The Reality of Dreams

I started this piece before “The Secret” came out or I’d ever heard of the Law of Attraction.  At that time, I was determined to use writing to help me solve the mysteries of dream manifestation.  Now, as I return to it many years later, I realize that many of the mysteries of manifesting dreams are better left mysteries.  My insatiable curiosity and strong mind have so often made me desperately want to decipher the code to controlling my fate, but as I get older, it just becomes clearer and clearer that what actually happens turns out better than what I could ever devise in my mind.
What follows is a combination of passages written many years ago and my current reflections on the topic of dream manifestation.

 

            As human beings, we are endowed with creative power.  Quantum physics now confirms what indigenous cultures have known for ages: whether we consciously exercise our power or not, we are creating our personal and collective realities.  The circumstances we are currently faced with, favorable and distasteful, are all a result of dreams sent out into the universe.  It’s easy to resist this idea of dreaming our reality by thinking there is no way you would have dreamed of certain circumstances in your life, and no way that we collectively would have dreamed of certain circumstances in our world, but dreams can encompass even things not intended or not consciously wished to happen.

            Some dreams are coveted wishes for hopeful future outcomes, but other dreams are born in deep-seated fears, entertainment, or fantasies.  Things we fear in detailed imaginings can surely direct our creative force toward those feared outcomes.  Attention given to movies, music, and games is attention that we feed into those possibilities of manifestation, in our own lives and the world in which we live.  Elaborate fantasies that we may not actually want to happen may turn into reality if we feed them enough of our life force.  I use the word dream to refer to all these dreams, whether they are things we actually wish to happen or not.  In my view, it is not just important to watch what you wish for; it’s as important, if not more important, to watch the things you fill your mind with but do not wish to happen.  To truly know your thoughts, even the most hidden ones, is to truly understand what you are creating.

            The idea of dreaming our reality implies an amount of creative control that seems to conflict with the idea of fate.  This paradox between a view of humans as powerful creators of their own circumstances and helpless beings thrown by the currents of destiny has always baffled me.  Both concepts have a ring of truth, but they had always seemed so incompatible, until it occurred to me that dreams themselves could be part of a higher plan.  As we become more and more conscious, our free will becomes more and more aligned with our own fate.  Our free will has more power the more we are tapping into a glimpse of our fate, and our free will has less power the less we are aligning with our fate.

            Cultivating the ability to be conscious of what you are dreaming is not a process to make you a master of the universe and able to get anything you want.  But rather, it is a process to make you a master of yourself.  It simply allows you to tap into who you are and your purpose at any moment by deciphering exactly what you do want to create.  As you ask yourself the question of what you would create if you could create anything, you strip away the layers of false desires and wants to arrive at a more authentic version of yourself.  Each step further, you find that your life, your choices, and your current circumstances are steps on a path that does feel destined.  Although you make the choices of a moment, you can increasingly see that the immensity of how these choices weave together into the tapestry of your life circumstances is beyond what your mind can understand.  Assuming the role of conscious creator simply lifts a veil and allows you to witness this magical process of dreams transforming into reality that has been unfolding from the beginning.

            We are in constant relationship with one another.  We create the open doorways for someone else’s dreams to happen, but we also can shut the doors preventing something from happening for someone else.  And just the same, it is other people that open doorways and shut windows on our dreams.  We are one miraculous and mysterious movement of interconnectedness bringing the world into being, one moment at a time.

            There is just one mind with many outlets feeding into it.  All our thoughts combine in mysterious ways to lead to the various outcomes we encounter in every moment.  Some teenage kid playing a violent video game and filling his consciousness with thoughts of blood, gore, and desensitized aggression feeds those energies into the mind that manifests the world all around us.  And conversely, a Buddhist monk spending his day in prayers for peace and unity feeds those energies into the one mind manifesting around us.  Although our separate physical bodies create the impression that we are distinct entities, totally independent from one another, this illusion of separateness dissolves in the awareness of how our connections necessarily influence what manifests in the world.

           There are dynamics, like secrecy of dreams and dream competition, that we can understand and use to influence dream manifestation, but there is a much greater mysterious element of manifestation.  We do have free choice, but in the end, we do not have the final say.  There is the veto power of the universe.  There are those situations when what we wish is not aligned with the true direction of our life, and in those situations, no amount of insight into the nature of manifestation will make something happen that just is not meant to happen.

              There have been those few times when my will has arm-wrestled the universe into giving me what I want, but then, I often realized that what I wanted was much more of a curse than blessing.  And for all the work I’ve done to avoid those things that were uncomfortable, challenging, and downright embarrassing, they still happened, and I’m glad.  They’ve shaped my strength, my courage, and my sense of humor.  For all the chasing down fantasies that I was so sure would make me happy, many have still eluded me, and I’m glad.  I’ve matured into the knowledge of just how different those fantasies would have been as reality.  

            And so, it is surrender, not control, that I’ve discovered to be the most important aspect of understanding the manifestation of dreams.  Years ago, a wise teacher told me that when you are holding a dream that you hope to manifest, vision it in your mind’s eye as a ball.  Let go of the ball and watch it roll out to the edge of universe.  Lose track of it, forget it, and know that if it is meant to be, it will come back in its own time.  

            I’ve returned to this visualization time and time again when reflecting on the manifestation of my dreams.  My graduation at the top of my law school class was one such treasured ball, and also, the dream of my marriage and the one of my daughter.  When it comes to those milestones at the biggest crossroads of my life, the pattern has been fairly consistent.  First, a dream enters my mind.  Then, I feel a sense of wanting the dream to manifest, quickly followed by a chaotic mix of excitement, anticipation, and fear.  And then, I let it go.  I resign myself to not knowing what’s really best, and not knowing whether I can or want to handle the challenges inherent in the dream becoming a reality.  Closing my eyes and watching the dream roll off to the edge of the universe is the liberation of both the fears stirred and attachments created by the dream.   

