Scenarios for a Foundational Change

Like a bush of flower buds ready to blossom, Psyche is continually healing. Sometimes, we are unaware of this natural process and continue rehearsing the conversations we wish we had or the actions we would have taken if we had it to do over again. Anger and hurt prevail at the injustice of outcomes not being fair. 

Suffering with grief can be overwhelming.  As truth would have it, becoming aware of healing  already in process is the nourishment needed for new possibilities for a  life already  forever changed. 

I have been determined to leave the past behind. It is what it is. I gave myself a year to remember as the days were marked by the joyful times and the challenges, the holidays and celebrations, the new adventures and the reckoning with death, the compromises and the unresolvable. 

I promised myself to make no major decisions during the year and gave myself permission to feel what I was feeling when I was feeling it, to embrace it all, and let it go.  I did this faithfully.

Psyche has been busy, in the meantime, creating and storing images for me to explore now that I turn toward the future. One night this last week, I dreamed I had moved into a new home with refinished hardwood floors and adobe tiles  (my #1 preference in flooring). I brought with me the assortment of rugs I now use. I was spending a relaxed afternoon, arranging these rugs, trying out different ways to do so.  There were some red oriental rugs in the assortment - which I do not have and would never choose to have in my home. Nevertheless, I was trying to include them in the arrangement and was getting frustrated.  

Quickly, the dream turned to a set of floor to ceiling windows overlooking a river across a grassy field. The sun was brilliantly setting into the shore on the other side. Gratitude filled my Soul for having found such a beautiful place. 

Awakening I laid there, as I often do, reflecting on the  thoughts or dream lingering in my conscious awareness.  The dream was really easy to interpret. To ease the stubborn frustration of the red rugs, I imagined rolling them up and putting them outside the house. The floors were ready for furnishings, the first of which will be a place to contemplate the setting sun in front of the floor to ceiling windows..

I do have faith that by  intention and  opening to synchronicity, this transformation can be a happy one. I was meditating by my butterfly garden of several butterfly friendly plants. Although convinced the whole project was a failure since the milkweed has no cocoons, in the same moment, I spotted four other types of butterflies flitting around the garden.

This was a reminder that Psyche will listen. When she receives intention she continues creating scenarios for me to dream into being.  

Become quiet, let go of your thoughts and follow your breathing in and out. Let Psyche communicate with you. What are the scenarios she is presenting for your consideration?  Nothing happened? You will dream on it, I promise you. This is the way she loves, nourishes and heals your Soul.

Courage to Change On the "Stairs to Nowhere"

One morning, I was walking with a dear colleague. She is knowledgeable of the names of birds and native plants. When we are walking on other mornings, she will point out something and say its name. I don't see details at a distance, but still am grateful for her bringing its presence to my consciousness awareness.

Yesterday, as we approached it, my colleague asked if I would take a photo of the "stairs going nowhere"". It is  the only remains of one of the first buildings in Crescent City. Torn down after a fire, the building housed a "night club" for a while which, as history would tell, was jumping with live music on the weekends. 

As I reflect on the "stairs going nowhere", I am reminded of the similar occurrence of my life during this past year - it has been a year now.  I promised myself I would make no major decisions until I have had a year or however long it takes to process the radical change in my home life. 

I am also reminded that, as a result of the most recent presidential election, this nation's life radically changed. As I write of one, I am also writing of the other. The mirror remains. There is no escaping either.

Not quite ready to go ahead and make the big changes, I nevertheless have a few unavoidable decisions right here and right now. Some are in my hands to decide. Some are out of my control to manage alone. In fact, these which are out of my control, may take a whole movement of like minds to determine their direction and outcome.

Change happens and changing in response takes courage.

The big question is, "Are these steps to nowhere, or is it time to create a whole new space?"

More pragmatically, my eyesight is warped to the point where, if I am to be a responsible citizen, I must give up driving. It takes courage to be dependent on others to get around, which is the way it is if I need to be somewhere. This village is small, so I can walk anywhere I need to go. I may need to get another golf cart for those times I need groceries. I can maneuver a golf cart safely.  I have not figured it out yet, but I am sure I can find a way to get to other cities, to the airport , or to a festival or  other event when it is time to go. 

