I did something the other day that shocks me as I look back on it. I tried to convince a co-worker through my speech, dress and actions, that I was just ordinary and average. I went out of my way with my words to assure her that there was nothing “weird” about me, that I was as “down to earth” and “average” as anyone could ever be. Well, in one sense of the word I suppose that was true. I mean I do wear clothes, eat food, sleep and do other normal things, but in another sense of the word, I lied, to her and to myself. I’m not average and I’ve never been ordinary. I have always marched slightly off-beat and been rather individualistic, but not necessarily on purpose. I just grew up a little sheltered, a child of nature, communing more easily with bugs and trees and rocks than with people. So, there are a good many social cues and rules that I have been oblivious to for most of my life. And even now, as I learn them, they feel fake and somehow wrong to me, like wearing plastic underwear might feel. That evening when I got home, I pondered our conversation and felt a sudden wave of nausea. I went out of my way to convince her that I was not “weird”. Why? I don’t know. But I was disappointed in myself because of it.

However, as I pondered it, I realized that unless some of us run the risk of being weird, of doing things differently, no new discoveries will take flight, inventions will be stifled, societal wrongs will remain unquestioned and all that is beautiful and unique will be lost in the status quo, in the rising tide of mediocrity. I don’t want to be mediocre. I want to be excellent, not rich, not famous. Just excellent. I want to look in the mirror each morning with a clear conscience that I lived not for fame, acceptance or materialistic gain, but I lived by what I perceived to be right according to the laws of the spirit world, that I was guided my entire life by a code of honor. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the world recognizes my code of ethics, accepts them or honors them. It only matters that I am true to them, because otherwise my life would be fake and I would have impacted no one to make a choice. What kind of a choice? A choice to either aspire to greatness or settle for mediocrity. I don’t want to be mediocre, not in my life, not in my choices, not in my heart. I don’t want to believe every thing the voices of this world tell me are true. Voices lie. Humans lie. Religions lie. I want an immovable standard that cannot lie. I want an eternal code of spiritual conduct that does not cease to exist.

So, I will not always be politically correct. I may not be philosophically correct, theologically accurate or idealistically compatible with every person who comes across my blog. I may loose readership, I may gain readership. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I will have been true to my heart and spoken of what I know. If in the future I discover I am wrong, then I will change, but so long as no proof can sway me, then I shall remain steadfast. I remember the old Latin saying, “Tibi ipsi esto fidelis”, loosely translated, “To thine ownself be true.”

Sometimes, after a day of correcting, of disciplining and instructing, of guiding and showing, this hawk’s wings are laden with mud from too
many days of rain, from too much time on the ground.

I become still. I listen

to Sarah’s songs, to Susan’s melodies, to violins and mountain ballads, to Native flutes, wind in the grass, birds in the trees, to water and penny whistles.

The sludge looses its power, slips from my wings and I feel the breeze, the lift. Always, it is the music
that gives me wings.