As I set out on my 5K this morning, I felt like celebrating. I felt hopeful. Yes, the exertion was intense in the August heat and humidity, but with this run, I would reach my goal for the month. And I still have a week to go in the month. I was ahead of schedule. Also, I solved a few professional problems this week. Many unresolved things are slowly having answers as I wait patiently, and sometimes, as I fiercely chase those resolutions down. It has been a delicate curation of holding things, allowing things and fighting for things. That’s why today’s color absolutely felt red. When I think of red, I think of fire, ferocity, love and passion. Red has been driving me lately.
One of my mantras recently came from a Zombie apocalypse movie. I know; laugh if you must, it’s an entertaining thrill ride with some good truths in the mix! In World War Z, Brad Pitt’s character is trying to help a family to safety and he tells them, “movement is life”. He’s saying, if you want to live, we have to move. We can’t stay here. I can resonate with that as a 4 on the Enneagram. We (not just 4’s - anyone) can tend to get stuck and feel little motivation to make movement of any kind. I know this about myself, and know that if I can pick up the gifts of the 1, I can move toward principled action, and begin to thaw from my freeze. Blend that feeling of freeze with a few setbacks, and it makes for the perfect storm. When I remember that movement is life, I can do something to move. That day I wrote about needing a win? (See previous blog). That was where I was. Just a small movement kept me from going into some dark vortex. Just a small one. And that small one led to another small one, and then, I began to feel fire again. The passionate red. That red leads me to celebration and hope.
As I was thinking about those things on my run, I looked up to see a stop sign. Hmm. Another meaning behind that vibrant, warm color; warning. When do we stop? When do we move? Those questions rising with each stride, are the most difficult ones. In the work that I do, I teach people how to rest, how to care for themselves, how to listen to themselves. Most of us are exhausted because we don’t know the kind of red that says stop. We’re told that we should be able to do it all, and if we can’t, we’re lacking in some way. What an outright lie. Part of the passion of red is rest because you respect and care for yourself enough to extend good gifts to the person you are, your essence.
I was talking with my daughter this week about the word “sin”. Ugh. This word has so much religious baggage and connotation with it. She said that sin is anytime you break away with being human. What a wise thought. When you betray yourself, you are moving further away from what it means to be human, what it means to be fully yourself, or your actualized, essential self, as you were/are meant to be; where your self intersects with the Divine in you.
So red, in a sense, is a curation of discernment. When do you stay still? When do you sit? When do you move? How do you rest? How do you move forward? The only way to get at the answers to those questions is to get at yourself. The only way to get to the bottom of yourself is to inquire of the Divine. Be the curator of your own movements toward your self and the Divine and you’ll know what that looks like, the different hues of red in your movements and your dormant spaces. The answers are within. You can find your own rhythm of rest and movement, silence, solitude, community, work, fallow, ordinary time. You have what you need to order these rhythms within. Listen closely.