Choose the Day

Carpe diem, goes the old Latin tag. “Seize the day.”  The sole commandment of conscious living is no less proactive, but more conscious: choose the day.

What we encounter on any day has a great deal to do with what we bring to that day. We draw or repel different events and encounters according to our attitudes and the basic energy we are carrying. We find doors open or closed according to our willingness or refusal to change our expectations and our plans as circumstances change.

We choose every day, whether we are aware of this or not. If we tell ourselves we have no choice, that is a choice we are making. If we tell ourselves that we have no choice because a situation is beyond our control, we forget that we can still choose our response to the world, and that can change everything. Whenever I hear someone — perhaps a voice within myself — bleating or protesting that the world is cruel and can't be changed, I think of Viktor Frankl in the nightmare of Auschwitz.

At the close of a beautiful week of soul healing and shared dreaming in one of my Active Dreaming workshops, I asked the members of our circle to choose the day, in a personal statement. Here's a sampling of what they said:

“I choose to be present today with all of my senses.”

“I choose to have Tiger in my heart.”

“I choose to follow my soul's purpose.”

“I choose to see my waking life as a dream.”

“I choose to travel with the energy of the group.”

“I choose to be compassionate.”

“I choose to be a survivor.”

“I choose to soar with the bird and see my roads from a higher perspective.”

“I choose the fire.”

My own statement, on that day: “I choose to live as if everything matters.”

Truth, in our lives, is what we remember and act upon. Lists of rules or intentions can become like grocery lists; we are forever in danger of forgetting items or getting what matters mixed up.  So my list of personal commandments reduces to this: Choose the day. The content of that choice is less important than the consciousness that we have a choice and need to approach life, on any day, as choosers, not spectators, victims, or consumers.

Text adapted from Active Dreaming by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.

Photo: Path of Magic at Mosswood Hollow by RM. This is where I lead extraordinary adventures and trainings, including my five-day residential retreat "Writing as a State of Conscious Dreaming", one of the most unusual creative writing workshops on the planet.