For the fourth day in a row, I sit at my computer with the intention of writing. The last three attempts at integrating and documenting my journey have resulted in three days of surrender – three days of sinking into emotions that continue to run much deeper than expected. Today, July 27, 2012, optimistic feelings encourage that I just might be successful.
I now return in time – to a day nearly six weeks ago. It is Sunday, June 17, 2012.
Love Yourself
As I quickly scan the internet early on Sunday morning, I note two facts with passing interest. First, today is Father’s Day back home in the United States. Second, I smile with delight as I realize that I feel no painful emotion – that a day that used to trigger emotional guilt and regret carries no charge whatsoever. I quickly scribble a curious line in my notes “Father’s day … no emotions about it … but I wish??”
It will be weeks before this line in my notes returns to haunt me.
I feel lighter this morning, experiencing glimpses of renewed happiness, yet I also sense a confusing layer of repressed emotion just beneath conscious awareness. As I immerse myself in reading the book “Oneness” by Rasha, one particular section jumps out at me. I do not bother recording the actual quote or reference, but clearly remember the message – a message about how important it is to love yourself even in the midst of humiliation and dysfunction.
As I later assist Keith in preparations for a Sunday afternoon chocolate ceremony, I find myself content and happy, being giggly and social with others who arrive early. I even do some joking around with Paul.
Mind Reading
“I am in my power today,” I ponder during the initial meditation. “I suspect that I will be helping others.
Later, as the “Glow Meditation” proceeds, I feel strong inner guidance to work with a woman across the porch – a woman who is crying a great deal. Intuitions strongly whisper that it is my job to go assist her – yet I resist, doubting myself, feeling a sense of “not yet.”
Eventually, Keith glances my way with a glow in his eyes.
“Go work with her,” I feel Keith’s silent guidance, without his needing to say a single word.
“I know,” I respond with my thoughts. “I have been feeling that too.”
I grin, because I feel as if both Keith and I are literally communicating without words, simply reading each other’s minds and gestures.
Soon, I am sitting sit with this woman, holding loving energetic space, occasionally encouraging her to surrender and to go deeper, bringing in the light when appropriate. Eventually, intuitions tell me that my participation is over, and I return to my seat.
A Time Of Humiliation
As Keith slowly works his way around the porch, I continue to watch and observe, holding space for others – doing so from the comfort of my own cushion. I begin to pay particular attention when Keith works with a young woman, I will call her Deb. She is very shutdown, but deeply magical. Keith and Angela both comment about the amazing energetic gifts that they sense in her, but Deb is unable to see it, struggling to trust herself. Keith explains to her how she is standing in front of an obstacle that cannot be solved with the mind – a metaphorical five-meter wall of glass that she cannot climb under her own power.
Soon, Keith shares personal stories about how he spent three years in humiliation – being unable to move beyond his own inner blocks – explaining how he was doing some of the best inner work in his own group, but was still stuck, sometimes feeling judged and ridiculed by others.
I deeply relate to Keith’s story. I continue to frequently experience the humiliation of my own state. I am doing profound inner work, but feel as if I am using a spoon to move a mountain, making little progress toward my final goal. Meanwhile, it seems that other magical beings can suddenly move an entire metaphorical mountain with little effort at all.
When Keith leaves Deb to work with her issue, she indicates that she is only perhaps twenty percent of the way over the wall, and that progress feels hopeless. Perhaps an hour later, however, when Keith turns to check in with Deb, she is glowing with energy as she confidently announces that she made it over the wall, that she has healed so much.
My sense of humiliation again skyrockets. I feel like a loser – doing layer after layer of profound inner work, yet still standing at the bottom of that unsolvable riddle.
The Voice Of Hopelessness
There are several young women who are at the ceremony for the first time today – beautiful magical beings from elsewhere in Central America. As I observe Keith work with them, it becomes profoundly obvious that they are all extremely sensitive and deeply aware empaths, sensing things in their first ceremony that boggle my mind.
“I am such a stupid loser,” the inner voices scream in my head.
I am frustrated, feeling the hopelessness and futility of my own inability to open up even basic sensitivities that seem obvious and natural to these young women. After more than a year and a half of nearly nonstop deep work with Keith, I still cannot do what they are doing in their first ceremony – and they do not even appreciate it.
