RandomBliss: Where is your Bliss Station?

Where I work in the mornings.

Listening to: I went looking for B-52's (it seemed right with the summer weather) and found this combination.

Today's Bliss Formula: Today I get to meet, for coffee, the owner of this lovely looking place -- someone I have met because of this blog. Cool. And then I have hours at the library reference desk, about which I am a little too excited. Geek.

I picked up the most recent copy of Yoga + Joyful Living yesterday at the Whole Foods Co-op, and later in the day, sitting on a plaid blanket in our yard, I opened it and came across some Joseph Campbell.

As you may or may not know, this blog is heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell, as I wrote about in my very first post. (Which had no picture!!? Or differently colored words?!?!)

Yoga Plus quotes Campbell from his famous interview with Bill Moyers in 1988 (watch it. really you should).

As you get older, the claims of the environment upon you are so great that you hardly know where the hell you are. What is it you intended? You're always doing something that is required of you this minute, that minute, another minute. Where is your bliss station?

I love that question: What is it you intended?

I think this is a question we could ask ourselves every evening, to check in and see if we are living our priorities or if we are living other people's expectations of us. We could ask it at the end of the week, the end of the month, and the end of every year. Good stuff.

He goes on to explain the concept of the bliss station:

You must have a room or a certain hour a day or so where you do not know what was in the newspapers that morning. You don't know who your friends are. You don't know what you owe anybody. You don't know what anybody owes to you. But a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. First you may find that nothing's happening there. But if you have a sacred place and use it and take advantage of it, something will happen.

If these were the only instructions you ever received for living, they'd be enough.

The room in the picture at the top of this post is one of my bliss stations. When thinking about this concept, I realized that we have created a house that is all bliss station in one form or another.

The room in this picture is where I work in the mornings, where I imagine my creative life into being, but it is also where I do yoga. And for me, yoga is my most important bliss station. The very act of yoga brings forth my true nature.

If I am anxious, I remember during yoga that my true self is free of anxiety, that my true self is free. Period. If I can't figure out what my next step is in some project, during yoga it comes to me.

It makes sense to me that my writing room and my yoga room are one and the same. Doing yoga gets me out of my head and into my body where all the inspiration and ideas actually live. I love that this room is on the second floor with a dormer through which I can observe the world but not be seen. And it is orange -- the color of creativity and energy and fire.

Another of my bliss stations, the back yard, is where we sit at night and watch the sunset and look at the stars and sit at a fire with friends. In this back yard, in this pink chair, I can look up at the big sky and remember that my mind is also like that -- expansive.

Do you have a bliss station? Or more than one? If you don't, make one. Find a space. Fill it with things that have meaning for you. Or empty it of everything. Whichever helps most.

Then sit there and listen for the silence. Deep within the silence you will begin to hear your true, honest, real voice. The voice that will tell you all your dreams and how to achieve them.

Or go to this bliss station with a specific question in mind. No matter how heavy the question, hold it lightly.

This is a good place to ask the big ones: who am I? Why am I here? What should I do? What is my bliss? What is it that I intended? Where the hell am I?

Remember, Joseph Campbell says you must do this daily. You must be committed, above all, to yourself and your dreams. You're here for a reason and you must be loyal to that reason.

Joseph Campbell's writings provide an excellent map, but you must explore the territory.