Star dust, star shine. Of course.

A few years ago, I got an interesting inspiration on this question by initially disagreeing with Jacob Nordby and Suzanne Michellein their discussion on Jacob’s book, Blessed Are the Weird. Nordby’s radio show is well worth your time. I listen regularly while on the road from hither to thither and yon in my daily rounds.

So, Jacob and Suzanne Michelle were talking about the challenge of figuring out who you really are in the cosmic, spiritual sense while living in the limitations of time and space on Planet Earth. Jacob had focused at one point in a previous show on finding the answer to this question, and Suzanne Michelle wanted him to focus more on how to negotiate life here within our human bodies and life situation (if I remember this correctly), because knowing who we are cosmically is like trying to grasp infinity. Much easier to start with the finite and work your way out from there.

But the first thing I thought when they began talking about the Who Am I? question, as if most folks don’t know that and are searching for the answer, is, I do know Who I Really Am. Oh, yes. I understand the infinity bit totally. I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in this, either. The challenge for me is squeezing my infinity into the finite boundaries of space-time. I know Who I Am. What I want to figure out is how to best express that within this finite biological expression I’ve chosen.

The cool thing was that Jacob and Suzanne Michelle spent the rest of the show talking about her little system to do just that. Also, Jacob’s general focus on self-transformation is to embrace the beauty and simplicity-within-complexity of everyday life, being “infinite,” if you will, in his response to the finite, the present moment. Embracing all of it, every leaf, every hug, every person, every day. From what Suzanne Michelle was saying, she’s fully in that space, too.

So, the takeaway is, whether you have a deep knowing of your infinity or not, the place to be is here, the time to be is now. Get up off your meditation pillow or your worry chair and go out and pack a snowball (if you’re up in Idaho where Jacob lives), or rake some leaves (and then jump in them!), or enjoy the last warm sun before the cold front shows up (if you live in southeast Texas like me). (The above pic is of one of my favorite places in the whole world since my childhood, my grandparents’ cottage on Merrymeeting Lake in NH).

Get your shine on, as Jacob says.