As If

I’ve lived my life as if my life depended on it, in the perpetual present. I value my experiences, regardless. They have all together brought me to where I am now. No regrets. No mistakes. All OFLs.

My mistakes are all OFLs.

Every. Single. One. They each contributed to where I’ve arrived today.

OFLs

The greatest fear for success should not be failure. It should Be succeeding at something that doesn’t matter.

~ Francis Chan

Proceed as if success is inevitable.

~ Unknown

My process of being naturally comfortable with the not-knowing while getting things done? Maybe it’s due to having almost died on the mountain once, twice, three times? Maybe, it’s also due to a life of welcoming experience over worry. I become more connected to Self and Others, and feel more strongly, feel more clearly the older I get.

And, not by a numbing where I just ignore intense gigs because my awareness or boundaries have eroded, or I’ve simply become accustomed to them Where the blush is off the rose. In fact I notice that I respond or don’t more now.  I can also thank taking the long road home with 3+ years of bi-weekly Brainspotting in my late 40s certainly didn’t hurt.

Someone Recently Asked

I love that someone recently asked me about my 5+ year radio silence. DOOD, what DID you do. you’re so clear now like you really love what you’re dong, AND we can all share in that as well. You were brilliant before, though at times hard to follow as you’d paint the WHOLE picture at once. Yup, YOU just saw it and felt it, though keeping up with your revs and where you were going was exhausting, and actually almost impossible. Your simple steps were leaps of faith for me, and I’m no Evil Knievel. Understood, you were thinking and feeling out loud, though now I’m resonating with what you’re doing, clearly! Glad to have you back! And, more so, glad you have a more aware clarity of what you are doing in a way you can express it to us! Thank you!

I’ve lived my life as if my life depended on it, as those 3 times it certainly did.

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The 3rd One

On the 3rd one — a short time after, me still swimming in the experience still wet behind the ears so to speak from it  — i paused. I felt something stir deep within me that rose to the surface like Poseidon rising up through my Natal 10th House Neptune Mercury conjunction. My head popped up as if a long lost friend suddenly appeared as if to continue a conversation interrupted years ago.

Yes?, I asked. The message response coming back…

Yes. Yes, indeed, Jordan. Yes, keep that. It’s yours.

When? October 1999. Where? Mt Democrat, a 14er near Breckinridge, CO. I kept the triangular piece of basalt I found when sitting on the backside cornice over the scree field when Sand-aiding my cuts — like Bandaids, except with sand — kept it in my pocket daily for 5 years.

And, a Wonderful Person

And, a wonderful person heard the story, and the cloister experience of near death and opening to it to live that I had on the mountain. And, about my rock I carried in my pocket for 5 years, both Linus Blanket and sacred talisman. She asked, Will you entrust your memory rock to me for a while? No certainty of timeframe, open ended, simply entrust it to me for a while? I will of course take very good care of it. Your story inspired an idea, a grand one really. Will you send it to me to hold for you for a while? I feel it has inspired me to grow something for you in my Soul Garden.

My watercolor paintings put with what I received are from my Constructing the Center series from 1993-1995. I found my rock on the top of Mt Democrat in 1999. Sent my rock to her in early summer 2009. And, late summer 2009, a curious box arrived via UPS.Why does this feel so important? Hey, you’re on the covered porch in this turn-of-the-century bungalow house you live in. Though, come in fully. Come in out of the rain. It wasn’t raining. This intensely pivotal experience had started.

Return, Re-Surfacing

My rock had been returned as she expressed it would, though differently. Something else was re-surfacing. A card wonderfully penned, deckled edge card lay on top of red silk, Lilac-Carmine-touch of Carmenere red silk. On it, deceptively simply words…

Yes! This had not simply been a Nanny over the summer for my rock, or a field trip for it, or for me to release it to more fully open. I opened the box. No annoying packing peanuts. Packaging of sheer Carmenere-Lilac silk. on top of red silk, Lilac-Carmine-touch of Carmenere red silk. On Top of the silk lay a deckled edge 140-pound watercolor card. No envelope, pre-opened. Simply the card. Wonderfully penned with care and attention and flow were these words

Your story inspired an idea, a grand one really.

Enjoy the unfolding.

Yes!

Lifting the folds open carefully, lovingly lifting, undulating in a slow kelping rhythm of unfolding sacred treasure. Unfolding, one discovery-strata of silk fold after another. Unfolding. Kelping, unfolding. And, revealing…

There it was!

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My Eyebrows Lifted

My eyebrows lifted to give room to my brightening eyes’ amazement. I may have well knocked a portal through the ceiling in my office to provide room for what was happening. There It was. My rock. My equilateral triangle, basalt talisman rock. Though, it came home, RIDING it’s own home! It now lived as the centerpiece talisman on an amazing wand!

I have such gratitude for that moment. Such gratitude. I cherish that experience. I cherish the 2-way street of not-knowing and courage that led to it. I cherish what it means for someone to reach out like that. I cherish that my experience inspired another. I cherish my not-knowing And a courage to let go of the Linus Blanket of my basalt talisman… and send it, like sending it off to finishing school.

To Put It Lightly

To put it lightly, I’ll tell ya, I sent it after quite a bit of internal tug-o-war.

In letting go, the past transcended past what I typically consider being way beyond My levels of acceptable risk. They’re high in the 1st place, though I Fooled from start to finish, as did she. I trusted that the ground would rise up to support my every step in unknown territory, trusted her at her word and trusted the not-knowing.

The Internal Civil War Ended

The internal civil war ended when a thought-feeling washed over me. I wasn’t letting go of my basalt talisman. I wasn’t letting go of one of the most intense experiences of my life. The experience was finally integrating, and sending of my rock was an Initiation. I wasn’t letting go of my rock. I was sending it to a Master Soul Gardener, to naturalize it in its own Soul Garden of a wand.

Though, no

Though, no amount of wisdom or foresight or clarity of vision Or prescience or prescient remembrance would have ever prepared me for what was lovingly nestled in the soil folds inside that sacred, cardboard geode box.

What Happened?

What happened? Beyond my wildest dreams is what happened. Something happened that I neither expected nor could have fathomed. What happened I cherish to this day, gather I always will. What happened was beyond sending my rock. What happened was I received, fully. I received, and opened more than just that cardboard geode that arrived on my doorstep.

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I lifted my rock, now fully alive and living on a wonderful and majestic and powerful wand from the geode seed of its box. I lifted it from the grand idea that had occurred prior to its creation, prior to its creation, prior to its making, prior to its growing its soul out of another’s Soul Garden. Now, it lived, embraced in my hands. Now, it was my turn to get on my way right there with my own Soul Garden Ally right there in my hands in my Soul Garden.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now, put the foundations under them.

~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

What Cornerstone

What cornerstone in life do you brace against?

What cornerstone in life do you brace against to build and place the foundations up to support the castles of your dreams built way up there?

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Blog (c) 2020 Jordan Hoggard

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