Called to Action

Unlike last week, I’m feeling called to action. Michelle Obama’s speech at the DNC awakened it. A shift within the flow of Claymont’s 50th planning committee spoke of it. Where last week I felt confused, this week a clarity is emerging.

Don’t get me wrong. The difference between charging ahead on my own and seeing what is coming to me is huge. They have different flavors. Pushing an agenda tends to involve self-will and ego. What I’m trying to develop is the ability to notice a need and act from that.

My tendency is to “do” first and ask questions afterwards. Beg forgiveness rather than permission. But when it comes time to tamp myself down and put that pro-active energy into allowing the real need to emerge, it’s hard for me. It calls me to action in a new way.

Doing it Differently

Here’s a current example. The planning committee for Claymont’s 50^th event began with the same group that has worked together for years. Initial resistance to opening the process evolved into sensing the need for fresh input. To me at least, it felt like our energy had become stagnant. Help came unexpectedly with volitional new faces. The result has been an interesting opening to the Unknown.

It has definitely been work for me to let go of my own ideas about how this gathering could be formatted. Yet there’s an emerging space that I sense will fill itself in ways I can’t foresee. It leaves open more possibilities and more input from the energy of those coming.

Even so, there’s still a need to prepare the container, both physically and energetically. There is work to do. Sitting back and letting it all “happen” feels like the wrong triad. But what is the right triad?

Playing my Role

To what action am I being called? That is my question now. How can I help without getting in the way of what wants to happen. What role can I fill using the triad that is needed?

To start with, when I see what needs to be done I can do it instead of expecting someone else to. Stop the car and move the fallen branch off the road. By playing my part as a community member I support the whole. That was Michelle’s call to action, “just do it!”

Acting this way is a different “doing” than the one that comes from self-will which has the “I want” flavor to it. Doing what I am being called to allows a different energy to arise. Practicing this kind of “listening” creates a new triad in myself that enables me to hear when I am being called, and to what action. Then I can play my role.