The Hearts of All

"Everything you can imagine is real."
  Pablo Picasso

 

If we could maintain the imagination of childhood.  If we could sustain the connection we feel to the earth and all growing things as children.  If we could continue to see though the seemingly limitations of the physical.  How different would our world be?

As we groom ourselves for adulthood, we shed some of the most imaginative aspects of our personality.  We pack away authentic gifts and frequently hide our talents.  As adults, we are bombarded with distractions from competitive endeavors to reach success.  And yet, the success we reach is often hollow and unfulfilled.  It simply does not nourish our soul.

Life gets interrupted by illness, death of someone close, losing a job or relationship.  Although this time of difficulty can be heart breaking, it can also be an opportunity to clean our slate and start anew.  The message is finally heard and we are called to create a more meaningful life.

When we get older and our careers have peaked and our children moved on, we find space once again, a stillness where we can hear our selves think.  The opportunity allows us to retrieve all that had been packed away when we entered 'life' as we then saw it.  We dig deep and find our love for dancing, music, writing, painting or just being out in nature.  There are those allowing their imagination to once again fly and initiate charities or some means of helping those who need it most, but won't ask. 

The possibilities for creating are endless and the earlier we allow our true natures to breathe again, the sooner we can begin our missions whether big or small.  I think of the African American man I met years ago, working for National Geographic, visiting this country by foot.  He was walking through the states to get a true feel of who Americans really were.  Then there was a man in a small community who built a simple cross for a family who just learned of their son's death as a soldier in war. Some how word spread and he now had made numerous crosses for families across the United States.  

We each have a way of giving.  It can be a smile in the store, helping an elder cross the street, or traveling to a community in dire need.  It can be reading to the blind or baking cookies with the neighbors children.  It can be walking down the street blessing each home as we pass by. 

There are millions of us and millions of diverse way to give a piece of ourselves.  When we discover something we love to do and then share it, the hearts of all get touched.