I’ve been at it again, lighting candles around me and staring into the flames, looking for answers as to how to turn my novel into something marketable. I’ve been sitting in sage smoke, letting the sweet smelling clouds curl around me and stimulate my creativity. I’ve been mixing up essital oils to stimulate my creativity and wearing them while I I write. I’ve been warding off the demon called “writer’s block” for the past week and a half because I have a deadline Thursday. An agent is interested in reading my query letter after I pitched to her and if she likes it, she’ll want to read more and best case scenario, take me on as a client. Will I get an agent from this? Who knows, but if anything, it’s a learning experience.

I’ve been tackling my manuscript head on while the clock ticks down to when I have to stop all revisions and send my query letter. I read my revisions off and on as I was working through them and there were times I felt that things had changed so much that there was no way I didn’t fuck the whole thing up. I almost gave up on the 4th draft numerous times but I felt like there was something really good happening, it just needed a little polishing and an “ah ha!” moment.

That moment came this afternoon in the form of a beautiful meditation session that left me in tears. I bought a new tarot deck at the Pagan Pride festival I went to today and drew some cards from my new Goddess Tarot deck to find out more about the direction my writing is going. One of the cards I drew was Kwan Yin, the Chinese Bodhisattva who embodies compassion and sacrifice. In Chinese Buddhism, she is known to refuse Nirvana until every soul on earth has attained enlightenment.

I was contemplating the ways that this could play into my writing since my main characters are angels in human form. The thoughts turned over in my head as I began cleaning up the living room.
I picked up a piece of folded paper and looked at it to figure out if it was garbage or not. It turned out to be a chant that I’d gotten at a Kabbalah workshop. Tucked inside the paper was a tag from a jacket I’d bought. The company’s name was Namaste. The word means, “The Divine in me respects the Divine in you.” I decided that small coincidence was a signal to sit down, listen to the chant and relieve some stress with meditation.

I looked up the chant on YouTube and it started out very beautifully. I decided to light some incense and select a mandala from my big book of Tantric Buddhist art to use as my meditation focus. I sat down, let my eyes go out of focus and let the story in the mandala consume me.

Once I was in a trance state of mind, I let everything drop away. I let my attachments go and I was really in the moment. Sometimes when I get to that place, images come and go from my mind like drifting clouds on a crisp, fall day. When this happened Today, I saw myself in a Buddhist temple. I was an old, Buddhist monk and I let myself settle into his body and his peace of mind. Then the feeling and images were gone. I got comfortable in the present again and accepted that I was going to have a very pleasant session.

The sorrow hit me suddenly. Heaviness overtook my entire body and I felt the pain of the entire world. The pain and suffering of the entire planet consumed me and I knew the depths of all the suffering that surrounds all living things. Tears streamed down my face because I was in physical pain.

In my spitiuality, I believe that we are all spiritual beings, born into this with no memory of where we come from, why we’re here and what our soul purpose is.

And then in the moment of crying tears for the pain that we experience as light beings separated from the Divine, I came to know that my soul purpose is to understand compassion and spread that understanding to others. I can’t fear crying tears of compassion anymore because it is tears of compassion that heal our world. When people feel the pain of others, they no longer want others to feel pain. In order to stop the pain of others, we must treat others as we treat ourselves and respect the Divine in everyone.

And I came to realize that the one message that I must make clear in my writing is that we must remain compassionate. No matter how terrible or ugly or violent the world gets. We, as a planet, are on the verge of some big, big global changes that we have to face together as a people. These changes can be frightening or beautiful, but in order to bring about the dawning of a peaceful world, we must continue to give compassion, above all, abundantly.

The problem is, the human race has forgotten how to have compassion for itself. Compassion that heals the world must start with finding compassion for ourselves. Only then will that compassion overflow to others until we are no different than each other, all the living things on this planet, the sacred elements and Gaia herself. Only then will the world know peace, when we are one again. It makes me think of this song we sang in church growing up, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

I stood up, 4 minutes before the song was over, and realized that I experienced something powerful. I found the message I wanted to communicate in my story again and the inspiration cycled through my entire body. And now I know that every time I’m lost in these edits and not sure where to turn, I can always bring it back to the mantra.

“We must remain compassionate.”