Compass & Tassels

This week i return to an earlier idea i explored about resistance. First a stream writing sparked from the red tassels in this week’s drawing.

Tassel, a thin red tassel at the bottom of my curtain trickles in the cool morning breeze, trickles and tickles of sweet fragrant air wake me like a child whispering in my ear, “can we go out and play?” the grass is calling, green tassels growing upside down reaching for the sky. Are their little tassel knots, the roots holding onto the ground so they won’t fall up to the sky if gravity reverses itself? i imagine the grass, a field of tassels, a lawn fringe at the edge of an upside down world, yes, an underworld tickling this world under our feet with it’s tassels. if gravity was reversed, would the clippings of its fringe fly like green confetti twirling up to hug the bottom of a cloud floating high in the sky? When the cloud returned the hug, with its release, would it share its raindrops with the world, to quench a thirst, with a shower of sparkling tassels?

Resistance as a Compass…

i’d been working on writing copy for this website and some other pieces, less directly related to my current work, provoked by current events, big picture world view writing. i ran into trouble with it, pushing to complete something that i was struggling to articulate important nuances, wrastling, fear and frustration were raised on several levels. A stubborn part of me, Little Wilma, was running the show.

Hmm observer self sidetracked… i think partly coming out of having read The War of Art and Pressfield’s notion that resistance can be like a compass, pointing you in the direction you need to go.  So Wilma said, “i got this” & dove full throttle “write” into the middle of it, setting all else aside, and not being sensitive to other factors/parts/needs.  She shows up to be helpful, but her tenacity can turn into blind pushing. Flying solo with her doesn’t work very well. i just bent the needle on the compass and caused a furrow in my brow.

Sometimes, you need to step back, work on another piece and then a new approach will come as you keep working but without being willful about it. Making a distinction between willful and willing, with willing, the tap is open. Willful, might seem like a way to get a lot done, but i know from past efforts, it provokes defiance and paradoxically more resistance. i like Pressfield’s resistance as a compass, idea but with a caveat. Be willing to find a rhythm, so you don’t get locked into pushing, invite other contributions along the way. It’s okay to take the path of least resistance at times in order to calm your inner system, to keep moving in the moment when you’ve been hijacked by a willful striving. 

Here’s the short passage from Pressfield’s book, The War of Art (page 12)

Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North– meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.

We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel towards pursuing it.

What’s your relationship with Resistance like?