            It has been in those spaces of surrender that I’ve witnessed the greatest magic of my life taking place.  The most real and fantastic dreams have always arisen out of a space of not knowing, a space of letting go, a space of accepting however fate might write the next moment. 

the eyes grow older

As a child, Christmas was magic and lights
Time spent with my cousins that was a rare delight
Decorations and carols adorned the scene
A landscape of wonder to feed my dreams

As I grew, the meaning of Christmas somehow changed
The innocence of youth replaced by expectation's chains
It became shopping by a list in crowded malls
Scurrying after Thanksgiving to deck the halls

Making sure every base was covered
Using care to not favor one over another
Foreseeing all who would give to me
So I would not fail to return a show of generosity

The crushing obligation of what I feel I must do
Replacing the wonder of Christmas dreams coming true
Being present and open hearted for each day of the season
Overshadowed by the use of deduction and reason

Through my daughter's eyes I have seen that old glow
That used to make my eyes twinkle and the excitement flow
I have witnessed those lights and magic once more
And again the meaning of Christmas is different than before

I still have tasks that I chose to complete
But in meeting all expectations, I accept my defeat
I can only do what comes from my heart
And to focus this way, I make Christmas my Art

So bring on the carols and the family gatherings,
The lights, decorations, and mystical imaginings,
Gratitude for the year's blessings in a final toast,
And an awareness of what really matters the most

-written around 8 years ago

Believing in the Impossible

This three minute video clip really resonated for me:

I like this video, not because I agree with every single word, but because I admire the courage to speak it, to put light on the things we want to see the least, to acknowledge the weaknesses we most want to hide.  It's this raw honesty that feels so absent in our debates and in our political communication. 

Honesty, authenticity, the courage to take a stand: these values that defined many time periods in American History are fading.  We are willing to accept leaders that don't give us substance.  We are willing to watch debates that are filled more with chest beating and witty quips, than with heartfelt truth and concrete vision.

Of course, when the goal is to win an election in a country with so many people with so much access to information, it's downright dangerous to get nailed down in anything too controversial.  The candidates have to make their compromises and choose their positions to satisfy the party, to win the votes, to play the odds on securing the win.

But I don't think leadership was always about securing a win.  Although good leadership often does lead to success, it has to start with the courage to be true.

The leaders that took us through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement had to stand up for hard truths.  The only way to lead from a seemingly impossible goal into the realm in which it becomes possible is by the courage to stand up for the impossible.  Leaders like our country's founders or Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr. had the courage to dream an honest dream.  When the odds were against them, when it seemed impossible, when there was some lesser evil in the more practical choices, they held their ground.

And the result?

People were inspired.  They came together.  They started to believe the impossible was possible, and started to invest themselves in their belief of what was possible.  And then, the impossible actually happened.

Today, it does seem impossible to believe: that we'll get away from the Republican / Democrat battles in Washington that keep us gridlocked; that we'll get away from the stranglehold that Wall Street, big corporations, and crony capitalism have on our political system; that there will ever be a sense of unity among U.S. citizens again.

And in this climate, I long for a true leader.  I long for someone vying for the position of president to speak the hard truths, to take a stand on risky issues and mean it, to care more about truly leading than about winning.

I hoped President Obama would be that leader, but the truth I see is that we are more divided and the issues are murkier than ever.  Instead of delivering clarity and building bridges to bring people together, it seems that his agenda has led us to become even more pitted against one another.

It feels as though we've become afraid to believe that more is possible than this.  We're afraid to have the courage to dream, to take a risk, and to invest in something new.  For me, it's been a letdown to realize that Obama hasn't turned out to be what I had hoped, but I believe it's more important than ever to maintain that what seems impossible is possible.

The truth is that we never really know what is going to happen, until it actually does.

I still believe that we could come together, that we could stop fighting at home, that we could stop fighting abroad.  I believe that we could value educating our children over building our military. I believe that a candidate other than a Democrat or Republican could win our highest office.  I believe we could balance the budget and scale back the immense corruption of government power.  I believe that we could once again be a county that is more motivated by our sincere hope than by our worst fears.

I believe there is a new chapter for the USA that is waiting to happen, and I'm open to challenge any assertions of impossibility that are in the way. 

America at War

Although bombs and gunfire aren't the everyday experience of most Americans, I can't ignore the many ways we are at war.

As I move in and out of the political banter in anticipation of the election, I feel a deep sense in my gut of a country at war with itself.  I notice how captivating speeches and charismatic personas intoxicate people.  They bring on a sense of righteousness, a sense that there are the good and the bad among us.  

And it makes me sad.  It’s not us against them.  It’s just us, and the oldest model of putting the public to sleep is taking over: divide and conquer.

And then, as we are distracted by our silly red/blue war at home, we're fighting wars abroad on increasingly abstract grounds.  Do we really know: what are we fighting for?  where?  who?  are we using humane means?  is it all worth the loss and risk of lives, the huge expenditure of resources?  Instead of getting convincing answers to these questions, we just seem to be sold a fantasy that all the U.S. occupation and warfare throughout the world makes us safer.

And then, there's our war on drugs.  What has it really accomplished?  Are our streets safer and people healthier because of our approach to drugs?  OR  Are our prisons fuller than we can handle, filled with the poor that are disproportionately exposed to the drug culture?  Does a dangerous black market more than provide for any demand?  Does the filtering of so much money and drugs through law enforcement open doors to extreme corruption and "Training Day" situations?

We're afraid to look at the political taboo issues, to say these wars aren't working, they aren't just, they aren't right.  We're afraid to ask, where is the money that we throw at these wars going?  Who benefits from the wars we declare?  Who loses?  We're afraid to question whether these wars make us healthier, safer, stronger, or more free.

And I say, "ENOUGH ALREADY!"  I can't just shove my head into the sand.  This is the moment in history that we wake up, that we revolt, that we take our country back, that we stop following the path we're on and make a sharp turn toward a new destiny.

But we don't.

There was the rise of the Tea Party, pulling its name from an act of civil disobedience that fueled our country’s quest for freedom.  But where did it go?  How did the media impact the movement?  Why didn't it lead to change?

