I don't know how you hear those words. Maybe they sound like an order to you, or maybe they sound like a dare. To me, they sound gentle. They are permission: a paid ticket, an arm extended to the horizon, a soft nudge and whisper, an open door.
Where I used to live, I had to drive up a steep hill to go home. As my car ascended, the incline hid the neighborhood beneath so that I felt that I was driving right into the sky. Only at the last minute did the road appear under my tires, reassuringly solid, while the houses flashed into view as if I had crossed into another world entirely.
"Do all that is in your heart." Those words fill me with that same thrill of possibility, that same sense that a door is opening within me and inviting me inside. I need that kind of encouragement on days when I am too busy to create, on days when the full kitchen sink or the paid work waiting on my desk demand that I give them everything I have. Obligation is a bold and heartless thief.
When I invoke this phrase, "Do all that is in your heart," it acts as a kind of force-field against the obligation that harries me. It reminds me that I have permission to create. The doors are open to me. I can pass through them into whatever horizon appears to receive me.
Read my debut space adventure novel for kids: Dawn Hyperdrive and the Galactic Handbag of Death! You can buy a copy at Amazon or Smashwords, and you can try the first chapter free at my website.
No comments:
Post a Comment