I Love The Red Book!
[ 31 January 2009 ]
Do you own a copy of Sera Beak’s The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark yet? If not, how come?! I’m re-reading it right now & this segment jumped out at me. I hope you enjoy it!
Role Playing
As you’ve probably gathered by now, you have a special purpose. You’ve got certain things to do & people to see & flowers to smell & experiences to have that your intuition is constantly guiding you toward. You have a role that needs to be played, & chances are, it’s the role of a lifetime. When lived truthfully, this role will consist of doing & being what you love & making a decent living from it. Whoa. Imagine that.
Now before you start dreaming of exotic travels & radical business plans & living in Turkey, please realize that most people’s roles while here on this earthly plane for such a quick blink of time aren’t nearly so dramatic or far-reaching; one person’s role might be as seemingly simple as becoming, say, a conductor of high-frequency love while living on a particularly bleak city block, while another’s is to be an amazing mother, while another’s is to grow organic food, or save lemurs, or work at that magazine.
Although your intuition might lead you (or might have already led you) toward a role that might not seem all that glamorous, it doesn’t make it any less important or meaningful or soul-rocking. There might be thousands of first-grade teachers, but only you can give hope to those specific children in that specific children at that specific time. Let’s face it, not everyone can be a Nelson Mandela, because as amazing as that man is, the universe doesn’t need millions of him. The universe needs, well, you. & only you can do what it is you do, in your unique way. So please don’t shut down your unique abilities with doubt or comparisons or critiques (“Working at this cafe or teaching music to the elderly or writing poetry on my lunch break can’t be all that cosmically significant; just look at that guy I saw on 20/20 who’s setting up HIV clinics in Africa”). Gandhi said, “Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.” Trust me, when you believe in yourself & fulfil your role to the best of your ability, you are a spiritual superstar, as powerful & as needed as any soul on the planet. As modern dance genius Martha Graham so beautifully put it, “There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action. & because there is only one of you in time, this expression is unique. & if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium & be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is: nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly & directly. To keep the channel open” (quoted in Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia, p. 76).
This is a mysteriously connected universe. We don’t always consciously know how far our energy might reach & how intense its effect might be, but by doig what you intuitively feel you should be doing in this world (be it a career, a project, an art piece, a relationship), you are actually, believe it or not, helping to infuse this planet & even the entire cosmos with deep soulful purpose as well as encouraging other beings to seek out & bravely live their own role. (There is more about this phenomenon in the next chapter.)
Of course, when we start becoming more connected to & more expressive of who we really are, the seemingly random roles we play become just natural extensions of ourselves. Intuitive hits about what your role is (for right now) may not always suggest a huge change from what you are already doing, but they should help you do what you do more consciously. Richard Bach wrote, “Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t” (Illusions, p. 159). So what’s your part to play now? How can you be it even better? Don’t know if you’ve found what you’re meant to do or be quite yet? Don’t fret; when it’s time, the universe will give you plenty of external & internal hints, but here’s mine: You’ll know when you find it because it will make you feel very alive, happy, aligned, content — even if it challenges you & pushes your limits & freaks you out a bit. You will know, on a cell-tingling level, that you are doing what you are meant to do, no matter how mundane it might appear to others, or even to your ego. You will know by how intensely you’re existing.
P.S. Buy the book!
Love letters & feather headdresses,
Tags: consumption,
inspiration,
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Gala, I have come to believe that reading iCiNG is contributing to a giant gaping black hole in my savings account. Why oh why must you present us with all these splendid things that we instantly crave?
...end rant :]
(I am buying this book as soon as my wallet inflates a bit. Thank you for the recommendation.)
It’s so weird that you posted this today. I just started rereading The Red Book today and wrote a blog post regarding my reasons why.
I LOVE that book!!! (but wish it was pink) ;)
Thank you Gala, it seems like this article is one answer to many of my questions and fears at the moment because I am trying to find out how to turn my life into something significant, joyful, something to be proud of… I think you took some of my angst. I guess I should really read that book
Damn. Was thinking it was about time I re-read that…am taking that as a definite sign it’s time to do so…
And P.S. bought the book originally because you recommended it…bloody good that changed the way I look at things.
Sounds like a great book. And I love it when people go by the universe!! x
I checked out that book from the library. I did not like the writing style, though I understand her voice being casual. I also did not understand what she was saying about mixing parts of religion. Overall, it has a positive message.