Then, there was Occupy Wallstreet, protesting the way our central government can be bought and sold, the way the power of money diminishes our power as citizens.  But again, what happened?  Where is that power in numbers?

Divide and conquer: that's where the power went.  We can't present a united front to regain our power as citizens because we're so receptive to the "us against them" crap we're being fed.  We're quick to jump on the critical bandwagon and discredit others.  We're quick to join the team that looks like it could win.  To me, The Tea Party and Occupy Wallstreet seem so similar, motivated by the way the government and the fuel behind government run away without true connection to the people.  And, these two movements just got pitted against one another - painted red or blue and then made part of our distracting cultural war.  

We are being told to choose a nation of heart; or we are being told to choose a nation of freedom.   Either we care for our fellow citizens as our brothers and sisters; or we care for the freedom on which our country was founded.  Either they are socialists and are willing to settle for mediocrity; or they are selfish and will vote for whatever candidate will keep them from paying their fair share.

And we buy the rhetoric.  We let it confuse us, let it drive us to the polls to prevent that greater evil.

But, my intuition tells me that the direction of our country will vary only slightly if Obama or Romney is elected in November.  The win of either candidate will just mark the win of a battle in the red/blue war, and the distracting fight will continue.  There will be no bridge to bring us together so we can make progress, if either candidate wins.

I believe real change is only possible if we collectively start to wake up from the way we are being divided, and we gain the courage to try something different.

And in that vein, the presidential candidate that I'm voting for in November is Gary Johnson, libertarian nominee.  He has become a personal obsession for me over the last year or so.  I followed his short-lived run for the republican nomination, and I was there in Santa Fe the day he declared that he would seek the libertarian nomination.  My sense is that he is a man of honesty, integrity, and courage, and that his motivation for the presidency comes from a genuine sense that we need to stop all these wars, that we need to stop blindly building the size and power and resources of the federal government.

He is a rare breed of politician that wants to get into power to take power away from his position.

Gary Johnson doesn't fit the mold, he won't play the game, and he certainly doesn't have the charisma to be the next American Idol.  Add this to the fact that there is quite a bit of energy being focused on blocking him from ballots and squelching his name on the airwaves.  But even in the face of the unlikelihood that he could win, I just can't let go of my, "what if?"

What if we didn't have either red or blue win the presidency this year?  What if the teams no longer were the driving force in our political discourse?  What if a campaign with more energy on what is being offered than on how the other guy will let us down could truly lead to victory?  What if the best of red and blue came together in a candidate that could lead us through this divided time?

I've never put a political bumper sticker on my car or taken this much interest in an election, but today, I peeled the backing off and stuck on my Gary Johnson sticker.  For me, this is about more than just the hope that he will win in November.  My hope is for an end to all this war in America.  I just can't pick red or blue when I see them at war with one another and don't think either one of them is right.  Instead, I feel drawn to invest my vote and energy towards the "united" of United States.

in and out of hiding

when i lived in new mexico, i noticed women in every age bracket showing some white, gray, or silver hair.  i loved seeing the many ways that mother nature aged each of us differently.  i even came to love watching the changes of my own hair, like how the curly texture of the white hairs showing up in greater and greater numbers gives me the curly hair that i always wanted when i was young.

but, my recent move to the east coast has reminded me of a very different relationship between women and their hair.  a relationship so graphically captured in this recent ad that i ran into on the internet:

i have been getting grays since my 20s, and there was a time when i rushed off to the salon every 4 to 6 weeks to maintain the regime of hiding my gray.  and maybe some women truly enjoy the hours in a salon and can afford the cost, but to me, it's always just been a huge pain in the ass.  often, i thought about just stopping it all and letting my hair go natural, but there just seemed to be such a strong cultural taboo around it.  i never felt fully comfortable out of hiding when i lived on the east coast before.

then, i moved to eugene, oregon, a town where there is no norm.  if there is a norm, it's to challenge what would be normal somewhere else.  i might even venture a guess that women showing their gray were in the majority, not minority.  there were more conservative pockets of the city where i'm sure that wasn't true, but in the funky friendly street neighborhood where i lived there were tons of uncovered tresses.

so while living there, i stopped coloring.  even after moving to santa fe, new mexico, for years i enjoyed a carefree attitude about my hair.  for the first time in my adult life, i felt free of the myth that any part of my value was somehow tangled up in hair.

then, i got a professional job and moved to a more mainstream town, so little by little, i started paying more attention to how my hair looked.  after while, i started to feel as though people thought i was much older than i actually was, and this idea got so deeply ingrained in my head that i reentered the coloring cycle.  there were moments when it felt good, and i liked how it looked.  and then, there were moments when i felt ashamed looking at a picture of myself and thinking it looked so fake.  i sort-of wavered between liking it and hating it until i hit a point when it was time to just stop with the whole mess of it.

i cut my hair short and started over, and it was quite a liberation from all the hassle.  i settled back into my natural state and felt very much at home in my own hair in new mexico.  then came the move to the east coast.

my first month or two here, i felt the same comfort that i felt back in new mexico.  but then, i started to feel the stares.  my eleven year old daughter even confessed one day that she felt weird about how the other kids at one of her camps were looking at my hair.

and that made me see that the beast was still alive and well.  the great freedom of not caring was gone.  i did care, and even the reflection i started to see in the mirror changed.  as the backdrop changed to a uniformity of perfectly colored, highlighted, and styled dos, i started to feel like the awkward kid left out on prom night.

but, come on!  a part of me really knows this is a load of bs.  it's like the prevalent thoughts around me can turn into these little gnats that buzz around in my brain.  there are moments when i can mistake them for my own beliefs and feelings, but when i get clear, i remember how free from all this i can really be.

i can still feel that pesky pressure to fit in.  i always thought all that would just fall away as i got older.  instead, my experience has been that it shows up from time to time, a very pure and natural desire to connect with others that can turn into a desire to be accepted by the people around me.

