The human spirit is a fickled energy. Sometimes it wants to curl up into a ball and hide from itself and the world. We like to build tiny houses so that the soul doesn’t have too much room to wander around and get lost. We want to play our cards close to the chest.

And there are other times when we want to run outside and dance in the rain. The spirit feels confined by the predictable and the routine. We are sure that there must be more and our heart will burst if we can’t stretch our souls to embrace the whole world.

How do we free the spirit to fly? How do we face our fear of falling and climb to heights we have not experienced before?

I wish I knew. I am sure it is different for each of us. For me, it helps to accept myself as fickled and learn to embrace the place I am. When I am tired, when there has been too much stimulus and too many changes all at once, I try to give myself permission to draw in. I try to be conscious of the my boundaries and the need to draw them with a darker pencil. I try to accept this is a time to live small, to steward my energy and protect my soul.

And then when I get restless, when the space begins to feel suffocating, I start testing my spirit. How large does it want to live? What tickles my fancy? Is there a play we can go see? How about a movie? A concert? Friends to invite over? Day trips to explore unfamiliar places? Longer trips to far away places? Service to provide?

Since the days we have to live are relatively few, and the world we have been given is excessively large, I want to live large as many days as I can. I need tiny spaces to rest and gain strength, but the fantastic world is my dream.