I did buy this book, on your recommendation, and I love this part. I didn’t read it cover to cover, though, I read it in a kind of piece-y fashion.
I always loved the end of that Graham quote – “No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
But yes, it’s a gorgeous book – I especially love that Sera seems to understand how hokey the usual spiritual lexicon sounds, and aims to phrase things in a way that won’t immediately make cynics (like me) roll their eyes.
Today I woke up on the wrong side of the bed (that expression is awesome) and made a coffee. I sat down at my laptop, opened Google reader and saw this. It made my day. Hope you’re having a super sunday xx
Sounds like an interesting book.
I love that excerpt – there is so much advice around saying to throw in your boring office job and become all wonderfully creative and it has often made me wonder what if someone likes their office job. I like that someone is actually saying to be the best at what you do. If you love being an accountant, better to be a great accountant than a lousy poet.
That’s such an awesome passage. It’s a great reminder Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Wow – that is one good excerpt. Is the rest of the book that good?
Ooh, I do believe a trip to my local library to suss this out is imperative!!
I loved the red book!
I checked it out from the library a year or two ago and I would definitely recommend it. : )
I just started a new job on 1/20, and this week I thought to myself:
You know, maybe it’s OK that I don’t have the highest profile or most glamorous job. Maybe it’s OK to have a job with people I like doing something that I am good at in an industry where I will have a job tomorrow.
Maybe that’s good enough, and what really matters—as opposed to caring about name dropping, going to parties and getting my picture in the paper so people know where I was last night.
Maybe I should quit giving a shit what other people in my group of friends are doing, and just focus on doing what I am good at. Maybe by doing that bigger, better things will come my way down the line if I devote myself to that thing I already have some talent for, rather than trying to be something I am not.
I am definitely putting this on my TO READ list. Thanks for the post!
AHH! I JUST got this last week! It’s SOOO amazing! I want to make all of my friends read it.
I can’t say enough about how awesome it is!
I think this is probably something I’ll read once a year for the rest of my life. :)
best. book. ever! changed my life really!!
SO good! How much do I love Martha Graham? She is my go-to source of inspirational quotes.
I bought this book based on your recommendation. I have read about a fifth of it. I find that I enjoy reading this book but don’t want to rush it. I have taken paragraphs and quotes from it and written them down on my notebook.
This almost made me cry!
I was just at work trying to psych myself into sweeping under tables and cleaning the bathroom. I was trying to tell myself things like, “Ok, waitressing so you have extra money as you finish up college is just as valid as any other experience you will have in your life. Be in the moment, do this job as well as you would do anything else. Enjoy the feeling of completing a task, however minute, and know that everything is in its place.”
...and then I come home to read something that affirms that feeling so perfectly! It’s always good to have a reminder that as long as you’re doing something positive, you’re doing what you meant to be doing. Even if that includes wiping off ladies toilet seats. ;)
Gala you must be some kind of psychic or something!
I bought the Red Book a little while ago based on your recommendation, carried it around everywhere (so mine’s pretty well-worn now!) but never got too far into it. When I was figuring out what to do for the iTC I found myself thinking about picking it back up again properly…now I definitely will!
I think I’m going to do the same type of thing as Marisol (above), take it slowly and try to let it properly sink in, maybe noting down the parts that are most meaningful to me.
Hope the first day of your iTC is going well :)
I have to say that The Red Book is one of my fav books on this topic. I love the language she uses to connect – so rich and playful. And the message behind the words is extremely powerful. All in all, it really resonated with me and was definitely one of the books that kickstarted my spiritual journey.
Incidentally, I shared that Martha Graham quote in full (there’s a bit that comes after about a ‘divine dissatisfaction’ that ensures you continue to move forward, continue creating) over at my blog just the other day there. One of those winks from the universe perhaps?
Amy
xx
The only thing I don’t like is the title… the Red Book was the collection of works of Mao. If anyone has read Wild Swans or something similar on communist China, they will have negative images linked with this title !
Read it if you are ready to be inspired to transform yourself into the most powerful, vibrant and sexy living creature you could ever imagine!
Thanks for that. She’s incredible! I was looking through collages on her website just the other day and tears welled up in my eyes, rusty cogs in my brain started turning and my heart fluttered with excitement.