Nurturing our Flames
Bright flame and dark. These are powerful metaphors for our life. When they are fed, our lives are filled with warmth and many good things. When they're ignored, they gutter and stifle and leave us cold.
We feed these flames differently, for we are all different people. However, there are some similarities in what we do to nurture our flames.
The most important thing to remember is that the bright flame burns outward, and the dark flame inwards. We need the dark flame to give us the fuel to burn the bright flame without sacrificing ourselves. However, we also need to be certain that we do not focus exclusively on our inward selves, ignoring the rest of the world to sink into comfortable egotism.
When we want to nurture our dark flame, we must nurture ourselves. Some of this is simple self-care: exercise, eating well, the occasional treat because we like them. However, it also involves things like meditation, automatic writing, prayer, or simply being alone with our thoughts. We need time to think, time to understand ourselves, time to compare our actions against what we claim are our beliefs. It's of integral importance for us to take that time, to give ourselves a chance to pause in stillness and examine ourselves.
When we want to nurture our bright flame, we need to nurture others. This is the flame that expands to those around us, that is seen in our relationships and our work. We need this to get through our day, to keep good relations at our jobs, with our families, with the greater community. We do this by thinking of the other person and what they need and want. And we do this intelligently: there is no virtue in giving of oneself to someone that is using you to keep from growing themselves. But there is also no virtue in refusing to help because it offers nothing to us or we can't be bothered. We must give when we can, when it makes the world better.
We are all of the Divine, and we need to nurture our Divine Spark of flame. And we need to give each other space to nurture their own sparks as well.
Questions:
Which flame would you say you nurture more? how?
How would you nurture the other flame?
Do you think balancing these flames is important? How do you see them interrelating?
We feed these flames differently, for we are all different people. However, there are some similarities in what we do to nurture our flames.
The most important thing to remember is that the bright flame burns outward, and the dark flame inwards. We need the dark flame to give us the fuel to burn the bright flame without sacrificing ourselves. However, we also need to be certain that we do not focus exclusively on our inward selves, ignoring the rest of the world to sink into comfortable egotism.
When we want to nurture our dark flame, we must nurture ourselves. Some of this is simple self-care: exercise, eating well, the occasional treat because we like them. However, it also involves things like meditation, automatic writing, prayer, or simply being alone with our thoughts. We need time to think, time to understand ourselves, time to compare our actions against what we claim are our beliefs. It's of integral importance for us to take that time, to give ourselves a chance to pause in stillness and examine ourselves.
When we want to nurture our bright flame, we need to nurture others. This is the flame that expands to those around us, that is seen in our relationships and our work. We need this to get through our day, to keep good relations at our jobs, with our families, with the greater community. We do this by thinking of the other person and what they need and want. And we do this intelligently: there is no virtue in giving of oneself to someone that is using you to keep from growing themselves. But there is also no virtue in refusing to help because it offers nothing to us or we can't be bothered. We must give when we can, when it makes the world better.
We are all of the Divine, and we need to nurture our Divine Spark of flame. And we need to give each other space to nurture their own sparks as well.
Questions:
Which flame would you say you nurture more? how?
How would you nurture the other flame?
Do you think balancing these flames is important? How do you see them interrelating?
posted by Vieva @ 12:45 PM
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