 I love my home. I do not mind living alone here as long as I can afford to have someone keep the grounds trimmed and mowed. Being alone inside my home, gives me plenty of space to write and paint and otherwise create without pressure and accompanying stressors. This environment is not much different than being on  a permanent retreat in nature, given its location on a lake in Florida. 

But, being a social being, like every other healthy human being on this planet, I need to be with people to interact in a give-and-take dance of creative endeavor. I and everyone else,  needs to be able to feel at home where we are, in this multicultural, highly diverse world.

No one is on the  "stairs to nowhere". What is needed right now might just be  a whole new structure which returns  purpose to the already existing stairs.  

 I sure am not willing to succumb to a policy where people are left alone to fend for themselves with no support when they are unable to care for themselves.

I sure am not willing to settle in a world in which some have access to all they need to thrive when the rest are dependent on them just to survive.

My visual ability may be disintegrating, but my Vision is strong and clear.

For me, the stairs will not stand alone forever. They have meaning and purpose in  beckoning me  to construct a renewed life.  I might need to have the courage to be more dependent. The decision to let my car go and never drive again, except for a vehicle I can maneuver safely locally, must be made from a compassionate place of understanding what is really real.

There is no going back. The future is presently a vacant lot overgrown with weeds ,bushes and burned trees. I see a welcoming place which radiates the  beauty of being - a contribution to a sense of belonging in a great place to be alive. 

This is true for who I am and where I live, as sure as what I see changing in our nation's life today.  Do we work together as a nation? I believe the decision is as relevant to us as me deciding to have the courage to depend on others to go someplace out of town.

The question gives rise to a whole new connotation for "dependent". Can't get around without a Vision. 

How impaired is your vision? What is your larger Vision? Do you have the courage to change and create anew?

Again With The Mirror - Synchronicity

Italy  - a Tuscan hillside holding a spring fed pool.

Since my last blog entry, I have been inundated with many synchronistically appearing resources. From this inflow, I am learning extensively and intensively.

I watched all 8 seasons, on Netflix, a series called "Heartland". It takes place near Calgary in horse and cattle country. It followed a dysfunctional  rancher family and their interactions with the surrounding community. Always a melodrama with a happy ending and breathtaking mountain views and loving connections to horses. T
he details of the dysfunction definitely reflected real life experience when I compared it to both  my own past and in the world today. Why do we think these patterns of relating are normal !!!

I watched the movie, "Celestine Prophecy" twice. I was not convinced that the true message of the book came through in this movie version. But, it was good to be reminded of the evolutionary unfolding that is happening in psyches and in the world today.

A TedX talk by Carolyn Myss entered the consciousness room next. She shared  four decisions which are essential to health and well being:
-decision to live a life of integrity
-decision to pass on wisdom
-decision to take risks
-decision to replace toxic words. (Pick a toxic word - or three words - to never use again and replace them with another word that is nourishing.)

This all brought me around to another exercise which my Interbeing mentor shared with me - not necessarily for me to do. It was called "fictional story". I wrote off the top of my head, not really thinking much about what I was writing. Then, after reading it, I reflected on what I had written. I was amazed at how, even though all the facts were different, the story  is  a mythological form of truth. To read it in this fictional form was a sigh of healing relief.

Recently, there are many distractions which have offered messages for growing healthy and happy. I am sure I can not actually be of service to my community and to the health of this Earth of ours, if all I know is destruction, despair, and hopelessly grieve over it all.  If I chronically obsess about all that is wrong in the world, I am only projecting my own chronic illness. When I can marvel at the first fruit growing on a tree in its life's time, I can support the Resistance to a disintegrating social  system. Participating in the creation of a new consciousness emerging, one is, oin truth, the creation of a progressive response to human suffering.


 I intend to pay attention to the s messages coming my way,  mirroring new possibility to replace chronic assumptions about being crucified. Which is it going to be for you?