Feather.

Light. Lighter than air. That is what I feel and know when I see a feather. I dread feeling heavy. Heavy with stress. Heavy with exaustion. Heavy with feelings. Heavy with guilt. Heavy with work. Heavy with being overwhelmed, overworked, and obligated. It causes me to be grouchy. And when I say grouchy, that is the understatement of the year. You do not want to see me grouchy. It's like stepping into the front lines of a war zone. I'm very black and white, I have very minimal grey area with mood. Imagine the opposite of the kind and gentle Jamie. The polar opposite. When I get this way, the house stays quiet. The silence irritates me more, because then I begin to feel guilty that my bad mood, my heaviness, has placed a suffocating blanket over the people in my home. I appreciate the respect of my mood, my black heaviness, and it reminds me that my aura blends into others auras around me. I have to "get light". I need to be a feather. When I made my feather branding for my photography, I was learning to find my lightness. I began soul searching, and looking inside for my inner light. I began meditation. I began living inside my consiousness. I began researching practices of calming triggers. I became more peaceful. I learned how to give myself a little more grey inbetween the black and white. It all helped. But in all of that searching, I still had a nagging feeling that I was missing something. Something very important. It hit me like a ton of bricks one day, in the car of all places. I just began thinking of my feathers. My own plume of feathers. The feathers that belonged to me. We all have our own feathers, but we all have different feathers. My feathers at the time felt heavy and soiled. My home feathers, my mom feathers, my wife feathers, my daughter feathers, my life feathers, my friend feathers, my career feathers, they felt so heavy. Those heavy, soiled feathers were restricting my flight. The flight that is necessary to keep going forward. You cannot go anywhere when you are stuck in a heavy mess. That's when I asked God to be my wind. I am HIS feather. When in His wind, I am pure, clean and light. And he will propel me in the direction he wants me to go. I prayed. I offered all my feathers. I gave him all power to control where he decided to scatter me. The piece I was missing was now found. Life began to feel a little lighter. Sometimes, giving up control of things is the hardest possible thing for me to do. In reality, I am never in control. The more I try to control everything, the farther away the solution to my situation becomes. The carrot in front of the horse, essentially. Learning to "just be" has been a hard lesson. I am a "no one can do it like I want it done" type. But I need to learn to let go in order for God to bring me forward. For 2012 and over into the years God allows me, I will be a feather in God's wind. I will allow him to lead me in the direction he so chooses. I will be lighter, and able to be free flowing to His hand in my life.