My Room with New Views

The new views,

The outer rooms are ushering me into rooms deep within.

They are both familiar and unknown.

They are unexpected yet anticipated simultaneously.

Navigating the soul’s journey,

Letting my soul inform my choices, my steps, my path liberates me –

Opening doors.   Closing doors.

Stretching me.

Revealing unexplored rooms that I now call home.

In the 6^th grade, I wrote a paper for a National History Day Contest titled:  Mr. President, How long must women wait for liberty?  The title came from a photo I had found of a suffragette holding a sign as she stood outside the White House gates risking life and limb for women to have the right to vote.  There was a kindredness I felt with this woman and all those souls on fire who joined in The Women’s Suffrage Movement longing to be liberated, wanting to be recognized by our government as equals to men.

The Suffragettes were in full force just 100 years ago.  It is impossible, try as we might, for those of us born into the freedoms their blood, sweat and tears brought forward to imagine how life was for them and all they endured to follow the call.  Born in 1968 during the height of the Women’s Liberation Movement, I have only known equality.  It has never even entered my mind to be concerned that I may be discriminated against due to my gender.  Even when I experienced my dad and other men who believed women were less than men, I simply never bought into this crap.  But I know what it feels like to want to be free!

What I know at this point in my life is liberation; freedom to live a life that honors and celebrates the truest expression of who I am in any given moment is an unfolding journey into awareness that this is my life, the most precious gift I have been given so I will spend it wisely.  Cages we find our Self in that threaten to suck the life force from our very being become cages of our own making when we hold our Self back, restricting new life and new views that long to come forward.   To allow our Self to enter outer and inner rooms, to follow our heart’s desires that lead to new views takes the same kind of courage it took for the Suffragettes to stand up for their lives.

This invitation isn’t about abandoning others and becoming reckless in our sense of responsibilities; it is about tuning in to our needs and feeding our Self with a life that fuels us with love, passion and joy each day even when life hands us our asses.  Those who share this journey with us will be liberated by the freedom we live in.  The vibration of freedom gives permission to others and reminds them that the cage door is always open if they want to fly out.

I continue to be filled with AWE that my life – ALL of it!  Even the periods of time when I was trapped by fear, shutting down guidance and repressing the longings that left me hungry and aching for more – has led me here to this room with new views to explore, sit with and savor.  The new views, the outer rooms are ushering me into rooms deep within. They are both familiar and unknown.  They are unexpected yet anticipated simultaneously.  Navigating the soul’s journey, letting my soul inform my choices, my steps, my path liberates me – Opening doors.  Closing doors.  Stretching me.  Revealing unexpected rooms that I now call home.

Liberation and freedom have been themes explored by philosophers, those who love and pursue wisdom, throughout the ages.  In 1908, E.M. Forster’s A Room With A View reminded us of the holiness found in the heart’s desires.  In 1929, Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own urged women to find rooms of their own.  Heraclitus, an ancient philosopher born 535 BCE wrote: You will never discover the limits of the soul however far you go…Truth is timeless and resonates within us awakening the Self more and more and more.