A Note for the New Year (2008)
The Great Shake Up - The Bigger Picture
It seems that I and everyone I know are in the midst of dramatic transitions. The kind of challenging stuff that shakes you to the very bone and then dares you to look in the mirror and identify the person looking back. It's as if the universe is shaking each of us, individually and collectively, like trees in a storm, measuring the strength of our roots and branches against the railing winds. And, indeed, for Mother Earth herself this is a time of dramatic change, challenge, and redefinition.
Much of what's going down just seems like a major bummer, plain and simple. And it is so very difficult, when in the midst of personal turmoil, to step outside of oneself to see The Bigger Picture. But ultimately, the easiest way through crisis is to face it full on, opening ever to lessons looming so large they often seem elusive. Everything that happens to us on the physical plane is simply one expression, one manifestation of a spiritual event that is playing out on multi-dimensional levels. To look beyond our emotional responses allows us a glimpse of the bigger picture, and the lessons that are being learned on octaves higher than the voice of ego.
Change provides the opportunity to expand who we are. Change fosters growth and the two are inextricably intertwined in a symbiotic dance. Change is the thread in the fabric of the now, the only moment we can experience. When we resist change we are living in reaction to an intangible, unchangeable past. But when we release the need to control change and when we embrace uncertainty with trust in the Bigger Picture, then we allow a space for redefinition which affords possibility and potential. This space is called hope.
The coming year only promises more great shaking up. Hold on to your beautiful, multi-dimensional asses. Let us all commit, as best we can, to opening ourselves to our larger lessons on many levels so that we may better learn to trust the wisdom of our hearts, the necessity of our sometimes uncomfortable growth and the beauty of our jagged journeys. There is always hope. There is always a Bigger Picture.
Peace & Light,
Anne Harris
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A Note for the New Year (2007)
Cleaning House...
It's all about streamlining and working to clear ourselves physically, mentally, and psychically of that which is no longer of service to our highest good and potential. We live in a consumerist culture where the drive for acquisition is primarily what occupies our daily energies. The feeling that our needs are never quite met is inherent in the design. We carry so much along our way, driven by an insatiable appetite for some sense of accomplishment and stability in these unstable times. And there is always some new thing out there that promises to enhance us in some way and quell our feelings of inadequacy. But if we aren't mindful, we may find ourselves drowning in our stuff, and immobilized by our excess.
This is why I feel it is so important to regularly clean house, in all of the literal and figurative ways and meanings this act encompasses. By cleaning out that which no longer serves us, we make room for spiritual growth and expansion. If we regularly clear our minds, bodies and living spaces of clutter and baggage, we begin to see what works and is of use, and what might be holding us back.
Our apprehension of releasing things, from old ideologies and belief systems to clothes we haven't worn in years, stems from fear losing a sense of identity. All of our external anchors provide us the illusion of stability we so desperately seek. But in truth loosening our grip helps us to see more clearly our true selves. By shining a light in those areas previously hidden behind our stacks of stuff we see what remains. And one of the things we inevitably discover is that we already have everything we need; that we have enough and we are enough. We often find we have more than enough and in fact are abundantly wealthy. In stripping away complex philosophies we find simple and basic universal truths. In cleaning out clutter we find space for possibility. Just as vibrant gardens flourish with careful pruning, we, too, bloom when unburdened by the weight of dead branches.
In the last several years I have had a reoccuring dream in which I am in my house and I discover a whole big room or wing that I had forgotten about. I'm reexamining and exploring this whole "new" space, marveling at the possibilities and wondering how I could have forgotten about it. I always wake up excited because I have taken this dream to mean that I need only look with new eyes, in whatever places I feel a lack, to find the answers I seek and the resources I need.
Our true identity lies in who we are as dynamic beings with an elastic creative capacity to grow and adapt to ever new situations and states of being. The act of cleansing with consciousness - shedding and clearing - aids and supports that malleability and serves our highest growth potential.
In this New Year, may we begin to re-member our fragmented views of ourselves and know that we, by birthright, already possess all of the raw tools we need to advance to the next level of our development. May we clean our messy spaces to reveal more of who we truthfully are.
Peace & Light,
Anne Harris
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My Thoughts for the New Year (2006)
As I look back at 2005 and forward to the New Year, I am struck most by the theme of change that weaves its way through my consciousness. On a global level it seems that drastic change and transformation are sweeping abruptly through the lives of so many, from the great natural disasters striking the Gulf Coast, Indian Ocean, Pakistan, India, and beyond to the riots in France, to the many friends I know making and responding to radical changes in their personal lives. The transformative tides of change seem to be increasing in intensity and scope at an unprecedented rate.
The nature of life as we experience it is dictated, of course, by the law that nothing is immutable. Impermanence and change rule. All things are always in flux, in a constant state of transformation. And the inevitability of this fact serves to remind us that when we feel most desperate and powerless, life, by definition, will bring new possibilities. Concurrently, nothing is created without the falling away of some other thing.
I believe one of our greatest lessons is to learn how to navigate through these waters by literally going with the greater flow instead of fighting the currents upstream. And this work is the work of process, not of mastering achievement. When we stubbornly resist change out of fear, we end up in a state of paralysis that serves only to deepen these fears and feelings of helplessness. The work of being fully present in each moment, challenging or joyous, places us squarely in the path of learning with consciousness how to experience the opening of our hearts and the expansion of our gratitude and graciousness. We are in the flow. And by remaining present in the midst of our upheavals, we are graced with the certainty that by the dictates of natural law, we are making room for new possibilities and ways of being. We are making room for hope.
My hope in the year ahead is that I might move forward each day with a little less fear and a little more certainty that amidst all the surrounding uncertainty and chaos, I might remain open in the flow of change and find new ways of befriending upheaval that allow me to be positively transformative. I hope my art will reflect this intention. And may all of us on our transformative journeys find comfort, camaraderie, and community in our shared hopes and unspoken dreams.
Peace & Light,
Anne Harris