Out of the Box and into the Fire

​The title of this blog is auto-biographical. I have, from the beginning of my conscious life, had the feeling that I was different; that I somehow didn’t fit into any of the boxes presented as “normal.” Being dyslexic, among other things, will do that. A few years ago, I got together with my very best friend from High School. We did everything together back then and then, quite suddenly, our lives took us in very separate directions. Mine was a decidedly “out of the box” one. When we got together again, after many years apart, she asked me, “You always just wanted to be different, didn’t you?” I told her that I actually never saw it as a choice, I was just born that way.
 
As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that most people I know well have had this same feeling, at some time in their life. I have come to believe that none of us fit into the “normal” box. People, at their depth, are not built that way. Children do not easily fit into standardization and many pay dearly if we try to make them fit into that box.  Being “out of the box” has come to mean finding my own voice and my unique perspective or becoming fully myself. Many of us spend a great deal of our lives on this process, I know have.
 
Once we are truly in touch with ourselves and our unique ways of interacting with the world, I believe we are called to step fully into the fire that is our current reality. This doesn’t seem like a choice any more than whether we are different or not, is. From the inside, it feels like a mandate to me.
 
I once heard the America Mystic, David Spangler, define integrity as those moments when your whole being, your spirit, soul, mind and body are doing the same thing at the same time. This is not as easy as it sounds, but it is required for honest integrity. Once we start to master this skill, we start to speak directly and without hesitation. Our current culture needs as many voices filled with honest integrity as we can muster. Each of our unique voices are needed.
 
As clearly as I can express it, this is the path I feel called to follow, and what I am called to write about in this blog. I hope that it will help others to find their own clear voice and the courage to use that voice for the progress and healing our world so desperately needs…at this precise moment.