“I am a stupid, stupid, stupid loser,” the voices continue to humiliate me in my head. “There is no hope for me. I just want to give up. I will never be able to do what they can do.”
“And if I ask for help,” I silently scream in frustration, “I know I won’t get it.”
Stupid Loser Energy
Meanwhile, I observe as Keith begins to work with the woman that I had assisted at the beginning of the ceremony. He spends nearly half of the entire ceremony working only with her, assisting her with powerful growth and opening.
I am increasingly losing myself in the God drama, into a state of absolute knowing that I am not going to get any help today. Inner voices insist that if I DO ask for help, I will likely be rejected, ridiculed, and ignored.
I am projecting my God drama onto Keith, clearly recognizing how I am creating this reality on the porch – understanding how Keith is weaning me from dependency – but desperately knowing that I cannot progress without further assistance. It is a very confusing dilemma.
Finally, just as Keith begins to approach my cushion, someone else interrupts him and diverts his attention. Soon, the topic of this man’s real-life sisters becomes quite relevant.
Suddenly, I recognize that much of my own “I am a stupid loser” energy – energy that is surfacing today in a big way – comes directly from my brother
Voices Of The Past
“When I was four my brother was twelve years old,” I ponder. “He used to tease me incessantly, and being a twelve-year-old who was just entering puberty, having to share his room with a four-year-old emotionally sensitive crybaby and effeminate little boy (me), would have been quite difficult for him.”
“I got slammed by him,” the unfolding intuitive insights mix with actual memories. “I remember how his frequent teasing actually frightened me. Even though I can now clearly see that in his perspective he was just innocently teasing me … I was often quite afraid of my brother. From as early as I can remember, up until about age ten, his behavior intimidated me. I can only imagine how I must have driven him crazy and how, as an empath, I unknowingly took in his struggling emotions – emotions that he would have been feeling as a young teen.”
“A great deal of this “I am stupid, I can’t do it, I am a loser” energy comes from my brother,” I again ponder with deep clarity. “I need to give this energy back to my brother.”
I want to be clear that I love my older brother dearly. I understand how he was just dealing with his own teenage survival during my very young and tender formative years. But I also recognize that some of what I am carrying at an emotional level does indeed originate with and belong to my brother, and it is his job to energetically release it, not mine.
Soon, I imagine my brother’s Higher Self essence standing in front of me. I begin to cry as I ask my brothers energies to take back any of the voices and beliefs that might indeed belong to him. Almost immediately, I invite my mother’s Higher Essence to join us, also asking her to take back more of the conditioning that came from her.
I feel a certain amount of hesitation and guilt for giving these voices back – as if the voices will hurt those I love – but I clearly recognize that many of these self-perpetuated belief systems are not mine to carry. I remain in this very emotional space, asking Higher Energies to sort out what voices belong to whom, for perhaps a half hour.
Damned If I Do Or Don’t
Finally, as the ceremony nears completion, Keith glances my way to check in. After I quickly summarize my journey for the day, I ask if perhaps he can guide me to a next step or help me go any deeper.”
“Nope,” Keith congratulates me. “You have done great work today. My guidance is for you to take a rest and to integrate and to feel good about what you did.”
I love Keith’s deeply validating feedback, but again feel the buttons of my God drama being triggered – buttons that almost speak, rubbing it in that when I am strong and self-sufficient that I am ignored and expected to do everything by myself.
As Keith finishes up with another beautiful young man, I sink deeper into this God drama anger.
“I DON’T GET HELP,” The inner voices silently scream.
I clearly recognize that I am experiencing the childhood emotions of resentment and confusion – confusion about a cycle of futility and hopelessness – confusion about how I know I will be rejected and punished regardless, whether I need help, or whether I try to do something by myself.
“If I ask for help then I am ridiculed, resisted, and shamed until I finally get pathetic enough that those in authority give me the help I need,” I ponder the drama I have played out since being a tiny child. “I am damned if I need help, and damned if I do not.”
Unsolvable Riddles
Again, I ponder a looped rope course – one that was used as an experiential exercise during one of my psychology classes – one where classmates tied a continuous loop of rope around trees and signs in a parking lot. After being blindfolded, I was told that the objective was to find the end of the rope, and if I got stuck I could ask for help. I quickly discovered that there was no end – but refused to ask for help because I was determined to solve the riddle using my mind – to prove my intellect by doing so. Later, I silently fumed when I learned that the solution to the unsolvable riddle was simply to “ask for help.”
