In Western Celebration we have the side by side holy days of Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls. These three days bring our attention to an experience of the non-material and yet to dramatic stories. But I want to look at how we experience or imagine ourselves.

Halloween

celebrated on October 31.

Halloween is the night of freaks and fears.  We have permission to look weird, strange, fantastic, magical.  We seek the bizarre and the scary. We become unrecognizable in ways that could never be accepted...could never fit in to our ordinary life.  It represents the hidden self - the dark and different. And it can be wildly creative and rewarding as we have permission to pretend, pose, and parody ourselves, our culture, and our fantasies.

All Saints Day

celebrated on November 1.

Saints are different in dramatic ways. Their deeds are miraculous. Their hearts are infinite. Their minds are awake and crystal clear. Often they suffer profoundly in their own reality and often they feel the suffering of others without filters or resistance. They don't have lives that look like ours. But each of us has moments of sainthood or thoughts that we would like to be saintly.

All Souls Day

celebrated on November 2.

This is the day we focus our hearts on all the souls no longer living an earthly life no matter what their story. We send them love in our remembrance. This remembrance is not a grief and not about affection.  It is about an unconditional reverence.  And that is why this day is so important for us. If just one day each year we fill our hearts with unconditional reverence our hearts grow stronger and purer.

But we need another day to bring our consciousness and our celebration to the living individual that begins with knowing ourselves as a great composite and reverently and courageously acknowledging the way we each experience our own self. I want to give this day a name:

The Holy Day of the Misfit
and suggest we celebrate it on November 3rd
(actually everyday that you are willing to kiss a frog and find a god.)

Each of us feels to some degree and in some circumstances like a misfit...we don't fit in where we want to fit in. We doubt we are a soul among other souls, and feel more like a saint among freaks or a freak among saints. And we keep this all secret and shadowy. This is the day when we shine loving light on the Inner Misfit.

 

Each of us including the freaks and the saints has an inner misfit! Each soul is unique, different, an amazing mix of ordinary and extraordinary, the universal and the unique, of the freak and the saint.  Each of us has a degree of fitting in and standing out and varying degrees of comfort in the experience of both.  This is the day of belonging, the day for everyone to celebrate their individuality and paradoxically, what we have in common with all others including the commonality of being unique and different.

On the Holy Day of the Misfit, we look into our inner reality of self and feel warmth and work to know well, and without judgment, our inner misfit. It is a day of focusing on the transformative exercise of healing, liberating and empowering self-compassion. 


How would you celebrate your Inner Misfit?  Can you focus your attention on your Inner Misfit and describe it in its complexity and contradictions? What would you celebrate, honor, reveal and revere that dwells in the heart of your uniqueness?


To help you celebrate this New Holy Day, I am offering you a guide to compassionately knowing the Misery, Miracles, and Magic of Your Inner Misfit. 

Here's the description...

 Imagining Your Inner Misfit

"Man is physically as well as metaphysically a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start" Ralph Waldo Emerson

Learn how to...

come out, stand out, reach out
settle in, cuddle in,
dance to your own sweet music, sing with your own beautiful tone

 

IMAGINING YOUR INNER MISFIT

consists of 

FROGS & ASHES (as in the Frog Prince(ss) & Cinderella!) -  a 60 minute audio of insights and inspirations for creating an imagination of your Inner Misfit. I'll be  exploring lots of the intricacies of being a misfit. I'll suggest the important reasons for being a misfit and the necessary challenges found in fitting in and standing out no matter what your age, talents, beliefs or wishes.

 A number of suggested exercises with worksheets to support you in finding your way to the heart of your Inner Misfit so you can begin to build a wonderfully integrated, exquisitely whole, imagination of yourself.

The audio and worksheets can be downloaded for your creative convenience - do the listening and self-attention when it works for you and as often as you like

 

I will be having a live "Q & A / Share Your Experience" webinar in late November. This is a time to ask what you need to ask and share what you need to share. I'll be responding the questions and lovingly moderating your shares.

There is a discussion forum as well.

The cost is $27 USD.

To learn more about this course and to register please go here. https://theimagineselfacademy.com/courses/9/about

This will be my first course using my new online learning platform.  Designed by wonderful misfits at Ruzuku.  If you teach online or want to develop an online course, I urge you to visit https://ruzuku.com/?a_aid=51ed73902f591(my affiliate link) and see this absolutely wonderful platform and meet the great folks that make it all happen.

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Here are the resources I offer you to support your inner work this
Autumn and every season.

My blogposts: usually 2-3 a month. Like this one, I offer insights
and questions for your inner work.

The Imagine Self courses:
In addition to Imagining Your Inner Misfit, next week I will
be offering the Imagining Your Spiritual Companions and open
registration for the very popular Inner Advent program.

Finally, the most intimate and transformative resource I offer is
my Sacred Conversations work. Obviously, only a few can benefit
from this as I only schedule 10-12 conversations a week.  See
below, for more information about this amazing one-to-one work.

Lately I have been asked by a number of my readers, if I do live
workshops. Yes, I do, but I do not organize them - you do.  You can
consider inviting me to do a weekend workshop for you and your
friends, your organization, or your community.  This can be as
relaxed as a gathering of 5-10 of your friends in your living room,
or as demanding as 300 people in a conference center.  I can give a
workshop on any aspect of Imagine Self, on any topic I've written
about in a blogpost, or any question, concern, or goal you hold in
your heart.  Just contact me and let's have a conversation about
the possibility.