Saying goodbye to David

“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” ~Mary Oliver
 
David Bowie died today, and I’m feeling sad.
 
I’m also thinking a lot about how he lived his life, and that’s not sad—his life was a a juggernaut, a magnificent blazing star that anyone can reach for.
 
We’re all made of that same stuff—stardust (no, really). But in every generation a few people somehow transcend the greater constellation of ability and vision, and they burn so brightly that their lives leave an afterglow across our field of vision: artists, holy seers, musicians, storytellers.
 
David Bowie made his entire life an effort of art, of expanded consciousness. He was never content with status quo and he consistently pushed boundaries of expression. That is an effort everyone can make.
 
No matter where we start or what tools we have at our disposal, we are co-creators of the greater consciousness of life. We are all creatives. We are all gifted. We all have a way to express the generative nature of being in our wake-up-and-do-it lives.
 
You are made of the same stardust as David Bowie. I am, too.  The same stuff that made David Bowie and Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou and Abraham Lincoln, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Flannery O’Connor makes you. Makes me.
 
The temporal loss of David Bowie has slowed me down enough to ask this of myself:
 
Will you throw yourself into the grand abyss and terrifying thrill of your creative work today? Are you willing? Let's dance.