Innerscape

I am thinking today about my inner landscape, not my outer landscape. The outer landscape is dominated by unknowns and questions, life and work in the time of coronavirus, but my innerscape is in no way dependent on the outer forms, unless I permit this to happen. There was something a friend said yesterday (thank you, Sharon) about the power of words, that got me thinking that the words I am using to paint my inner landscape have been too haphazard, and not very intentional.

It is this innerscape that drives our happiness and wellbeing, after all, so why not treat it with more reverence, or at least with kindness? I think I have too often viewed my inner world as a product of the external world: stimulus driving response. Yes, events and people provoke an inner response (happy, angry, etc.) but they do not direct it. I choose. And if I can choose my response, why not wield this extraordinary power, this magic, with the eye of an artist?

I believe the inner world can always be a place of calm and peace, no matter what shape our outer world takes. I have to cultivate that inner world however, tend it like a garden and nurture new shoots. If I ignore its tending, I ignore it at my peril. To return to the metaphor of painting, I have to prime my canvas, choose the colors for my palette, and develop some skill with the brush. Thoughts are part of the creation of the innerscape. They are the colors on the palette I choose from. Even no-thought is part of that palette.

What is the most powerful color in that palette? For me, there is a power word that stands out as Ferrari Red among the others. That word is "yes." I want to paint my innerscape with this power word. It is the gesture of open palms that I associate with the word "yes." This particular moment in time and space took 13.8 billion years to arrive in the form before me. Who am I to resist it? "Yes," to me, is an agreement to participate in the dance. "Yes," says I will drop the need to control or force reality into another form, and will first receive it in the form it is, saying "yes" and contemplating the best response to that reality.

Yes is fluidity. Yes is peace. Yes opens the door to creativity. Yes offers a route to healing. If I can get this far, and some days it is quite a leap, if I can open my palms to receive what is with a "yes," I believe this innerscape will flourish. If we are to shelter-in-place, then it is up to us to make the place we shelter in beautiful. I am decorating my innerspace today, getting out the paints, an envisioning new forms.