Making Wishes

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I know I promised to write about La Maddalena, Santa Teresa di Gallura and Corsica, but I have been busy and haven't had a chance to get to those blogs yet. Something more urgent has come up! The art of making wishes!

While I'm visiting family in Canada and nearing another birthday, I started to think about my upcoming year and what I hope to discover, accomplish, enjoy and most importantly, learn.

What I have discovered in my (nearly) 42 years is that wishing is an art. Like most anything that we treat with utmost respect, the moment of receiving is when we have learned the refinement of giving.

How similar is wishing and desiring? Desiring is second chakra and wishing is fourth chakra. From the groin to the heart. Big difference, but what about the third chakra, the one that lies between the second and the fourth? Where gut instinct helps us know what to do when the mind is too busy being indecisive and giving orders and the groin is too busy seducing and being seduced?

It's connecting to that third chakra, the solar plexus, that helps us decide what we should be acting on. The mind is full of justifications and intellectual ad nauseum and the groin can reach amazing heights of debauchery, but the connection between the heart and the gut is where we can act with the right intention.

And this is how I made my birthday wish this year.

I have always felt that I had everything I needed and when I didn't, I found a way to get it on my own. But when I couldn't, help always arrived without asking for it and when it didn't, I knew it was a sign to move on and chart new territory in a new direction. There is a lot to say about staying humble in the heart and when you do, watch how the gods favor you with all kinds of abundance.

So this is what I did. I connected my heart and gut and made a wish for my 42nd birthday and decided to help www.charitywater.org raise money for their organization. "Coincidently" after I did this, I read this on their home page: "This September, birthdays can change the world." Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. But I knew I had made the right wish.

I kept my goal simple. 10 people who donate 42$ (one dollar for every year of my life) will help raise 420$ for the charitable organization. I went ahead and made the first donation to get it going.

I should add that I visited West Africa last March and saw the desperation first hand. I consider myself very lucky not only because I live a life of privilege but also because I was able to experience my own fear and discomfort in a place that is clearly not mine. Feeling discomfort is better than not feeling anything at all, but not running away from our discomfort is where we have the possibility to grow internally.

Choosing this charity is also a way for me to face my own discomforts. I could have chosen many charities, especially those concerning animal abuse or abuse of children, but those are easier for me. The purpose of choosing a charity for Africa is to help me get closer to a place that scares me.

‎"Do one thing every day that scares you." Eleanor Roosevelt

 

My birthday is September 28th and I hope to raise 420$ in the next two weeks.

If you'd like to donate to my birthday cause, please visit this link: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/433062?m=7989e80b&bws=stream&ref=mf

And... thank you!