but, my daughter's comment about people noticing my hair feels significant as i find my way to reconcile that desire to connect with the pressure to conform.  what do i want to teach my daughter here?  that if people think you don't fit in, you need to find some way to fit better?  

of course not.

i want to teach her to have the courage to walk her own path.  so i guess the best way to really teach my daughter to have the courage to walk her path is for me to fully take on the opportunities to honestly walk my own.

two worlds

a woman
beyond the edge of her youth
hardly noticed
she sits wrapped in an old hand-crocheted shawl

with no memories of her life
or experiences that stand out with greatness
no jobs held or titles worn that leave any lasting impression

throughout her years, she wrote
words evaporated as though she spoke them aloud
spoke them alone

she sits
she is both empty and full
she is free



a woman
who looks at least ten years younger than she is
a magnet for attention

her mind is filled with beautiful snapshots
treasured moments and important things she did
mistakes she made and lessons learned

she's been loved
some of them saw her
but still, she suspects none of them really knew her

in the reflections
she feels happiness
she feels sadness
and she keeps moving

confession of a storyteller

a few months ago, my husband, daughter, and i got stuck in a gawker's jam during morning rush hour.  as we finally got up to the edge of the traffic, we zoomed past a little fender bender, and we got a view of this 20-something guy in his business casual outfit walking up to a pretty woman, also likely in her 20s, that had just stepped out of the car that he hit.

and that's when i started spinning my own little tale of their true love.  of how they awkwardly exchanged information roadside, each hoping the other would use the contact information to reach out.  one of them did reach out, and eventually, years later, they married and had children of their own.  the father always told his kids how running into their mother on the highway that morning was the luckiest accident of his life.  and their little boy idolized his father and was warmed by the story of his parent's love, and he grew up and developed this pesky habit of ramming into attractive women on highways, hoping that one would be his true love . . . 

i am a constant storyteller.  i can't stop the stories.  they're a reflex; the same way the leg always shoots forward when the knee is hit with a doctor's hammer in the right spot, when an experience, observation, or memory rubs against me, the storytelling reflex is off and running.

really, i love how my mind can be the most amazing tool of entertainment, how it can weave isolated bits of information into a storyline, into a unified picture, into something of beauty and interest.  i'm compulsively entering the alternate realities created by the little stories of my mind, whether i want to or not.

but, i'm noticing how if i believe my stories, they can become walls built around my perception.  whether stuck in the confines of a nightmare or fairy tale, the stories still act as these little boxes curbing my perception.  like how the story that my work and family will never be in balance blinded me from seeing how many times work and family actually have been in balance.  or how the story that a person was my friend totally made me miss the knife quickly headed for my back.  a story believed creates censors covering the things that don't fit within the story, and amplifiers accentuating those things that do fit within the story.

and even seeing how my own stories can imprison me, i still love them.  i treasure my stories about myself, my husband, my daughter, my dogs, my friends, my childhood, my adventures.  i even treasure the stories of the things that hurt me; they're the battle scars that have made me strong or wise or warped in my own special way.

the stories keep on churning, but something has changed lately: i now realize, they're all bullshit.

even stories about the immovable past change over time, as i remember a different detail and lose a few, as i change my perspective through new experiences, as i learn someone else's thoughts of the same event.  the tales that i thought were real events that really happened to me have no static presence.  they change and reshape a little each time they play in the mind.  the villains can shift into the heroes, a member of the supporting cast can shift into a leading role, and even the whole climax and point of the story can change entirely.

these stories about my own past and the characters of my own life are not true or objective or real.  they are the same thing as the little tale i weaved about those two strangers on the side of the road that morning - some root in reality that runs wild in the mind.

for the last nine months or so, my posts have often featured some of my own real-life stories.  and it's been the same stories told again and again - from a different perspective, or with a different level of detail, or grouped with a different set of events.  walking around and investigating these stories closely from multiple angles has shown me how hollow they really are.

and so, i have come to the realization that i'm a big fat liar.  i have no idea what really happened, what will happen, or even what is happening at this very moment.  no concrete knowledge of why, when, where, or how.  maybe some of my stories have truth, and maybe not. 

but, what freedom to see that i'm not chained to the past, to my projections of the future, or to my judgements about the present.  all there really is is just a sea of ever-changing possibilities.

the elusive grasp of true love

"the minute i heard my first love story, i started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was . . ." 

coming out of the fairy tale years, i desperately wanted to fall in love.  and during my formative years with romantic relationships, i hatched a belief about true love.  i believed that true love was like a strike of lightening, and when it struck, whether a relationship was good idea or a bad one, there was no choice about it.  true love was that unexplainable occurrence that either happened or didn't, convenient or not, returned or not.  although i could learn to love or grow into love, true love was that unexplainable whirlwind that just happened sometimes. 

my first love was a good example of the theory.  it was that intense and volatile kind-of love that looks and feels so much like hate at times.  when i was vulnerable and insecure, he made me feel lovable. during the summer when we were first together, i was entranced, but fall came with a slap in the face.  he had realized the male adolescent wisdom of seeking variety, and it was over.  

despite the clear signs that this wasn't really in my best interest, the relationship continued on for years into the future.  for me, it changed from a sort-of pure puppy love to late night phone calls, secret rendezvous, and utter nastiness if we ever spoke in public.  when things were good between us, i was all-consumed and could think of nothing else. when things were bad, i only found comfort in mental images of scratching out his eyeballs with my fingernails.  i held on for years in the hope that maybe it would turn out to be what it had seemed to be in the beginning.

that consuming feeling of true love struck next in college; there was a guy who pretty much immediately rocked my world.  about a month in, i felt ready to completely let go and jump into the relationship with all i had, but as soon as i made that mental commitment, things shifted.  nothing added up with him anymore, and he started to seem like a chameleon or shape-shifter.  despite numerous attempts to make it work, eventually the relationship ended in the same way it started, dramatically and quickly.

number three came a couple years later.  he was someone i'd known for a while, and it all came down to one moment with a bunch of friends at my parent's pool. as he was leaving, we made eye contact, and at that moment i knew.  it was in an instant, and before we had ever even expressed any interest in each other, i knew i was in love.  it turned out that the third time was a charm, and a partnership between us was just so natural and easy.  marriage followed a few years later, and i never questioned that he was actually the truest destiny for me.

