Gyroscope - Constructing From the Inside Out

Well, Beloveds, here we are.  Still held in this cosmic web of upheaval.  

2020 taught us that keeping in view what we can and cannot control is a matter of survival.  We do not know what 2021 holds...but whatever happens we CAN bring those lessons and the new contours of our thinking and being that we learned from the surprises of 2020.  

What we learned from the unexpected in 2020 equipped us for 2021 and there are hidden covid-blessings to be counted, less we miss the gift.  Fullness of life has GOT to look better than it did in 2020. All the #quarantinelife truth on YouTube pretty much nails it.  Life has got to be fuller, deeper, energized, infused with meaning, richer, and more CONNECTED….So HOW? 

One of my cornerstone tent stakes (some spiritual directors call it a “rule of life”) helps me answer questions like this.  And today I want to highlight it:   Anchor into your still point. 

Let’s use a symbol to sink this down into your believing place where it will make a difference.  Have you seen a gyroscope lately?  Why would you have? They are kind of random. But, a little Youtube search finds this {CLICK to view video}: 

So, if you were to hold a gyroscope in your hand or lay it on the table it would...just lay there.  But if you spin it, the different circles, weight, gravity, and centripetal force create this long sustainable dance.  It will even spin beautifully on a thin little string. 

When we mark time, a new year, there is a divine invitation to turn a page and move your calendar, your intentions, and your affections into a new landscape.  This is thin space. 

You don’t want a life that just flops over like a still gyroscope. The spin is not the problem, the spin symbolizes a full life.

The experience gets uncomfortable when we live exclusively zipping around the peripheral circles of our gyroscope life.  That heralds reactive, unorganized, overwhelmed, unproductive autopilot. 

Most importantly, it disconnects us from meaning and from our Source. We need to appreciate and carefully select the circles and rings that we gather together for our gyroscope dance into 2021.  

 

Your way of being in your outside world is only as well as your way of settling in and inhabiting your internal unseen world.  What I mean by inner world:  affections, inclinations, emotions, thoughts, aversions, ambitions, and sense of self.  

 

T.S. Eliott deserves admiration for capturing this way of being in the world in this quote which inspired this blog: 

 

Let this be an invitation to you to find and cultivate. Above all, practice the experience of dropping into your center, your still point, your Savior-Anchor. 

 

It is difficult to find practices to drop into your center that don’t involve embodiment, incarnate sort of experiences.  We all know what that head-heart-body disconnect feels like when we have not rested in the center.  Jesus modeled us again and again getting solitary and still...and he did so in a body.  

 

These practices are about making that “18 inch journey”  from your head to your heart (your believing place).  That place inside you can only accessed when we settle the body down and let it be a bridge from seen to unseen, from earth to heaven.   

 

 

Here are a few creative suggestions: 

{Click HERE for Prayer Breath Guide}

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Whatever you do to cultivate an awareness of your anchor, remember that you will need to “begin again”  daily...or hourly.

   

Incorporating some rhythm and repetition into your coming and going that is your path back when you feel off kilter or overwhelmed is the most important part of this.  You will wonder from center.  You will forget that it is a dance and experience it as hustle. That is a given.  

How will you find your way back to that “resting place of his love” as the “source and root of your life”? Find your *insert your name* - shaped way of coming home and do it as often as you can manage.