Passion is like a little fire that you hold in your hand. If you move too fast, and try and run with it, it will go out. But if you handle the fire with care, give it fuel, but be gentle when it’s small, then it will grow.
If you can take care of it, you can build a base of coals which will stay hot. It’s easier to keep it going once this base is in place. Perhaps you can even share it with your friends, giving them little fires that they can work on and grown themselves.
It’s why the symbol of the Olympics is the torch relay. Passing the flame of passion, person to person, throughout the whole world is the greatest metaphor for how and internal yearning spreads. It connects each individual to each other, with the fire that burns within us all.
There are many ways to spread passion, and each idea has many facets that are valuable within themselves. One is to show how fun your passion is, showing joy in the act gives others joy as well. Another way to is to be at the top of your game, and show off your wicked cool skills. There are ways which are sharing through healing, through the understanding of shared experience, through videos, photography or writing about the experience. There are so many routes to sharing passion that include teaching, healing, performing, and the simple act of sharing knowledge in a communal way.
The only thing you don’t want to do is block the fire. When we speak of passion, we want it to ignite the world as far as it can go.
The biggest factor for keeping the flame alive is creating a space where everyone can come together as one to do so. A place that understands those little fire seeds, and how fragile they are, but wants everyone to grow them together. A place where everyone is welcome, in any way they want to use their own inner fire.
We are often scared to share, and stop ourselves with this idea that we have nothing to contribute.
But I implore you to think differently, that what you have to share is your fire, and your passion. And the only way to keep the torches going is to continue sharing that passion with everyone around you.
Together, we can ignite the world.
*This essay was literally written in my dreams and inspired by a conversation with Lacey Lucidity.