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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
The Conscious Column
Beautifully Broken
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by Rev. David Ault |
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Day after day, the artisan would fill the molds and start the assembly line process of creating the clay pots. One after the other, these containers emerged from the kiln, each identical in shape and detail. They were put out for display. Yet despite his best efforts, sales were meager. He worked even harder, producing more of the identical pots but nothing shifted. Finally there were so many of the unsold pots that he began running out of room in his shop to place them. The floors were covered with them, the windowsills stacked high, every nook and every cranny piled high with pots. With little room to move, it was inevitable this system would eventually breakdown. And break it did.
One morning, while making his way through the crowded shop, the artisan caught his foot on a pile of pots, sending them to the floor with a resounding crash.
With a defeated spirit, he began picking up the pieces and placing them in burlap bags.
It was hard to think of throwing the pieces away. After all, he had worked so hard, extracting the clay from the earth with his own hands, separating and removing all the pebbles and foreign matter out of the mixture before fashioning them into the mold.
He sat and stared at the pieces and began to cry. It had been a long while since the artisan had shed a tear. So much of his current life was spent doing, thinking, planning that he’d pushed away his sadness and continued making pots. But his sadness had never left and it pressed at his heart and eyes with an undeniable presence. His crying continued until eventually, like the final note of a song needing to be sung, his last tear rolled from his swollen eyes.
It was then that the artisan felt a strange sensation. Best described as relief, he discovered an ability to breathe easier, fuller, more calmly. It was as if releasing the tears had opened up more space within him and allowed fresher air to fill his lungs.
As he continued picking up the fragments of the broken pottery, his eyes spotted an old can of glue and some gold filigree in a dusty tube.
Suddenly the fresh air in his lungs was accompanied by a fresh idea.
He began gluing the pieces back into pot formations, adding the gold in between the haphazard cracks. The result was so startlingly beautiful that the artisan further expanded his experiment by adding color from old paint stock he had long forgotten he had.
People began buying the one of a kind pots with a feverish zeal for now; the artisan was offering something so unique, so wonderful that everyone kept coming back for more pots to claim as their own.
Today, the artisan continues pouring the clay in the mold just as before, but as soon as the kiln has fired them, he places the pots, one by one in the burlap bag and smashes them. Thus begins the joyous process of gluing them back together.
Most of us have approached life and love like the artisan in the story. We go about seeking love and giving love based on our observations of others. We make considerations about our career path by what family and faculty recommend or by what statistics dictate is the next sure thing. All the while, this safe, cookie-cutter approach to life is suppose to generate satisfaction, make us feel comforted, keep us away from the pit-falls and disappointments in life. Yet, it is the heart brakes (or heart expansions as I like to call them), the disappointments and stumbles followed by recoveries that bring about such rich and beautiful spiritual character.
In this month designated to the celebration of love, it would do us good to look at how much of our energy is expended in avoiding heart break and investigate, instead, how much we could risk our hearts and freely love.
Greg Baer, author of Real Love, says that true, unconditional love is “caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves.” That and that alone is real love. Not “if I do this, if I say this, if I give this, what will you give me in return?”
Real love has no agenda.
Turning that real love inward proves even more powerful.
My friend Jeff told me of his new spiritual practice which started at the beginning of the year.
“I stand in front of the mirror naked and send appreciative thoughts towards what I see. It hasn’t been easy. The first things I see are all my perceived flaws. But with each passing day, it gets easier and my focus gets clearer and more deeply rooted in the simple appreciation of the body that his been given me. Something so simple has propelled my heart, my mind, my attitude to greater degrees of love than ever before.”
I was captivated by his enthusiasm and thought I’d try it myself. Like Jeff, all I could see at first was what I didn’t like about myself. Like the pieces of the first broken clay pots, I simply wanted to hide everything in an imaginary burlap bag. To add to the experience, I later developed severe chest pains and eventually drove myself to the emergency room. My heart went into atrial fibrillation and the pain manifested in a near septic gallbladder. I underwent surgery, a stint in ICU, and a frustrating recovery. I finally made it home right before Christmas and stood in my bathroom recalling the mirror exercise.
I approached it again, only this time there were tremendous additions under the “flawed” column of my mental descriptive page. With surgical scars and a shaved chest hair pattern that resembled something like a spastic crop circle, I made attempts to send appreciation and love to what I saw.
It wasn’t easy. In fact there were mornings of tremendous sadness and vulnerability. Yet with each dedicated day, each golden thought, I began to take whatever misguided criticisms and broken feelings I had manufactured and began to slowly piece together a new view of myself. My recovery since has been remarkable – my experience of the new year, a fresh and exciting one.
This month I encourage you to try the exercise. Stand vulnerable and naked before the mirror. Cry if you need to. Allow yourself to take all of you, even the broken parts and start the process of piecing it all together with a new golden idea of what you truly are and what you can become. By your willingness to own the attractive, unique aspects of you, the world, in kind, will honor the attractive work of heart that you most assuredly are.
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David Ault
Visionary Vocalist, Author & Motivational Speaker
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David Ault is highly regarded as one of the finest visionary vocalists and motivational speakers within the New Thought/transformational movement.
His focus on remembering the Divine within and reclaiming that connection has empowered hundreds of thousands on their spiritual journey. The union of David’s charismatic message and heartfelt singing has elevated him to guest speaker of choice in many nationwide churches and global organizations.
As a licensed minister and practitioner through Religious Science International, as well as author, songwriter/recording artist, David has traveled and shared his gifts for well over fifteen years.
Working closely with notables Louise Hay and Marianne Williamson and sharing the stage with many cherished mentors ranging from the late Og Mandino to Dr. Barbara King, Jerald Jampolsky, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Father Leo Booth and Mary Manin-Morrisey, David harvested that experience and developed his own unique style of teaching. His compassionate presence, warmth and humor continue to be an unforgettable guidepost for audiences as they rediscover and reawaken to their personal magnificence.
Starting out as a professional actor and singer, David worked extensively in Broadway tour shows, film and television winning critics awards in both New York and Los Angeles.
Throughout the 1980’s, David, along with the late Jerry Florence and Keith Kimberlin made their mark in New thought history by helping pioneer an unexplored musical genre—visionary vocal music. Known as Alliance, their remarkable blend became legendary, helping establish them as one of the most successful vocal groups in the Spiritual recording field.
David continues this musical path with the release of his critically acclaimed recordings, The Healing Bridge, Travelin’ With The Angels, All Is Calm, All Is Bright, And Then It Is Morning, all distributed through his Los Angeles based organization, The Conscious Company. Now, his highly anticipated literary debut, Where Regret Cannot Find Me, is heralded as “a fresh and exciting discovery in Spiritual literature ... a work of pure heart!”
“I feel extremely blessed and grateful in following this path”, says David. “It is my ongoing intention to create a message in word and music that assists us all in reawakening to our personal magnificence!”
www.davidault.com
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