Authentically You

The Authentic Life

“The most authentic thing about us is our ability to create, to overcome, to endure, to perform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

                                                 Ben Okri

When I was a little girl, I spent many hours alone in the woods around our house. I would take one of Mother's canning jars outside with me and put a couple of inches of garden dirt into it. Then I'd go into the woods and find small plants, acorn caps, bird feathers, lacy lichen, moss, and anything else that caught my eye, to put into the jar to create a little greenhouse, or terrarium. I'd punch holes in the lid for airflow, water it occasionally, and watch it grow. When my son, Jake, was little, three or four, he loved to pull his red wagon around the neighborhood and collect things in small plastic plant pots. He would spend hours collecting to fill each pot with something different. When he finished, the wagon was a canvas of colors and textures. We are born to create, and the things we create out of our own interest and curiosity are authentic expressions of soul.

When you are wrestling with a dilemma, or trying to make a difficult decision, or agonizing over a worry, try doodling, or drawing. Don't make it a production—then you get into perfectionism; trying too hard to make it come out a certain way. Just take a piece of paper and a pen or a box of colored pencils and begin in the center. As you work, your mind will clear and become quiet, and decisions will make themselves available to you. It is the opposite of anxious churning of thoughts.

Many a self-discovery has been made while involved in the creative process. Whether it's writing in a journal, or drawing, or preparing a meal, or sanding a piece of wood, we free our mind to live in the world of images and impressions. We find an authentic self whose expression sometimes comes as a surpise even to us. In the words of Sarah Ban Breathnach, “The authentic self is the soul made visible...The authentic life is the most personal form of worship.” Each time you create an authentic expression of soul, you build a strong infrastructure, a gounding beneath you and within you that will allow you to endure and to overcome anything life has to offer.

                                                   In the Spirit,

                                                       Jane