until, i met number four. when i first met four, no one could have convinced me that i would ever be into him. he just wasn’t my type.  but, as we got to know each other, it disturbed (and intrigued) me that when we would get into a intense conversation, the sexual energy in the room would become overwhelming.  there were parallels and commonalities between us that i'd never experienced with anyone else.

as time passed, it was obvious that the feelings were running in both directions.  at some point, i became ready to obey that lightening strike, good idea or bad one.

and right before a leap into the arms of number four, i got a glimpse of the chaos and pain that it would cause.  it wasn't just a bad idea.  i had built a family with my husband and so much more, and i didn't want to leave it all in ruins, not even for the intensity of desire i had to explore this new true love.  so i paused, confused as hell, and i stayed right where i was.

that time of confusion has been a traumatic train wreck that i habitually visit in my mind, hoping to finally understand it all.  and now, many years later, i feel like i'm finally getting some clarity.     

when my working theory was, "obey the whirlwind of true love, no matter what," that fit really well with what i'd learned from the fairy tales and movies.  it was exciting, passionate, and dramatic, but when one of these whirlwinds would fall from the sky, take over my world, and pass by, i was just left with questions, not clarity, and not love.  

but now, i see that all four of these experiences of true love, even the one with my beloved husband, were illusions.  each experience was like the appearance of water to someone thirsty in the desert; these experiences were the fantasy fulfilled, the dream made real.  they were the experiences that most matched my ideas about true love, seeded so long before. 

and as i moved closer, in each of these experiences there was that day when the illusion burst.  a time came when the gap between the dream and reality revealed itself, and the illusion could no longer be sustained.  and each time, i so deeply mourned the loss.

for each of them, i suffered: the fact that he wasn't what i thought he was, or that the timing was so bad, or that he didn't treat me the way i thought he would treat me.  and each of these tragic falls into reality was the first itch to begin the next search.

it had all happened so subtly within my marriage that i didn't even see it.  there were the fantasies about our relationship born in our first weeks, months, and years together.  there were the immense moments of awe that bound us together, and all the expectation that the awe would last, just like that, forever.  

and then, there were those moments of fallen grace.  those times when he'd sit lazily on the couch of our messy house unwilling to do any of the millions of responsibilities on my mental checklist.  or those times when he would drift off and actually close his eyes while i was enthusiastically sharing something so important to me.  or those moments when i'd see him turn his head to get a good look at the back of some hot girl passing us on the street.  

but i had bought into all the cliches: true love was with a guy that only had eyes for me, the one that was supposed to hang on my every word and be willing to do anything for me.  so how then, could it come to this?

and so, over time, there was a resignation.  my belief in true love carried on in the shadows of my mind, and it was sure that the real prince charming would come.  either my husband would shake off this frog thing that had come over him and be the prince i had thought he was, or else some other guy with a white horse would just have to show up.

and looking back, it's just so clear now how these fantasies about true love have been a hindrance, not a help.  love is something so different than that idea that descended upon me in my youth.  looking back, i even see how my greatest lovers were so often not the ones who swept me off my feet and took my breath away.

and all these years later, i became so confused in my marriage when the whole drama of true love started playing again, like a familiar record, but with a new man.  the signs were uncanny, and the whole story played out as though i'd written it myself.

but although the fantasy was perfectly in tact, the man for me was not the one on the white horse.  he was the one willing to wait as i waded through my confusion.  he was the real thing, not the fantasy.  he didn't meet the fantasy ideals in so many ways.  but then, he'd turn around and exceed those ideals in ways that i never could have expected.  he made me have to drop the story because he was not going to act out the fairy tale with me.

and his inability to conform to my dream is his great gift to me.  now, i see that it's in the full surrender to not knowing how the story will go that i can discover what love truly is.  i'm finally available to watch it unfold, to be present and learn from what is actually true, instead of staying stuck in the worn out modus operandi of being wrapped up in love as a storyline with me cast as the leading lady.  

the real thing may not work as well on a movie screen, and it may require dropping all the illusions of mental guarantees about how it will end.  but still, i realize that what's real is what i want.  the love that doesn't start or end, doesn't live or die - that's the One that seems worth obsessing about from here. 

". . . lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. they’re in each other all along." -rumi

the greatest love

as i've reflected on whitney houston's death in the last couple days, i realize just how much of the soundtrack of my youth features her unique and powerful voice.  although her albums haven't been a part of my collection since the early 90s, her music and her presence have left a significant imprint on me.

this morning, i had the urge to piece together the parts of the whitney houston story that i didn't know.  and as i surfed around, reading a bit here and listening to a little there, the one strand that grabbed me was her relationship with her teenage daughter.  i read about it as an "unconventional mother/daughter relationship," and i was touched by the immense hardship on this girl that lost not only her mother, but also her friend.

then, still spinning these thoughts, i was in the salon today and got drawn into one of those celebrity gossip mags.  i ended up engulfed in a story of demi moore and her daughter, a very similar story of a strong mother/daughter friendship, and of a troubled mother and a troubled daughter.

i truly understand the desire of each of these women to befriend the girl they raised.  i too have felt that pull of  wanting my child to see the real me, the flawed me, the youthful me, the fun me.  i envy the friendships these women created with their daughters, and i can only imagine how good a relationship like that can feel.

and when reading the stories about these women and their daughters, i was struck with how both stories said there weren't limits or boundaries imposed by mother onto daughter.  that was the flashing text in each article that kept catching my eye, playing in my head: "no limits or boundaries."  and in that, i really saw my own reflection in these sad stories.

as my daughter is entering the phase of preteen rebellion, i see my own desire to just say, "fine, do what you want!"  does it really matter if she doesn't finish her broccoli?  do i really care if she stays up for an hour after her bedtime?  is it really that big a deal that she never practices her violin, even though it's the only homework she gets?

