Hi hi,
It feels like there’s so much to say to you today. If you’re on planet earth (chances are good that you are) you’re living through a really intense time.
I won’t recount the specifics, but a popular sentiment is that we have a front row seat for the final season of humanity.
No one can predict the future, but it is possible to spend our entire day jumping from disaster to disaster. Perhaps this feels like a normal existence. Thats because the more we live in crisis mode, the more we become accustomed to it.
On a personal level, I know how that can be—in fact that’s how “now is good” was born. Before it was the title of a newsletter, it was a mantra for when I was unable to process a good situation. Only in the past year did I fully reckon with the fact that I am more comfortable in uncomfortable situations. My mind created nonsensical drama when I did the work and reached calmer waters. My mind wouldn’t let me have the good, instead it was always trying to look ahead and predict when things might shift into crisis.
Not only did this mode of thought prevent me from enjoying myself, it stopped me from working on the projects I once felt called to do. If you read Wednesday’s newsletter, you may remember this is what Steven Pressfield calls Resistance. This force conspires to stop you from doing whatever it is that you are passionate about. It makes you feel like you are worthless and it does everything in its power to stop you from even starting.
Why begin if the world is ending?
Who are you to have a voice?
What makes you so important?
The best way to get out of crisis mode is to reject Resistance and start your work. When detrimental forces are out in great strength, it can be absolutely necessary to call upon the divine for intervention and direction.
Steven Pressfield recites a passage from the Odyssey every morning before sitting down to work. He does this as a prayer to invoke the muse and ward off Resistance. While I don’t feel the need to memorize Homer, I’ve started to take a moment of ritual before beginning the day’s work. When news from the entire world is at our fingertips, it can be invaluable to take a moment to signify the switching of gears. The inner world is soft spoken and gentle. It will not compete with the external noise.
I’ll leave with another quote from The War of Art. I love this book because it starts out with motivational self-help language and by the end he’s unapologetically immersed in the ethereal. This excerpt is from the back half of the book and it shows.
“I believe there are angels. They’re here, but we can’t see them.
Angels work for God. It’s their job to help us. Wake us up. Bump us along.
Angels are agents of evolution. The Kabbalah describes angels as bundles of light, meaning intelligence, consciousness. Kabbalists believe that above every blade of grass is an angels crying ‘Grow! Grow!’ I’ll go further. I believe that above the entire human race is one super - angel, crying ‘Evolve! Evolve!’
Angels are like muses. They know stuff we don’t. They want to help us. They’re on the other side of the pane of glass shouting to get out attention. But we can’t hear them. We’re too distracted by our own nonsense.
Ah, but when we begin.
When we make a start.
When we conceive an enterprise and commit to it in the face of our fears, something wonderful happens. A crack appears in the membrane. Like the first cracks when a chick pecks at the inside of its shell. Angel midwives congregate around us; the assist as we give birth to ourselves, to that person we were born to be, to the one whose destiny was encoded in our soul, our daimon, our genius.
When we make a beginning, we get out of our own way, and allow the angels to come in and do their job. They can speak to us now and it makes them happy. It makes God happy. Eternity, as Blake might have told us, has opened a portal into time.
And we’re it.”
Whatever you’re feeling right now, don’t let it stop you from communing with the divine. However that looks for you.
Also—today I’m officially releasing A Guide to Self Guided Meditations. If you’d like to get a copy, don’t forget your special subscriber code: EGG for 20% off.
It will be available on my website later today: goteamjames.com
Sending you my very best wishes for your weekend!
xx
James