Art in the Afternoon Sky
There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain. Tara Westover
Muse woke me before dawn this morning with this gentle nudging: Sometimes one must get in a box to know just how that box doesn’t fit. For only when one knows the details of how something doesn’t fit can one begin to design and create what does.
Hmmm … I knew almost instantly what Muse was referring to: a box of the legal/medical system I’ve recently experienced.
I’m in the process of attending to some life decisions that I need make, updating wishes and instructions for when my time in this vehicle is complete. For a while I’ve been ‘trying on’ (actually, trying to make fit) the language presented as choices by the legal and medical systems (no, I’m not about to hop on my soapbox about that, so stay with me).
None of their choices felt ‘just right’, so I chose the ones that seemed to fit the best, settling for less than the perfect fit I desired. I did so because I wanted to be done AND because I didn’t see any other possibilities. I was in the system’s box, compromising my sovereignty and my wishes to fit so that I could check the ‘completed’ box on my ‘to do’ list.
Somehow it didn’t occur to my inner rebel to look outside that box for other possibilities.
That prompting came in a conversation with a trusted friend and advisor who with deep conviction challenged me to, “write your own words!”. Gulp. Say what? I can do that?
I was at once embarrassed (Why didn’t I think of that? How could I allow myself to get so trapped in the system’s box?). And I was relieved. With her words, the possibility of ‘having my cake and eating it too’ opened.
I could execute the ‘close but not a perfect fit’ documents as written, thus relieving the pressure that what I had in place didn’t reflect my wishes at all.
And I could declare that executing these documents doesn’t close the door to creating that ‘just right’ fit. I can take time to explore, co-create, and discover how to implement language that’s ‘just right’: language that fits my understanding and beliefs about life and (so-called) end of life, as well as my desires for comfort as I exit this physical body. Then I can work with my attorney to add whatever legalese is necessary.
In choosing to live more fully into my sovereignty, I feel the fresh air of empowerment and freedom. This is how life is intended to be but doing so is not easy in a world that prefers we choose from its boxes, boxes designed not to honor our free will and sovereignty as universal beings, but to control. I’m excited to explore and discover in what other life domains I may have boxed myself in, not remembering that I am the co-creator of this life.
Muse gives a nod and posits a query about the collective: Is it any wonder that there is such anger and angst in your world? No matter how conscious one is, this conflict is ever present in all. It seems that the more conscious we are of the conflicts and constraints imposed by our systems the more at choice and sovereign we can be. Perhaps as we raise our awareness, we’ll be better able to build sustainable, sovereign community systems. And that, suggests Muse is a story for another day.
Cheerful Morning