To be playful is to exercise the heart and the mind. Innocence, beauty and youthfulness each encompass a spirit of light and playfulness, yet physically fade. Beauty has an essence of purity and freedom. It is maintained by engaging in play – using the imagination to create fantasies to inspire ourselves and each other. Fantasy creates progress and leads to the betterment of the individual and society at large.
In our minds and hearts we can practice being free – free from associations (stereotype or group think), from self-judgement and from our perception of how things “should” be… We should be mindful not to indulge too heavily in fantasy just as we should not commit too rigidly to the status quo. Warm hearts and free minds are able to flow between fantasy and reality, without compromising either. If we can balance here for a while, pathways clear for beauty to enter, radiant and light. Beauty is not a thing one possesses, its light seeps in once you have made space to receive it. The free spirit is capable of transmitting beauty for they are in rhythm with the forces of all creation.
Fantasy can be a way of protecting or even nurturing a budding flower so it can bloom more fully and for longer when its time comes. It is the story we tell ourselves of potential - love, admiration, meaning or purpose, etc. - and a manifestation of the resilience of faith, hope and our longing for purity and peace. It keeps our pathways open to what could be made real, like a butterfly we release and watch float about, while soldiering on in the gritty world we are in.
The best kind of fantasy is intentional. It serves a purpose in the Real. It might exist in another plane but it guides our reality as opposed to detracting from it. This produces a kind of “flow state” where “coincidences” occur and things appear to align perfectly – as if fated or guided by a something soaring overhead – a wise owl for instance.
We engage in fantasy every day - when we daydream or turn on the television. It is as much an expression of the creative mind as it is an escape from reality. It is equally unjust to give up on reality by not even bothering to dream, as it is to indulge in fantasy to the point of neglecting what is real before you.
As we lose our innocence, perceived beauty and youthfulness, we may find that there are voids within us that we did not notice were there. These are hollow spaces where questions echo as if in a damp cave. We fill these voids with whatever we feel we are missing, what we hope or long for. We can get carried away with this feeling, intoxicated by the idea of possibility, letting our imagination run wild, trading the present moment for what we imagine might satisfy our souls. We enter a plane that overlaps the Real like a veil over a reality deemed too painful to occupy sober.
It takes courage to bring a thing from fantasy to reality, subjecting it to the harrowing journey through the stratosphere and crashing it into the earth. To remain a fantasy, it would maintain its authenticity and never lose its luster, but the loop of creation would be incomplete. The potential for this idea or concept to survive its journey into the Real, fully intact and without sacrifice, is not only worth the risk, it is necessary to pursue. This is the course of living things. For even if it falls short of the fantasy, in physical form it is capable of moving a room full of people and can connect us in new ways. The journey brings us closer to the divine, and ever closer to transmitting its beauty in this world.
We can be born anew at any time. Beauty can find us again. It doesn’t come from our minds or our hands. It comes from meeting halfway. You have to clear the brush so you can walk and so there is a place to walk to. Don’t get distracted by useless fantasies – lost in a Netflix binge. Make sure what you invest in is serving you – it should complement your being, never compromise it.
Once you complete the loop once, it will become easier and you’ll flow.
Free yourself from judgement. Accept the present moment as it is. Just act. Do. Create. Feel. Express. Be free!
Gratitudes
My Grandma who is my guide. Knowing her light, I can live more peacefully. From her prayer card:
Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor… Let know one ever come to you without leaving better or happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.
Mother Teresa