Redefine Badass: Just add Heat

Over the last two weeks I’ve spent much less time than usual writing.  I’ve been zooming through my days, through my late nights, biking all over town, welcoming new work opportunities, setting up my summer plans.  Not doing much reflection.

Basically I’m being a badass.

It’s funny because tons of folks who have met me recently, who then stumble across my blog have said to me “you seem like such a hippie when you write.”  A guy at work even flippantly called me an Earth Mother.  As in “I get that you’re like, this Earth Mother, but…”

I’m not at all put off by that.  I’ll take it.  Frankly, we could probably do to honor the Earth Mothers we’ve got.  But there’s the other side to Earth Mother, or Shiva, or what have you, that I’ve really been channeling, and to which it’s important to give voice: this is the molten core that smolders at the center of a heart full of love.

I’m into pliancy, flexibility and boundless love.  I’m also into strength and integrity and unapologetic excellence.  I think that what lava is all about: elements like iron and steel under pressure and heat.  There’s something profoundly exciting about trying to live a life that integrates these elements.

Probably this is why working at a restaurant is so appealing at the moment.  It’s demanding psychologically, physically (you try carrying 30lbs up or down stairs or balancing a tray with eight full water glasses in heels), emotionally.  It’s service work which, as I mentioned to a coworker the other day, if done well, doesn’t look like work at all.  At my core, my steel will and resolve is undergoing the heat and pressure of a million demands, and I’m loving it.  So I’m allowing my core to be fired up, while allowing my outer layers to become translucent, pliable, even sparkling.  Through pressure and heat there is that alchemy necessary for self-transformation.  It’s hard and it’s wonderful.

Advertisement