All I could say is Wow! A catalyst for change?
I am sure we all have had something that comes along that seems to impel us forward to do something. A few months ago a sister-friend and I were having a conversation about my art and the gift I seem to have to go on and on with stories and how could that be used as a catalyst for change.
Far too many times I got started to write and then something would rear its ugly head and I would get distracted with stuff, you know it, things & life. So the writing was always in fits 'n starts with this going on for years. If I had a dollar bill for every time someone would say to me you should do something with this, except I could not tell you want the "this was", I continue to allow things & life to get in the way...
One of her comments my colleague made was in reference to a friend of hers commenting how that 07 represented a stage of completion & 08 new beginnings. I had told her of having the same repetitive dream over the last years and a sense of not being satisfied with the status quo that I was itchy to do something differently. That the things that had brought me so much joy over the years had become a chore, a drudge and I was angry with having to be put I felt on a assembly line and that is not how I wanted my life to be, stifled.
Was I at a new beginning? A new curve? Perhaps but the events of the last several days of so many people being killed, maimed & traumatized throughout the world as well as the U.S from the recent tornadoes, floods, mankind's ineptness as well as the ongoing continuing distress from Hurricanes Katrina & Rita really if it couldn't do it before, can do it now.
I do know that my perspective has been irrevocable altered. A shift that occurred that I had not know when or why and does it matter , but it happened. Things that I cared far too much for now seem far more irrelevant to me. I am feeling a different type of responsibility to do & to be the best kind of human being. To use what gifts I have and do them so awesomely well that as Dr. Maya Angelou says "that the world cannot take their eyes off of you". And then also to use that for a larger good.
The reoccurring dream, as I recalled, was this:
For whatever reason my daughter and I and two former friends of mine (who I have not seen in years) were here and we decided to drive to Mexico one morning. And I was driving in a straight line to get there. (Understand in a straight line would have put me perhaps in Cuba, Haiti or Puerto Rico, not Mexico from where I live). Anyway, stuff kept on happening to prevent us from getting on the road. Most of it had to do with my former job, I kept on ending up back on the campus with still yet another delay. At some point the other two friends got on the road in the other car, but my daughter & I kept on getting stopped and delayed. Around 3 PM that afternoon (I don't know why I knew it was 3pm I just knew) here comes another delay, but I was bound and determine I was getting out before dark to go to Mexico! ( I don't know why I was going to Mexico, but I was going!) Anyway I just woke up out of a dead sleep and the first thing I thought that was a silly dream, but it wasn't silly...
The obvious is that stuff keeps getting in the way and (I allowed it) to block me from getting on a new journey. I believe that Mexico represented perhaps something far away from what I am doing+something foreign to me, so perhaps I am looking to do things differently. The fact that my daughter was with me could be simply that she is by far more passive and quieter and shyer then I am, but once upon a time I was just like that!
I relayed this dream to a friend of mine who is a counselor/artist and the first thing she said to me was “You know everyone in the dream is you, right? What do you see happening in this dream that you are trying to tell your conscious mind?” Without a hesitation I said “That I need to get out of the way of myself. That I had been sabotaging, misdirecting my goodness with distractions to avoid what I know I needed to do. That I have mistrusted myself and my ability to truly have my life so grand.
I had grown comfortable, it was conscious or willful, that despite the fact of all I have accomplished in really believing a lot of nay-sayers who we all are quite familiar with or have had a relationship with at one time or another, being unabashedly loud, voluminous like crashing cymbals reminding me of what I call the "Who do you think you are? You should be small, how dare you"?
How dare I indeed!
So instead of dashing this recording CD into a gadzillion pieces, I let it play on.
But I was reminded by a sister-friends says I "have more chutzpah ( nerve) then anyone she has ever met" and that was one of the things she admired about me. So my determination was winning out despite the fact that what I used to be coupled with all the stalling tactics was blocking me from really fulfilling my purpose. And all I had to do was put my back to the crowd and lead the orchestra
And all I could say is WOW!
Since I had that reflection, I have had this continuing good feeling that I have tried to name then I stopped bothering & I am grinning on the inside down in my bones. My challenges have not abated, but I am feeling very good. Do I want to lead & am I doing it for the right reasons? Well I hope so & do I have the nerve to pursue?
Well I believe so as this blog has begun...
I am no different as I get discourage and want to pick up my marbles and go home. But I haven't & I won't.
And to that again I can only say Wow!
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