Two interesting point names: "Utmost source" and "Spirit path."
Not even knowing precisely what they do, acupuncture-arily, they sound like what I've been looking for... because I've been feeling like I've been without them. Both of them.
I told my doctor that I feel like I've got no passion for anything, any more. I played him a recording of a recent composition, which just premiered last Sunday: an Ave Maria for mezzo, organ, and handbells. "What do you mean, no passion?" he said. "That had plenty of passion!"
Accepting him as being correct... it's not the passion that I've been used to, in the compositional process. My process in creating that was much quieter, much less "pedal to the metal" than my engagement of the work has usually been. And, I'm realizing as I type, the hugeness is different. I've always worked with things that were massive--not in size, but in power, in scope, in significance. And yet, this has hugeness, the hugeness I've always sought; but hugeness expressed quietly.
The pool of water at your feet can contain the whole moon.
But now (thanks to the MS) everything's different. I'm different. Maybe trying to work "the old way" isn't "the right way," and if that's so, it's no wonder I've been frustrating myself, trying to put new wine in old bottles, as the Good Book says.
When Seth Godin and the Bible say the same thing, best one should listen.
A significant question I'm often asked is how well I have accepted MS.
But maybe what is called for right now, is... to embrace the MS.
But, as my doctor reminds me, MS isn't a separate entity. There is no "the MS." There's nothing but me, anywhere in the picture.
So, maybe what is called for right now, is for me to embrace me. To not apply old approaches to new problems; and perhaps, first and foremost, not to call things "problems." But simply to ... embrace.
And maybe that is the first step on the Spirit Path to the Utmost Source.
1 comment:
Your blog is titled "The Gifts of MS." If that is your point of departure, you have already started down the road to "embrace." But it's a road with many pitted sections and unwelcomed contours. The challenge is to believe the are gifts there, too, right? I am a work in progress on this, redefining what I believe moment by moment. I will share something which has had an enormous impact on me recently. A dear friend, whom I have known since we were in our 20s called me. She, who had had the life I had envisioned for myself, with ample professional and personal success, was suddenly calling on me to glean from me what wisdom I had acquired while living with a chronic degenerative disease. It turns out that this uber healthy and accomplished woman has just been diagnosed with Parkinson's. And ... I did have wisdom to share. Does this make coming down with MS more palatable? No, but it encourages me to think it is not a complete wasteland. I do have gifts to share. And that is a good thing.
Judy
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