a couple weeks ago, my husband had a class on a friday night, so my daughter and i decided to go out to dinner on our own before heading home.  we went to my favorite pizza place, one that brews its own fantastic beer, and as we sat on the high stools, me sipping my beer, and her chatting about the latest dramas at school, it was one of my greatest moments.

i was overwhelmed by the sense of unity with this person that i've watched grow up, feeling a sense of friendship opening in a space that had been filled with late night feedings, diaper changes, and ABCs not so long ago.

and i could so easily be hooked.  i'd love to just drop all the fights about rules and limits, and go out to that pizza place with her every friday night.  and i see that maybe it could progress . . . a night off in the future when i get two beers with the pizza and feel fine to drive . . . and then maybe a few more years, i give in when she asks to split my beer even though she's underage . . . until the point when i no longer see the fragility in her youth; i only see a friend.

and this is where i feel grateful for this little episode in my mind starring whitney houston and demi moore.  i feel like the stories i read, whether true or not, play out how the mother/daughter fantasy can go.  although i've had no intention to move further down that line of adult friendship, i see its lure.  i realize the pull of wanting that kind of intimacy with someone you love so much, with someone that you can literally see yourself in.

as much as i want to indulge in the friendship, nurture the intimacy, be the one she can tell anything, i feel like i'm seeing for the first time that stepping out of that parental role too soon leaves my daughter without a mother.  it leaves her without a responsible adult behind the wheel, without a guardian watching over her, without someone to show her where the lines are between safe and dangerous.  setting limits may make her see me as completely the opposite of her beloved friends, but i feel like the message these celebrity stories had for me was that i still have to do it.   

as much as that night out to dinner with my girl was such a highlight, i see now: that aspect of our relationship has to wait.  not that we can't have moments when we get to drop the roles and just be together, not that there won't be feelings of friendship, but just that what she most needs from me isn't a friend.  that's what i often want the most, but she has plenty of friends.

what she needs, and will continue to need for many years into the future, is a mom.  one that says no sometimes, one that makes rules and limits, one that she can curse about to her friends, and one that will ruin her life and make her feel like she'll die of embarrassment.

and hopefully, one that she'll thank at 30, when she realizes that i expressed my greatest love for her in choosing to be that mom instead of getting to be her friend for all those years.

fighting nature

lately, my interest is piqued by the GMO debate and the recent farmer lawsuit against monsanto.

on one side, i can see the innovative creativity that is at the heart of GMO development.  i even remember doing a science report back in high school about genetic engineering, and at the time, i thought the whole concept of it was amazing.  the idea that we could use our minds to improve, to contribute to, to evolve nature intrigued me.

and now, i look at where this field has gone in the decades since that report, and i realize how the development of GMOs parallels something i've been listening to adyashanti talk a lot about: the development of ego.  just like we can all be so compelled to try to control the circumstances of our lives, the people around us, the way we appear to others, GMOs are just working to exercise that same control.  we can all feel so drawn to make our mark on the world, to have it be a different place because we are here, and a GMO is doing just that; it's making its mark, making things better - more efficient, more resilient, or creating a higher yield than nature could do on her own.

and in that i see just why i'm so deeply intrigued by the GMO issues.  i feel like the whole thing plays out a metaphor for the way human beings generally live, and i see the immense destruction of biodiversity indicated by pictures like this:

as the same wake-up call human beings are getting in so many ways.   although it's not only GMOs contributing the decline of biodiversity, to me, all these causes feel quite related in the way they aim to improve upon nature as it is. 

there is a delicate balance, harmony, and mysterious beauty in the way all of Life fits together, and on very personal levels or very collective levels, the same truths can be seen.  when we mess with the balance, we suffer.  when we try to control it, we actually make it worse.  when we fail to honor the mysteries, we realize how great they are.

the GMO revolution exposes this profound idea in yet another form.  it makes so relevant the fact that our desire to improve nature leads to decline because in this situation, it is leading to the decline of our food sources.  just maybe, with such a flashing red light, we might realize on greater and greater levels that there is no way to perfect that which is already perfect.

the world is sacred.
it can't be improved.
if you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
if you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.
-verse 29 of the tao te ching

fire in the house

it was back in the summer of '96 when i met chris.  my boyfriend at the time brought me to his friend's house, and chris was the only person there that i'd never met.  everyone called him "little chris." i wondered how a man would like such a nickname, and as i watched, he seemed just fine with it.  although it was just an uneventful night of video game playing, i felt drawn to this new guy.  he had a softness i hadn't seen before, this quiet and wise presence that seemed to make him the most popular guy in the room.

from there, i ended up seeing chris every so often when the boyfriend's friends came around. there was this feeling of comfort with him, a respect i had for him that i couldn't quite pin down.  i actually went to great lengths trying to convince my best friend that he was the guy for her.  i had such a warm feeling towards him, and not wanting a good man be wasted, for them to be happy together seemed pretty perfect.

during that time, i was finishing up my last year in college, majored in philosophy.  my obsession was studying world religions, and towards the spring of '97, i felt myself changing, becoming more quiet, more inward.  and during these changes, i felt myself relating more and more to chris.  after six months of a casual friendship, i started getting these strong intuitions that there was something more unfolding, some deeper spiritual connection i had never felt with anyone.  this connection had me intrigued, yet utterly confused.

the boyfriend and chris had recently become roommates, and one afternoon, i was over at their house.  boyfriend put this song on and went out on the back porch to have a cigarette.  as i sat, alone with chris, listening to the lyrics: "i know you belong to everybody but you can't deny that i'm you," i was overwhelmed with how they resonated with how i was feeling about chris.  there was a sameness i was feeling with him, this oneness.  but i'd been telling myself that i was crazy; it was impossible to think anything would happen between us.

and then my boyfriend came up to the glass door and looked in at us.  he pointed to himself, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and then pointed to me and pointed to chris.  he loved us?  was this song, this sign through the window his way of acknowledging that chris and i should be together?

maybe.  what i was feeling was so intense - how could it not be obvious?  how could it not be clear that it was chris and i that had more things to talk about?

