Girl On Fire

This is the title of Alicia Keys’ latest album, which, if you are hunting for Christmas presents, would be a great pick. This CD rocks! It is musically and artistically diverse, and well executed. It sends a few good messages out into the world (the importance of love, women’s empowerment, personal integrity) and delivers the goods with passion and style. What can I say? I love this album.

The title in and of itself is inspiring and motivational. Are we going to spend our lives drifting like hungry ghosts or are we going to find our god given passions and move in the direction of fulfillment? Are we going to settle for what is a known quantity and, therefore, ostensibly safe and secure, or are we going to take an educated risk and explore new territory? Settling for the known is just way too easy. It requires almost nothing of us.

Growth, particularly in terms of depth, requires us to step outside our comfort zone. It demands pushing our edges a little. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Having said that, I do think it is important not to be reckless. Discovering what makes our juices flow necessitates a little thoughtful research. Figuring out what our priorities are, deciding where and on what we want to spend our energy takes a little time usually.

Exposure to new people, books, music, film etc., all hold the potential for enlightening us, for gaining knowledge about what is inspiring versus what is breathlessly banal.

This trip is one where the dictates of the heart need to be taken seriously. The mind has its role to play in sorting through all the material that comes up, but has the unfortunate tendency to believe its own way of knowing things superior. The heart knows things that are important, credible and relevant too. Ideally there is a sort of dialogue between the two.

I believe it is Einstein who is often credited as having pointed out that if we want our lives to be different, we can’t achieve that end without doing things differently. 

If a life on fire is the direction we want to head in then we need to discover the source of our passion and vitality.

I want to wish you all a very happy holiday season. Be well, enjoy the people close to you and dare to rock like a girl on fire!