What Kind of Joy?

In my book, there's joy and there's JOY.

The first arises spontaneously out of doing something I enjoy: preparing raw food, hiking in the woods on a brilliant spring day, or creating custom illustrations for someone's book. It's a great feeling, and I encourage it as much as possible throughout my schedule. This kind of joy can also come from a particular situation I find myself in, like being lauded by friends, getting the opportunity to truly serve someone, or coming upon a field of gorgeous flowers. This is circumstantial joy.

JOY, on the other hand is direct from Spirit. It matters not what the circumstance, JOY keeps bubbling up. I see it as an artesian well, constantly bubbling over into every experience I have - "good" or "bad". This is a gift from God, letting me know that I am indeed doing diligence, paying attention enough to maintain conscious connection. Once I opened to True Source I was flooded with it. There is nothing else as sweet, except when, like two hands connected by the heart I experience both joy and JOY together. Ah! Now that is another word: BLISS.

May all of your days contain extensive moments of Bliss!

The Joy of Lettering and Things Like That

Today I am in the midst of hand lettering 130 envelopes in fancy calligraphy with a real fountain pen and teal ink. Somebody's gotta do it, and I LOVE that I get to. There is something about just sitting in contemplation with pen in hand and address list before me that gets me in that joy flow. True, I might experience a tired hand or something, yet it is well worth it.

Joy is a Fountain in my Heart

Many, many years ago I was first starting on another path toward living my life in integrity with my spiritual self when I came into an inspired epiphany: that I could choose how I experience my life. Simply put, no matter what it is that I am walking through, I could choose what my outlook would be, what my perceptions of it would be, what I experience. It occurred to me that I could metaphorically "get a new pair of glasses" to have a new view of the same landscape.

I decided then that I choose joy! I could be scrubbing the porcelain repository with anger or miserable victim thoughts, or I could be scrubbing the same vessel while singing and giving thanks for my health that I could accomplish the feat. It is ok either way. I still get a clean bathroom. So, I decided to sing at it. I decided that I would dance through the grocery store, and that I would love what I do and do what I love.

We've all heard the saying, "calling the glass half full, or half empty." I knew that then, but somehow getting that I could choose joy really turned my experience of my life around. So, when I am doing things that just don't feel good at all, I still work on putting on my joy glasses. And when I get to do things that make my heart soar like creating a really superb graphic or writing a song, the joy part is easy.

The Joy of Doing Art

I love to sing. I love to dance. I love to write a well-turned phrase. And I love to express through pen or brush or camera or carving tool or with my well-worn mouse on the computer. To me it is all the same in that it is a place of joy I enter when I open up to be of service through inspired and guided creative expression - no matter what the media. It is a blissful state of consciousness I enter when engaged in active creativity and I am ever grateful for the gift and opportunity that blesses me with the experience of it.

Even further, the more that I have allowed myself to this blissful state of grace, the more I have discovered that I can feel that all the time. It is as if the world is my canvas, and every moment my brush. Each moment consciously engaged in doing "thine will, not mine" in service.