after that, i couldn't keep hanging out with the boyfriend and chris all the time.  the chaos on the inside was too much to take, and i felt like i was being so false, falling in love with one of them while in a relationship with the other.

so, i did the only thing that made sense at the time; i told the boyfriend everything.  within moments of telling him how i was feeling about chris, it became painfully clear that the boyfriend had no inkling this was coming.  he ran out of my house and said he needed space.  i chased him out to his car.  he asked if chris knew how i felt.  i said no.  he said that he had to tell him, and he drove away.

it brings up a bit of a queasy feeling to even mentally return to that moment.  knowing how much i'd hurt the boyfriend that i did love so much, the helplessness of having my feelings delivered to chris by him, wondering what chris would think, if he felt the same, if he would think i was a friendship busting bitch, or if he would understand my sincerity.  and there was nothing that i could do.

but within a week or so, i couldn't wait anymore.  i called their house, hoping chris would answer.  i just wanted to apologize for this whole drama.  i just had to talk to him, even for a second. and as luck would have it, he did answer. . . and he did feel the same way.

from there, chris didn't feel ready to face his roommate about his feelings for me, and so we wrote and mailed letters to each other.  now, all these years later, i feel blessed for that crazy drama that forced us to have our first dates through pen and paper.  it drew out something so much more real, and it let me fall in love with the slow and deliberate wise man within him.

that whole first summer together is one of very little memory for me.  there are some moments that linger because of how other-worldly they felt.  like the night we held each other by my front door; when we finally separated, we realized that literally hours had passed as we stood there, not saying a word.  or the time we were at the park and so suddenly the sky lit up with a fuchsia tinged pink just moments before rain started pouring, and then as we ran for the car, lightening struck and split a tree right where we were when the rain started.  truly, it was the most insane and unexplainable time of my life.  it was like a veil was lifted and i was living in a completely different reality than the one i had known all my life.  at moments, it was bliss, at others, complete chaos.

*** 

i lay here on my sleeping bag, waiting for the ayahuasca to take effect.  the cave is dark now that the sun has set.  my sleeping bag rests on one of those inflatable camping pads that is only about three quarters the length of my sleeping bag.  each time i move, i feel that hard rocky floor and i wonder if those rubbing sounds of my sleeping bag are disturbing the others.


i just need to close my eyes, to feel safe, to feel protected, watched over, loved.  ah, i know.  this is the perfect time to call in and thank those spirits around me.  i bring codi to mind, that beautiful wolf dog that dropped his body a year or so ago.  although i miss his body roaming around, he feels closer than ever.  as soon as i think of him, he is here.  he is loving me.


then, there is that loving spirit guide that whispered to me about chris when i didn't yet have the slightest clue what he was talking about.  the one that filled pages of my journal with all sorts of things that made no sense as i was writing, but without fail, made more and more sense as the time passed.  he too is here, loving me.


as i go through those things that make me feel safe and loved, i am overwhelmed by how much love there is.  how there seems no limit on it; there seems to be no end.  tears start slowly falling down my cheeks.


and then, that nausea starts slowly rumbling in my belly.  softly at first, and then i know from all the stories that i better get myself up and out of this sleeping bag.


i slowly make my way to the cave entrance.  as i emerge from the cave, the brightness of the full moon hits me; the aliveness of the amazon feels so open.  dolores comes over and puts her arm around me; she looks gently into my eyes and without saying a word she lets me know she is there for me.  as the wild volcanic eruptions start, i feel myself stand aside and i let the body do what it must. i let the caretakers caretake, and i just admire the great mystery of it all.


***

my honeymoon phase with chris lasted for the rest of that first summer, and then, it was time for me to go on the three month trip to costa rica that i planned before i became lovestruck.  my heart definitely grew fonder while i was gone, but that old reality started creeping back in.  old thought patterns revved back up, old insecurities rose, and old ways of moving through the world started showing up.

the biggest shocker of all during this period of resurrecting ego was the way that all my old patterns with men starting coming back in.  after things stabilized with chris and the whirlwind of excitement slowed, i started finding myself looking at other men, wondering if they were looking at me.  i suppressed all this stuff as much as i could because i knew what was true: my love for chris.  and i followed that truth to the alter.

a couple years into our marriage was when the walls on my not so neat and tidy inner world started coming down.  i started sensing vibes from a younger man that worked in my office.  there was this moment i still remember so vividly: we were in the courtroom watching a proceeding handled by one of the other attorneys.  i looked over at him, and he had this look, this hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar look.  i became so curious about whether it meant what i thought it meant.

over a few years, i had a "friendship" with this man that confused the hell out of me.  all sorts of crazy signs started manifesting, and i started having intuitions about me and this other man.  it was all so familiar because of how it had this strange air of that first summer with chris.  it was all happening again, but with someone else, and chris was still there, and i still loved him.  and as i stood on the ledge about to leap into something new, it all became so obvious.  if i took this leap, it wasn't going to lead to soaring flight; this leap was headed for a messy splat on the canyon floor.

the period of time that followed that realization was a bit of a mid-life crisis for me.  i felt so ashamed for getting so lost.  i had quit my stable lawyer job, and we sold our house because without my job we couldn't afford it. we moved in with my brother, and i cried, i wrote, i walked, and i spent my time wondering what the hell had just happened.

with our bank account more full than it had ever been from the proceeds of our sold house, i just had one thing that i knew i wanted to do: go on a trip to the amazon.  i'd read a book back in college about these vision quest journeys, and the idea resonated so deeply with me.  i'd always wanted to go, but there was never the right time.  but now with no job and a ton of money in the bank, it was definitely the right time.

