Brave magic

No one knows it better than children that darkness can be beautiful and exciting. That shadows can have their charm. That solitude can bring up our creative spirits and make them hear voices that naturally disappear during our daily ramble of routines. No one knows it better than children that the unknown is always a promise of discovery, that the scary can easily be turned into the unusual or the magical.

Sometimes we need a bit of help to tread into the unknown and to become childen whose curiosity is stronger than fear, we need to be helped with going through the darkness of self-discovery. During our darkest moments we rarely resemble children who are interested in observing or making the magic happen. During our darkest moments we are utterly confused, stuck in the difficulty. And this is when we reach for somebody or something and this is usually the time when many of us start to pray again – or to pray for the very first time ever. The prayer works, mostly when we understand that

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” Soren Kierkegaard

It’s when we start to smile at darkness that the magic begins. It’s when we take the responsibility for making the magic happen, that it does.

Transition

Too many eggs and too many baskets*

A while ago I wrote a post in which I was openly confessing my love of reading. I was saying how important it is for me to study and how important it is for me to engage with other people’s ideas. That day I was fortunate to receive a comment from Faye in which she wrote:

“Don’t let ONE aspect of who you are SWAMP other things.”

I read the comment and it was as if I was struck by thunder. I started having a serious dialogue with myself.Maybe Faye was right? Maybe studying was overcrowding other things? Maybe my research was encroaching on our family life and invading our family space a bit too much.

My books, my papers, my notes were everywhere and they were pulling my and my son’s attention pretty much constantly. You can imagine what that meant – lots of frustration and unnecessary conflict, lots of stress and mental burden. I realised then that I needed a solution.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I was seriously considering quitting my work and my research, but that felt terribly wrong to me. I know what happens to people when they quit realizing their dream prematurely, they are scarred for life – I didn’t want that scar. Plus, on the very positive side, I thought to myself, well… I do love myself. I do love what I am doing. Why deny myself the joy that comes with it?

So I was troubled. I love my home, my family but I also love what I am doing and those very dear and very enriching aspects of my life were calling for separation. Calling for boundaries.

I was tossing and turning. I was unable to sleep through the night and then all of a sudden I had a light bulb moment – I just need an office. I immediately went online, yes, at five o’clock in the morning and right there and then I found a perfect place for myself. In a recently renovated old red brick factory I am now doing my research into multilingualism and I am teaching different languages, both in Polish and English. Maybe one day I will also teach some basic Spanish grammar and re-engage with that beautiful language that I studied at University. Once you start studying a foreign language, it really becomes part of you and not being able to speak it for a while is like not being able to access a part of yourself. It’s almost as if language imprints itself into your DNA and becomes part of your life story. It’s quite an amazing process.

Yesterday three years passed since I signed up with WordPress for the first time. The world of blogging gave me friends for life. Thank you WordPress. Thank you readers for taking the time to visit and comment.

Enjoy the Autumn!
xxx

Alicja

*Taken at Biskupin – An Open Air Museum, Poland

Today

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~ Albert Einstein

Change the pattern

“Notice everything. Appreciate everything, including the ordinary. That’s how to click in with joyfulness or cheerfulness. Curiosity encourages cheering up. So does simply remembering to do something different. … You can … just go to the window and look at the sky. You can splash cold water on your face, you can sing in the shower, you can go jogging – anything that’s against your usual pattern. That’s how things start to lighten up.” ~Pema Chödrön