Firework: An Ecology of the Mind

I can't get the lyrics to Katy Perry's Firework out of my head. While the tune is catchy, the first time I actually listened to the words, I marveled at her perspicacity. Who hasn't felt "like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, wanting to start again"? I sure can remember when I had no skin, "so paper-thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in." And that part about feeling "already buried deep, six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing"? She knows the journey, all right.

This is how I felt when I thought no one understood what the awakening process looked like for me, when they thought I looked fine, unable to read the wildness in my eyes. And as I embarked on a three-plus year dark night of the soul, questioning my very existence, I didn't yet know how to "ignite the light and let it shine." Yet this became my life purpose, and the name of my service — Live Your Light — on the far side of this healing adventure.

How does Katy carry such insight at such a tender age? She penned Firework in her mid-20s — a time when I was still fast asleep spiritually. Given the accelerated pace of personal and planetary evolution, it doesn't surprise me that Katy is conscious far earlier in her life than I was. What's exciting is how cleanly she's managed to encapsulate personal evolution into a few spare lines, offering guidance and upliftment to multitudes on their quest.

Another song that riveted me in a similar way a few years back is Crazy, debuted by Gnarls Barkley in 2006. I was driving, idly listening to the radio, when the DJ offered, "Pay attention to this one," and I was astonished to hear, "I remember when, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that phase. Even your emotions had an echo in so much space. And when you're out there, without care, yeah, I was out of touch. But it wasn't because I didn't know enough. I just knew too much. Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Possibly."

This is exactly how I felt, what the journey looks like: you do "lose your mind," your ordinary, rational mind, as you embrace the multidimensional realms of existence. Everything in your life echoes, because you've pried your mental fingers loose and are free-falling into the depths of your soul. I speak to this in detail on my CD, What You Need to Know Now: A Road Map for Personal Transformation.

How amazing it would have been to have heard such songs in the blackness of that dark night. And, in fact, they were probably there, had I been able to hear them, or known then what I was experiencing.

So as we enter this corridor of global rebirth en masse, know that you are not alone, even when you feel like a plastic bag drifting in the wind, having lost your tether to reason. It's exactly what needs to happen now, and it's all good. Surrender to the journey of a lifetime; on the far side of it, you'll ignite the Light, and let it shine.