***

as i lay back down on my sleeping bag, i am amazed.  i don't even feel the slightest bit sick anymore.  it's all passed, and i feel fine.  i don't know if it's working though.  i'm not hallucinating; i look around the cave and i see the others lying down around me.  i see sharon walking around outside.  it all feels ordinary now that i'm back on my sleeping bag, like a camping trip with a new found lot of friends.

i recline and relax.  oh well, i didn't care so much about the trippy part of it all anyway.  i still feel that extraordinary sense of love, that limitlessness, that glow from the moon streaming in the mouth of the cave, the warmth of the kind spirits around me.  maybe i'll just sleep.


but immediately a dream starts unfolding.  these images flash . . . images of my face, different hairstyles and clothes, ones i've never worn before. . . i feel such love, such awe and appreciation for the many forms i can take, the different ways i can appear and act. . . then, a bird's eye view of a castle moves in, like a blueprint showing all the rooms, a secret chamber in the castle, the door slowly opening. . . then there's another shift and things are getting more vivid, more real.

i see this house, an adobe house, feels like what i'd imagine of the southwest. . . but the house has caught on fire. . . no, no, it's not a fire like that, not an accidental fire, it's something else. . . a family is packed up outside the house. . . the house is holding the flames, containing them. . . the family with their belongings begins to walk, away from the house on fire . . . where are they going?  why are they leaving?  why don't they seem sad?


***

after our time in the amazon basin, our small tribe of nine took some time to recuperate before returning to the hustle of quito, the gateway to our homes around the world.  we spent some time at a beautiful and tranquil hot springs resort where we could soak, process, and just spend some last moments together.  these people were all strangers when i'd arrived ten days earlier, but after that time together, they felt closer to me than anyone else.  since they didn't have all these stories and perceptions of me that went way back, they felt like the only ones that really saw me, right then, as i was.

and one of the things that i was processing during this time was the next step.  for many years, chris and i had talked about leaving our home in the east, about moving to eugene, oregon.  before things fell apart, we were sure that was where we were headed, but over the last six months or so, it didn't seem clear at all where we were headed, or even if we'd be headed there together.  but in the clarity of those moments fresh from the forest, it felt clear again that we should go.  when i returned, chris was very much on the same page.

about four months later, we moved to eugene.  after ten blissful months of enjoying our new home, signs starting pointing in a direction that we hadn't expected: santa fe, new mexico.  it's funny looking back because the strongest memory is of seeing this movie and then the wheels started turning.  there wasn't any logic to it; we just had a gut instinct that we should check it out, and we did, and we moved to new mexico a few months later.

santa fe was a dream.  ideal to our fantasies in so many ways - we lived in a gorgeous home with miraculous views of the southwest sunsets; our daughter was in a fantastic school; we made friends quickly; it really felt like home.

and then again, the arrows started pointing away.  this time we were more reluctant to listen, more attached to the new home, but as life would have it, we just couldn't stay.  it was clear that the time to be practical had come, and we moved to albuquerque for me to take a job.

and this is when things slowed down.  although we rented a hefty handful of houses all around albuquerque trying to find an area we liked, we stayed in the same vicinity.  we became so stable that within a couple years, my parents, brother, and sister all took up residency in albuquerque.  our daughter settled into a school, i settled into my new job, and everything felt like it was settling in around us.

no arrows showed up, as much as i sort-of hoped they would.  and then the hopes turned to fantasies, the fantasies to obsessions, the obsessions to needs, and then, chris and i started hatching the plans to restart again.  it all felt so in tune.  i was living in this adobe house in the southwest, and i could feel that it was catching fire.  we were the family from my ayahuasca vision five years earlier; we were meant to trek from here. 

now, my parents didn't feel quite the air of fate about the whole thing as we did.  they were pissed.  they'd bought a house and been traveling back and forth for the last couple years, just to be near us, and now, we were moving.  within months of announcing our intention, they sold their house and left.  and we busily made plans for our next big move, this time to the southeast.

but, things just weren't working out the same way this time.  all the signs said very different things than they said the other times we made a move.  this time they said things like: "no work here," "sorry, i can't help you," and then, the kicker, "sorry, you need to be out of the house where you are living on may 1st. . . no, you can't stay until june 1st . . . i'm sorry this messes up your cross-country move, but you need to find another place to live," and then the icing on the cake, "sure, you can rent our beautiful home . . . just for a month, no problem. . . wait, so sorry, but we just refunded your money; you can't stay there after all."

with each obstacle, we scrambled to figure out how to continue, but finally, it broke us.  we had to surrender.  it just wasn't happening.  i'd hurt my family and chased them away, and now, we had no place to live in a few short weeks.  our previously honed intuitive guidance had clearly veered off track.

and right about that time, i discovered adya.

chris had become interested in adyashanti a few months earlier and had purchased the end of your world cd set, which still hadn't even been opened.  feeling quite a sense of the end of my world, i put the set in my car and started listening, and listening, and listening.

adya reconnected me to something very old, something that i hadn't felt connected to in some time.  his teachings drawing on zen buddhism brought me back to those college classes that enthralled me back in '96.  his talk of awakening and enlightenment touched on that mysterious pull i felt back then, the drive to really know what was true, what was real.  listening to adya started bringing me back to that first summer with chris, those unexplainable events, the evaporated memories, the different processing of the world.

and again, things shifted, rather quickly.

we quite serendipitously found a cute little house to rent right near the one we'd been kicked out of, and that house has become more of a home than we've ever had, more than even the home we bought together about a decade ago.

and now after two years in this lovely little house, it has turned out that we really are headed back east, but not to the town in the southeast that we'd picked a couple years ago.  we're heading back to the town where we started, to the place where chris and i met, and to the place where we both grew up.

and as our time here in the desert has been coming to a close, i keep feeling a sense of deja vu.  the fire in the house from my ayahuasca dream felt so close this past summer.  with all the fires in new mexico, i finally felt that deep sense of being too far from my habitat.  i felt the closeness of the flames while watching them at night through my windows.  i longed for the green, the rain, the ocean.  for the first time in a very long time, i deeply longed for home.

and that family in the ayahuasca dream, i keep understanding different levels of what they are experiencing, where they are going, why they are leaving, why they aren't sad.  i feel now why the fire in the house wasn't something to mourn; the Fire is what i've been moving toward all along.

The story continues here: Water in the House