Shake up your soul

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it. Anais Nan

I got shaken up yesterday. By words. Written words. Words that lifted off the page in fat, juicy rhythm, stirring the edges of my mind, scouring the ridges of my perceptions. Rounded vowels, slim and lithe consonants. Sentences plump with meaning. These words had meaning. A turn of phrase. A phrase turned into itself rounding the corner of simplicity, catching me unawares with the stark reality of truth rising in a thought exposed to air.

I was shaken up by words yesterday. And I am grateful for the shaking to the root of my soul.

The words became apparent in an essay by Maureen on her blog, Writing without Paper. Like James Nachtwey's speech, Maureen's words are a must read. A pulsing vibrant commentary of these times in which we live. Of these times in which we must breathe into the collective consciousness rising if we are to survive. If we are to soothe the troubled world.

I felt heavy when I was finished. Sated. Lost for words, I found myself weeping upon the page, my heart burning in agony for the child's arms upraised to heaven, 'as if heaven knows', she wrote.

In a tragically conflicted world, war and peace, hatred and love, anger and forgiveness, darkness and light vie for supremacy with the intrusive insistence of a multi-million dollar advertising campaign jockeying for brand recognition amongst the common mind. Amidst the maneuvering for position truth weighs-in burdened by concrete shoes, sinking beneath the lie that we cannot create peace. It is the lie that filters down to earth like radioactive dust, poisoning the fragile bloom of the peace flower struggling to break ground upon the battlefields of our crazy messed up but oh so beautiful world.

Oh for crying out peace! From the rooftops. From the depths of our souls. Cry out for peace.

Remembrance Day is on the horizon. Peace is on my mind.

Let there be peace. And if we cannot uncover it upon the battlefield, let us find it in our hearts. Let us make love, not war. Let us sow seeds of harmony, not discontent. Let us, as Gandhi once exhorted a nation, become the change we want to see. We must see. We must create.

Leap into the unfamiliar. Shift your perceptions. Let magic arise around you and within you.

Choose peace today. Choose to live in harmony with the world around you, soothing the world inside with words that comfort your soul and raise your spirits. Open your arms wide. Breathe. Embrace the dichotomy around you. Embrace the fear, the angst, the hardened thought. Exhale. Release. Lighten up.

Shake up your soul today. Rattle the status quo. Stir the fires of greatness within you. Stoke the flames of your passion for all that is holy and divine within and without you. For all around us is the possibility of peace, if we just give it a chance to catch its breath so it can breathe life into all we have lost in our harried pursuit of all we don't have.

Peace.

Shake up your world today and give peace a chance where ever you go.