What is a Tiny Little Spark?

What the HECK is a Tiny Little Spark?

So the story goes like this: I'm leading a 5-month long Tiny Little Spark Wintertime Transformational Immersion + Mentorship in Bar Harbor at our local studio this upcoming Jan.-May 2013. And quite a few folks wanna know - What the heck is a Tiny Little Spark? Sit back, get comfy. Let me explain :)

Your Tiny Little Spark was born even before you were. It will remain in your presence all of your life. You have the ability to create change through it while you’re here. And you will carry it with you when you leave the Earth.

Your spark is what lights you up and the light itself. It is also the way you feel when you’re illuminated properly.  It’s what comes most natural, with the most ease. It is your way of being, your destiny, your calling. It’s what you exude and the method that you take in order to exude it. It is You. The big You.

The spark may manifest as a sense of eternal aliveness when climbing a tree. It may reveal itself as a special knack for writing or art or creating beautiful food. It may also be a feeling of rightness that comes from helping others, from listening deeply, from teaching meditation or flying kites. We may feel our spark burning when we sing, organize bills, act on stage or parent compassionately. 

And on a similar note, your spark may not be a thing, per se, it may just be a feeling of being at home in your own skin. It may be waking up stoked to be on the Earth for one more day. It may be acting out of grace when the shit hits the fan.

Most people sense this spark, this glow inside the heart, when they’re young. A few folks stoke its flame perpetually throughout their life without losing sight of the embers. But for most of us, our spark gets obscured, snuffed out or otherwise nearly extinguished. In other words, we forget what our calling is, we disengage from what it means to be truly and deeply happy, we accept mediocrity because it is “safe,” we say goodbye to childhood dreams and enter the world of the exclusively average.

Why? Well, why does any fire go out? Because the elements necessary for its surviving and thriving are eliminated. Because other things get our time and attention. Because we experience the stop-drop-and-roll traumas of our lives.

But there are ways to rekindle your essence. There are ways to become yourself again and carry the torch of your own existence. Your spark may be a steady flicker in the dark or it may be an occasional bonfire to gather ‘round. Likewise it may be a wildfire that sweeps the nation.

Its size is unimportant. What matters is its renewal, its resurgence, and its reawakening.

Your Tiny Little Spark – the gift you have to offer to yourself, your family, your community and the world – is yours and yours alone. Its up to you if you feel called to share it with millions or just hold it within your own Soul. And of course you can have more than one spark…sometimes there are hundreds hovering, just like fireflies in July.

So I want to know, if you feel so inclined to answer (and the answer can come directly to me, or just stir within your own heart-mind):

What is your Tiny Little Spark (or Sparks, plural!)?

How did it get extinguished? Is it still being doused?

And if it has been rekindled, what flint and tinder did you use to get it burning bright? If it hasn’t been re-lit, or if it’s just smoldering under the surface, what do you think it would take to spark up that revolution?

Here are my answers to these questions because I mean, hey, if I’m asking you to share your deepest secrets with me, I’d better be ready to spill with you:

What are some of my Tiny Little Sparks?: Being happy for no reason. Being a bright light to myself and the world. Being involved in alchemical, deep, healing and meaningful life transformations for myself and others. Living the most gutsy, authentic, outrageous, edgy, and outspoken life possible and coaching others to do so as well. Continually questioning beliefs – the beliefs that limit my own uniqueness and keep me a prisoner of mediocrity. Summed up, my Tiny Little Spark is and has always been empowering and inspiring myself and other fellow human beings to live a radiant life-filled life.

How do these sparks get extinguished? Are they still being doused? Well, really, I think we go through little traumas every single day as human beings that can cause our fire to be doused little bit by little bit. But what I’ve found is that we can utilize an entire arsenal of tools that help us to remember who we really are and why we’re truly here. And even though the rest of this answer isn’t going to sound PC, I’m going to be totally straight with you so that you, too, might have the courage to illuminate the uncomfortable answers to these same questions. My sparks of happiness, inspiration and creativity got extinguished for the first time in Kindergarten when a teacher of mine scolded me and made me sit in a darkened, sterile, tiny corner of a room that was separated from all of my peers. I was given this punishment for laughing while repeating a word that I found funny and amusing and poetic and beautiful. What horrid thing was I saying? Ketchup. Literally from that point on I found it difficult to laugh, orate, or creatively express myself in front of others without expecting some sort of public humility.

There are more stories like this, but that one stands out as the most poignant.
Other significant fire retardants of my life: Childhood deaths, a best friend killing herself and me not being there for her, living with a partner with severe mental illness, divorce from said partner, raising a child on my own, emergency C-Sections with no health insurance to cover the enormous bill, being an isolated stay-at-home mother of very young children.

What did you use to get your spark burning bright again?

Well, honestly, I used everything I could get my hands on UNTIL I came to the way of life and being that I have now (Which is what inspired all that we will be covering and diving into in the Tiny Little Spark Wintertime Transformational Immersion…). My daily life and routine include being in touch with other people from my local Sangha, doing Kundalini Yoga and Meditation, embodying Elemental Ayurveda, deep transformational pranayama and breathwork exercises, chanting and kirtan, infusing my diet with the gems of Sublime Nutrition including superfoods, local, wild,  raw and living food, taking tonic herbs like Reishi, Chaga, Goji, Cordyceps, and Ginseng, detoxing up to five times a year, Juice Fasting & Soul Feasting, dyadic inquiry, teaching what I know to others (in other words, brining my gifts out to a starving world!),dancing, laughing, and Shamanic ways of seeing every interaction and relationship in my life. And…of course, being here in the NOW!

Want to be in on our Immersion? Email me! siri.temple@gmail.com