My relationship with the appearance of words or phrases in my mind has evolved in recent years.
Long have I considered the arising of ideas as coming from an intuitive voice that can guide us, but always have I considered the content of those ideas to be sourced from what we already know on some level.
For example, I might intuit a solution in physics that a friend may not because I am versed in the language of physics and mathematics having spent many years studying it.
This is best evidenced by the fact that I don’t get spontaneous ideas in Farsi or Swahili as neither of these languages resides in the deep well of my knowledge.
While I remain in faith that the content of inspired thoughts comes from our existent personal knowledge base, what appears to me to now be more so the case, is that the knowledge we hold is merely the language with which spirit speaks to us.
In the same way that a child might take apart a Lego house, built just as the instructions had ordained, and with its pieces build an imagined dragon or airplane, what has changed in recent years is that I have come to experience Something Greater Than Me (SGTM) speaks to me with the Lego pieces held in the box of my knowledge.
This Great Other speaks to me in metaphor and using the languages I know, that being mostly English, of both the American flavor and British flavour, and a spattering of German from time to time.
It speaks with an interest in both grandiose possibilities and mundane details. It is a kind of navigator, riding shotgun in my psyche, happy to tell me which way to turn and equally willing to be ignored for the entire drive.
It doesn’t fight to show me the way, but it is always there smiling and ready to share. The key is in me, my willingness to ask and listen.
I have long trusted in intuition as a guiding force in my life, but until recently, it was my intuition.
The evolution of my relationship with intuition from one with self to one with an other, be it a fantasy or faith, has had an irrevocable effect on my sense of being alive.
When present with the SGTM, no longer is there a sense of being alone in the face of trouble or challenge. No longer is there a need for hesitancy, or deliberation before action. When the direction is given, there need be only the movement to follow it.
What I have found, too, is that this othering of insight and inspired thought does what intuition has always done but with even more profound glory and grace. The ends from such means are bigger, more beautiful, and fill one with the same kind of awe as does the sun rising from the sea on a dark and cool morning with one’s feet in the sand on an Eastern coast.
To be in awe of those things that result from my thinking and speaking is a gift that reminds me of my relationship with the Great Other, the hidden creative intelligence that makes dragons and airplanes from the billions of pieces we have collected throughout our lives.
As a great possibility, we are all divinely guided. Not just toward our most meaningful destiny, but also when it is time to retire the tube of toothpaste and open another.
The secret, again, is found simply in our asking and listening.
Loving us all, JPM
