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Inner Healing
The Burning Questions:
A Letter on the Awakened Heart
Excerpted from Heart of the Visionary, by Shiloh Sophia McCloud
photo by Beth Bauer
Dear One,
I want to write you a letter as if we are old friends. So this would be a good time to make yourself a cup of tea. If we were together right now, I would make you a cup like the one I am having. Lots of cream, honey and cinnamon sprinkled on top.
I am writing you because I want us to ask the burning questions of life. Why do the questions burn? Because if they don’t get asked, they may be hurting us even if we don’t know it. But when they get asked, whether or not they get answered, they awaken our hearts flaming with life. With love. With possibility.
Tell me, what is on your mind the first thing in the morning, right before your eyes open, when your thoughts have just begun to shake off the night? Are you happy? What are you working on that is thrilling you?
I want to know what dream keeps coming back that is yet to be fulfilled. I remind you of your wild ways, and you remind me of mine. I remind you of who you were before everything else happened. You remind me of who I was. I ask if you have let go of your desire to be loved fully for who you are. Did you grow up to be who you wanted to be?
Are you doing your life work—not just a work life? Did you give up too much of yourself to others? Is there a dream you are nursing quietly in the corner, feeding it the occasional dark chocolate to keep it from roaring too loud? Can we bring it into the light right now? Do you have a project, a vision, a plan, or some unreasonable desire?
If you confess to having let go of too much of who you are, I will challenge you. Maybe you do not want to have this conversation and you would rather e-mail me next week and speak of everyday things. But I won’t listen to your protests. Maybe you will challenge me back.
The burning questions will never go away. They insist upon being courted like an eternally new lover. They must be sought and sung to, nurtured and adorned. They cause our hearts to wake up!
I want to know, if you could do anything, what would it be? What does your perfect day look and feel like—from beginning to end? As you speak, I will listen and create a safe space for you.
Here’s what I know: we have to choose a life path and do it no matter what. We have to do it even when we don’t feel like it is possible, even when there does not appear to be enough money. We have to work on it even if we are doing other work.
I am not afraid to tell you of my unreasonable desire. I want to do what I can to end suffering in the world. It isn’t something one just makes up one day; it is something that comes alive in you. It is my vision that leads me to create, to write, to paint, to teach, to dance, to be in visionary business, to follow my visions, and to be in conversations like this one.
The next big ole’ fire breathing burning question is: How do we find and practice self-love? If we could do just that, transformation would become our rhythm, instead of a goal we keep trying to reach. What do you think?
Let’s go out on a treasure hunt for self-love. It’s time we rid ourselves of those wounds that poke us in the eye when we are gazing at the horizon. We have to let those harmful stories about ourselves go. We have spent enough time tending and licking them.
I will close this letter to you with a few more of the burning questions I ask myself that light the spark that awakens the heart!
What stories no longer serve me? What guilt can I surrender? What project can I begin that inspires me? How can I deepen my spiritual practice? What am I excited about—I mean, thrilled about? How do I “self-medicate” and is it working? What do I really long for? What do I find the most beautiful? What scares me? What question would I ask Creator if I could ask any question? What good message can I tell myself when I start to think harmful thoughts? What would need to happen in my life for it to feel like a visionary life, a life well led?
First thing this morning I stood in the dark, in the rain. Enclosed in this letter to you is a maple leaf that was on the wet grass. And a seagull feather I found at the beach a few blocks from my house. I am going to kiss your letter now. Swack! Did you hear that?
Signed, with bright blessings and love, Shiloh
Since 1996, Shiloh Sophia McCloud has been a full time artist, writer, teacher and gallery owner. She has many books on creativity and transformation and is the founder of a publishing company, Cosmic Cowgirls Ink, LLC. She runs a school of creative arts, and her co-owned galleries, Electric Rose and Wisdom House, are committed to furthering the sacred arts movement through works of positive media. Learn more at www.shilohsophia.com or www.cosmiccowgirls.com.