Every Challenge, an Opportunity..:For Pleasure?

Dearest goddesses,

Ah…Pleasure. After a few weeks of challenge and justice and crossroads – this seems like a wonderful breather!

Of course, if you’re like me, you’re thinking how can I have pleasure, take the time out for pleasure when I’m dealing with…justice, challenge, crossroads (just to name a few…) It’s like if we deny, if we just wait and get through the challenges – then there will be plenty of pleasure to be had. If only…when…

I think that is the ultimate lesson of challenge – and it is perfect that pleasure comes right after challenge. Challenge is going to be there regardless, right? And as the Sphinx said – “…every challenge is an opportunity, every challenge presents a gift – every challenge is there to serve you…or not – the choice is yours.” I think one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves would be inside of challenge – to provide for the sensual needs of our body – thank Hathor for the gifts of pleasure –sound, music, song, dance, art, love and touch. And those are simple pleasures to be able to give to ourselves. Listening to music, dancing, looking at or making art and in the immortal words of one of my favorite goddesses: “Just open your legs and abundance will come...” (there’s no need for Mr or Ms right – or right now – treat yourself to a romantic date and allow yourself the pleasure of a home run!)

Patty’s Challenge: In The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, she challenges us with taking ourselves out on Artist’s Dates. These are dates that you take yourself on – or really that you take your inner child/artist on. Plan an artist date this week – schedule it and KEEP IT no matter what comes up.

Love to you,

Patty

P.S. I sort of slacked last week with the theme of challenge and wanted to share something. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the chakras lately – and am reading a great book called Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith (thanks Lula!). I’m still on the first chakra which really relates to the theme of challenge (and pleasure is a nice transition into the 2^nd chakra!)

She talks about the importance of grounding in the first chakra - and without grounding, we do not have the support or foundation of the consciousness awakenings of the upper chakras. To master the first chakra is to understand and heal the body - of which all of us are given just one of to travel along this life...grounding is connecting to the earth and protecting us from becoming overloaded by every day tension. I really liked the following analogy - taking the idea of energy never stopping, only transforming (little did I know that the work of Mr. Little's physics class might actually provide some relevance to my life in some way.) This statement clarified for me the idea of transforming chaos into stillness:

“Grounding brings clarity through stillness. Every action causes a reaction. If we can “still” our reactions to some aspect of a vicious cycle, we are “stepping out of the world of karma.” We are then able to stop the cycle. This is analogous to letting dirty water sit in a glass long enough for the mud to settle to the bottom, clearing the water.”

And if your challenge is survival consider the following:

“Challenge of survival requires us to think and act quickly and to innovate new solutions. Our consciousness is spontaneously focused on our situation in a way that rarely occurs at other times.” I connected to this statement and the poem of the Sphinx – every challenge is there to serve you – or not –the choice is yours.