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you'll never make money throwing teapots.
[barbara]
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[barbara]
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Someone may have told you there is nothing in particular you need to be doing. Don't believe it. There is much that you need to be doing. So much that it is devastating to spend any time at all not doing it.
If you
don’t like where you’re at, if you don’t feel yourself changing and growing,
take notice. People might say you ask too much, but they also probably watch lots of reality television. Don't listen to them. Listen to other things, the way you feel underneath your skin, that low song you hear late at night.
Make your life into the kind of
animal you want to bring to the altar, muscle shifting under skin and sweat and swirled hair, braying that song full-throated. It needs to be the
kind of animal that twelve in their prime wrestled to the ground, the kind of animal that made you hurt first.
There are people who will say it doesn’t matter what this animal looks like because you’re just
going to give it over to the fire, but don’t be fooled. Its blood needs to run
as red and hot as the core of the sun. And when you feel the heat rise up to your face and the straining falls away and the stain spreads under you both, invite everyone within shouting distance.
Here's my practical advice, what I try to tell myself when I'm massaging my temples in traffic or avoiding eye contact with the homeless woman across the street: Don't forget. Don't get bored, get scared, stop trying. Don't let other people tell you what you're worth or what you should do. Listen, spent a lot of time praying and thinking and walking alone and talking to good strong people. Collect maps and write down the important things. Cut pictures out of magazines and strike up conversations with interesting strangers and spend time working and saving and planning, if you need to. Then go.
Go do things that feel real and good and important. Even if you never have, or haven't for a long time, or don't think you know how. Find out what you can do, what you were good at all along. Don't forget. The feast is only as good as the sacrifice you raised.
Go do things that feel real and good and important. Even if you never have, or haven't for a long time, or don't think you know how. Find out what you can do, what you were good at all along. Don't forget. The feast is only as good as the sacrifice you raised.