What's my purpose?
03/03/2010

Our thought for this, Day Two, of our 27 Days of Transformative Change is "What is your purpose in making this commitment?"  More to the point: as this is my SECOND 27-day "transformative change" practice period, why did I sign up again?  Did I not transform enough the first time? How much more can I change?  Am I just a self-improvement junkie with such deep self-loathing that I have to be working on myself to feel okay? 

Actually, I don't think so.  I want to be aware.  I want to live a life that is on purpose.  A formal change practice gives me a supported opportunity for examining my life in six areas (relationship to self, others, earth; to practice, wisdom, and service) and seeing if, through observation, I can become more conscious of my choices and my results.

Several years ago my husband and I were in a car accident that could have been fatal.  We went off the highway at 50 miles per hour, rolled, and slid upside down on our lumber rack for several hundred feet, plowing up fence posts and barbed wire, until we came to rest a few feet from an irrigation canal.  Hanging upside down from our seatbelts like bats, we knew we were lucky to be alive.

For weeks afterward I was in shock.  Throughout the slow-motion sequence of the accident I'd had time to realize that I was living my life half-asleep.  Too many moments had gone by unappreciated.  I would have been tremendously disappointed in myself if I had died; I hadn't fully lived. 

To be fully alive would mean I was in love and in awe every single minute.  I would realize the preciousness of everyone around me.  I would appreciate the beauty--and the irretrievable uniqueness of every single moment.

Living at this level of awareness moment by moment is rare, yet it is a state worth striving for.  Whatever moments I am able to live at that level of presence will be a benefit.  Committing to a formal practice period is about waking myself up toward that end.

It is also about accountability.  It gives me a community--even if it's just one other person--who knows what my intentions are and inquires regularly about my progress.  In the days that are left to this lifetime, will I fulfill my purpose in being here?  It's fine to eat, drink, and be merry--but after I take care of business.  The business of waking up.  The business of being a place where divine inspiration, healing, love, and creativity can flow through.

And so it is.