A January-7 deadline approaches and I noodle notes here and there: on my studio chalkboard, a scrap of paper, my laptop. Can’t find the focused time I need right now to hunker down and write the grant and that seems all right.

Underneath, there’s a sense that things will fall into place as and when they should. There’s time for the busyness, it tells me, later. Right now, I need to sit with the larger question than meeting a deadline. Can I do the projects that align with the funding? Will I have the personal energy, the volunteers and enthusiasm of others? This is clearly not a solitary endeavor, even though it seems so in this moment.

I’m wary of completely giving myself away to projects that will obviously companion and deepen Artsy Fartsy*. I stand at an all-too-familiar crossroads. I have given myself away countless times before. Is this one of those times or is it really where God is leading me? Could my surrender be to let go of the pretense of a livelihood and live my passion sans a paycheck? I struggle here. Earning my own way is so intrinsic to who I have been.

More simply, deeply and profoundly for me is that taking care of myself, independently, is all I’ve known. It’s a locked pattern, trapped in my psyche. Perhaps mistakenly, I’ve thought my task was to ask for help, human help.

I had a wide opening Wednesday during my monthly shamanic-counseling session. Insight into where, why and how I have been wounded. It’s almost too much to discuss yet. Generally, I was hurt and left alone to tend to the wound, then never given the opportunity to talk about it. Alone, alone, alone. That’s where I always seem to be.

Until I remember I’m not. This sucking up that I do whenever there is something that I [think I] have to do myself, which is most of the time, is so wrongfully inherent. I’ve been surrendering to God half-assed. Saying yes, but still feeling responsible and trying to control aspects. Surrendering some aspects is not surrender.

So how do I let this rip, I mean really rip? Like the way I felt a layer melt off Wednesday through breath work. I feel apart right now, like I’m living somewhere in between. Some kind of waiting-to-totally-surrender purgatory because I don’t know the next step.

I keep getting the message to pursue my passion and the paycheck will follow. Not sure what that means, but, I believe, it includes carefully discerning what is mine to do and what is not … not just doing because I have or can.

So through the holidays, the celebration of Jesus’ being in the world and anticipation of the clean slate of a new year, I will wait and see what settles and where I can surrender fully.

• How have I only half surrendered?

• What will it take for me to fully surrender?

• What’s holding me back?

• What patterns must I break?

• What is my prayer right now?

go it alone,

always

it has

seemed

 I crave

the solitude

don’t want

to be crowded

or smothered

and then,

I wonder

why I’m

always the one

to get things

done

I forget

that I can

surrender

to God

my prayer:

please, teach

me how

*an arts-exploration for at-risk kids I offer in my studio and for which I have received a Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment, a Good News Associates grant and one from the Clermont County Mental health and Recovery Board

http://pickettendowment.quaker.org/

http://http://goodnewsassoc.org/

http://http://www.ccmhrb.org/

Listen to post:

http://www.turtleboxstories.com/audio/waitingtototallysurrender.mp3