Petal 9
Transcendence
The Art of Rising Up
Opening to something larger than yourself widens the boundaries of your individual life, revealing how your own particular way of being, loving, and creating can become part of a story much larger than you.
Start here if you've had moments when your life felt bigger than your life, and you want more room for them.
Dear Creator,
Have you ever had one of those moments when your life suddenly felt bigger than your life? Maybe you were standing somewhere beautiful and, for just a second, the usual noise in your head went quiet. Maybe you were holding someone you love. Making something. Listening to music.
Nothing particularly dramatic happened. You were still you. The dishes were probably still in the sink. Your inbox remained deeply committed to being your inbox. And yet, for a moment, you felt connected to something you couldn't quite explain. I love those moments.
I used to think transcendence sounded like leaving. Rising above the ordinary human stuff into some higher, wiser, more enlightened place where presumably no one gets annoyed with their husband or forgets why they walked into a room. But I don't experience it that way anymore.
I don't think Transcendence asks us to rise above our lives at all. I think it invites us to rise within them. To become so present to this life, this body, this moment, this particular self, that we begin to notice the larger life we're already participating in.
I don't disappear into something larger. I become more myself within it.
Creatively yours,
Ansley
Inside this Petal
Through the Doorway of the Heart · Living the Holy Now · Force vs. Flow · Open Systems · One Spark, One Step · Becoming a Window · Rising Into Symbolic Life