Desire, Trust, & The Game of Life
You can view any creation through a variety of lenses. For today, consider the unfolding pattern of your life through the lens of a game.
Every game has rules that define it, that articulate the boundaries and limits within which the game is played, and the rules of engagement that apply inside the world of the game.
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a global set of restrictions that limit freedom of movement and assembly, among many, many other things. Consider the constraints it brings in its wake as the structure of the game. Within those tightly defined boundaries, discover what freedoms you have available to you.
The quality and measure of these freedoms will be determined in part by the elements of your life — whether or not you have kids or others whom you are caring for at home; whether or not you still have to go out to work each day; whether or not you have the financial means and good health to be able to ride this out without crashing and burning…
If you do have the freedom to experiment, to play, here’s something you can try, if you wish.
Establish a basic structure for your day. Rhythms and patterns help ground you, help you feel safe. Go to bed at the same time each evening; get out of bed at the same time each day. Make your bed, brush your teeth, dress to delight and express your own beauty and creative pleasure (You hate wearing pants? Wear whatever delights you!). Move. Stretch your body, your mind, your heart.
Then, consciously enter the game by choosing to pay close attention to the most nuanced movement of your desires.
Get to know your desires at their root, in the moment that they arise. What distinguishes a desire from an impulse? Is one more trustworthy than the other?
Learn to discern what trustworthy feels like, in this situation — what does it mean to you, to be trustworthy to your desires, and to trust them in turn?
Desires are neither stable or static—they are as changeable as everything else in the universe. But when you follow their lead, they’ll guide you through a vast, intricate pattern that is the tapestry of your life interwoven with the life of your world. They offer a pathway to Divine Order in a world that’s appears chaotic in the extreme.
Trust yourself, give yourself the time and spaciousness to follow your desires minutely, attentively, willingly, and you’ll discover how, what seem like random desires are in fact essential threads in the pattern that your soul and the soul of the world weave together.
It’s the simplest, most radical, everyday magic, the kind you make by sinking deeper into the simplicity and richness of your incarnate soul, whose music is desire.
And the game? This time of rupture offers constraints that are perfect for a game whose aim is to discover what happens when you let your desires determine your choices.
Befriend it — your desire, this game — and you’ll find, in yourself, an unshakeable trust that no longer simply cultivates desire, but that embodies a unified consciousness through which desire (whether for yourself or your world) leads to action, fulfillment, and right relationship with the pattern of your life.
Even when your desire is to do nothing at all; to nap, or sit in the sun, or wander without any destination in mind — each of these is a choice and an action that can lead you to right relationship with your soul, and the game of life.
Radically trusting and acting on your desire, moment to moment, leads you to the place where the pattern of your humanity, the pattern of your extended soul’s ecology, and the pattern of the world soul harmonize as organically as winter’s cold fist opens to the warm hand of spring.