Speaking in a different voice today. Something in me was saying stop making that kind of sense, play around instead. I often hear those other voices - voices of the heartful imagination - and don’t share what they say because they seem too personal - maybe too indulgent.
I’ll share what those personal voices were saying this morning. As usual, they were reflecting on what’s going on in the world and in my personal world.
I separated the different bursts from each other as I wrote them because they didn’t seem to have anything in common. I’ll leave them that way and see if they come together.
Last night I dreamed my friend “Jonathan” showed up in my town. In the dream I told him everything that I thought would be too rude to say in real life. (In real life yesterday I’d resolved to “work it out myself” rather than laying it on him.) Since he showed up by surprise in the dream, I told him my sadness, anger and resentment there in the dream, without holding back. It felt good to tell him, honest. My story was that my beliefs, my perspective, my imagination were not welcome and so I was not welcome.
But now I see all that wasn’t true. My old story of not belonging turns into my feeling of belonging. Hallelujah!
This is the sense that accompanies me on the road of today. I feel some deeper truth resonates with me and animates me. My nature is to walk toward this and to animate it back. We’re in connection. I am drawn there; my walk takes me there.
Though there are innumerable others walking along the road, still each has their own walk and their own road and destination. I take comfort in knowing that I have mine. This journey is independent of psychology or fixing myself or of the need to be fixed. It’s already alive and it knows what to do. It takes me down the valley and up on the hill.I trust in this sense of well-being and follow it as I walk along. It doesn’t need improvement. There’s nothing broken here. I’m not made wrong, and we’re not. A part of us knows where we’re going. I find my own way but I don’t know how to do it beforehand. The way’s not straight like an imaginary Roman road but winding and off to the side. The nature of it is that it’s trustworthy. I can walk secure in knowing that. My quality of attention keeps me on track. If I’m distracted I miss and quickly fall asleep until I take stock of my surroundings again.
The road is private and my own like my life is my own. It’s not a formula or an impersonal set of guidelines to follow. It’s not a guided tour through an art museum, however wonderful the paintings on the wall. No one can show me the way or point out what I need to see. Each of us finds it on our own. It leads to an understanding I’m not sure I want to know but can’t help but know because my life is woven through it. It’s reaching out to me as I’m reaching out to it without knowing. No tour guide can show you this or how to be with it. It can only be discovered from the inside by the traveler. I’d like others to show me the way but they’re finding their own way in their own hall of art. They can’t do mine.
I claim my own experience in all its particularity. I claim my own voice. It would be easy to pretend mine didn’t matter. Or that I don’t matter. But as I claim it I see that it does matter. I take my natural place and I belong there as I wait for what comes next. It feels easy and right. And it’s also no big deal. It’s just the process of life.
I don’t belong to a small club but to a larger group, the one we all belong to. I belong there and I take my place there on this walkabout pilgrimage. My joy is there. The spring in my step is there. I am carefree because I trust in the One who made this road. I heard that an Angel is ahead of us and prepares the way because we’re needed. It’s all their doing, whatever happens but I will not shrink from being myself.
I’m evolving like everyone else. Birds grew out of eyeless and wingless earlier creatures. They found their way to sing and see and fly. I’m a consciousness that grows and reaches out into the world as my natural imagination. There’s no need to become some object or static concept of “awakening,” as if that were possible.
Jonathan is right, as am I. To settle for a fixed view against another fixed view is to consign myself to war. There is no right side. I have my duty, what’s mine to do. Courage is needed.
It sounds like you interpreting all the aspects of dreams that have provided you with the gift of personal insight.
Love this post Andrew. Very akin to my own feelings. We’re all different, on different roads, no need to argue or convince another, my road is only valid for me. That knowing is the common denominator which allows us to respect another’s path, though totally different from mine, maybe even apparently opposite. I say ‘allow’, but it’s not as easy as that for me, having been educated to believe that there is one right answer, and all others are wrong. This new viewpoint, of accepting other’s differences as appropriate for them, challenges my old mindset and way of thinking. It is more akin to art and creativity, where there are no rules and no structure, but what ‘feels’ right to me.