams into the atmosphere above our heads, and sent them flying back and forth to each other.
On 11/11/12, H.S. came over to spend the night at Las Raices. We sat together in the front room, on a chilly Sunday night, chatting. "I wanted to be here with you tonight," she said, "because one year ago today - on 11/11/11 at the Soular Flare in the Prosperity Hive - I first met you." I leaned forward, into her and gave her a great, big hug. "WOW! Thank you!" We then spoke about the deep healing that we had both just experienced as I told her about how my poles had shifted during that Saturday night's Ayahuasca ceremony.
My sisters and I have been emotionally preparing to leave Las Raices by year's end and I have been going through and purging items that are no longer necessary. The rain of the past few weeks has helped, too - soaking old things that were merely in boxes tucked under the outdoor balcony. We've got our sights set on a half-acre property that is only a few blocks away. M. is chomping at the bit to get her hands on that land. And, in our new partnership, I am offered another opportunity for self-growth and expansion - for sinking deeper into my medicine woman ways, and into caring for the land as well as actively growing food and expanding our chicken brood. I marvel at how it has only taken two years to womanifest the urban eco-village that I've been dreaming of and I am not in fear of perpetuating the mistakes of my past. With each step, a new breath. With every relationship, new opportunity. Take it and run. Let life play out its hand. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