Soon, Keith turns to work with me and I explain how my own stuck process feels like an agonizing unsolvable loop – of how I need help but know I will not get it if I ask.
“You set up this unsolvable loop,” Keith explains. “You intentionally designed it to be impossible, with no way out … so that you would have to rely on Higher Energies to help.”
Keith suddenly becomes quite helpful, sharing a great deal of guidance, most of which disappears into my swirling confusion. I feel like a crazy and stupid loser for pursuing my need for more guidance. But Keith quickly eliminates my self-judgment when he patiently begins to explain my dilemma to the handful of others who yet remain on the porch.
Self-Love And Self-Acceptance
“What Brenda is doing is not wrong,” Keith emphasizes quite loudly. “She carefully crafted this entire situation for a reason, and the only way out of her loop is to arrive at the lesson that she wanted to learn. During my own three years of humiliation, I needed to learn compassion for being in such a place.”
“I know that my own unsolvable loop has a lot to do with the same,” I respond. “I need to learn compassion, self-love, and self-acceptance for being so humiliated and stuck – because I understand that I will be working with many others who are equally stuck and I need to have the inner love and patience to understand them.”
A great deal of my own “I am a loser” energy quickly dissipates as Keith tells others that I am doing advanced and powerful work.
Seconds later, I ponder the profound words I read this morning in “Oneness” by Rasha – words encouraging me to love myself in the middle of humiliation and dysfunction.
“I know this whole process is designed to teach me self-love,” I ponder.
Yucky Childhood Emotions
But right now I am still swimming in a reservoir of childhood emotions – a yucky muck of futility and hopelessness. I am drowning in that stinking swamp, wanting to give up, not caring, believing that help will never come regardless of what I do – knowing that help is never available once I begin to show signs of self-empowerment.
“Empowerment absolutely equates to rejection and abandonment,” I ponder the futility.
Keith and I soon discuss how I am still at the bottom of my own five-meter wall of glass – that I am mired in my God drama, and that the only way out is to “own the game that I am playing with God.” It is a game where I refuse to allow such Higher-Energy help until I receive that apology from God.
I know that self-love and surrendering to the flow of my process are my only hope – but right now the yucky muck of childhood emotions have their slimy hands around my neck. I cry in futility for a while as others ignore me. One young man encourages me to scream it out if I need to, but I am unable to access such anger – recognizing that there is no one to be angry at – that I designed this whole situation to learn compassion.
“But perhaps I need to further feel and get to know the truth-with-a-lowercase-t of these victimization emotions,” I ponder in my confusion. “Perhaps I need to go deeper into subconscious experience and know-myself before I can get the learning I need.”
Eraser Frustration
“Congratulations on your awareness,” Keith reassures me during a post-ceremony conversation. “As frustrating as it feels, you are in a very good and powerful place. If there was anything I could say to help you, I would do so … but this is an individual process … one that you must do. I have already told you everything I can tell you.”
“But I have a huge magical eraser,” I express a plea for some type of rational-mind settling. “I know I am in a very beautiful place … very close to some type of magical growth. I am just following my flow with no expectations, and am willing to go wherever that flow takes me.”
Gratitude fills my heart as Keith does take a few minutes to discuss my plight from a purely rational-mind level. I so desperately need to regain my footing and to rebuild my trust – a trust that even in my craziness, I am doing very well.
“Go home, take your notes, rest, integrate, allow, surrender, and follow whatever comes up,” Keith guides me, reminding me that my normal post-ceremony routine is very good – reminding me to simply trust my process.
Who I Want You To Be
After quickly munching down a plate of rice and beans, I lose myself in an episode of Glee, one that is deeply encouraging of “being your true self … not what others think you should be.”
Finally, at around 10:00 p.m., I return to meditation, calling on the Higher Essences of brothers, sisters, mom, dad, church leaders, teachers, and friends, etc…
“I want you to take back all of the “you are stupid, you are a loser, and why can’t you just be who I want you to be” energy,” I tell all of the gathered energies from my past.
That “why can’t you just be who I want you to be” line just blurts out of nowhere.
This is one of my favorite lines from the movie “Martian Child.” It is one of those rare movie lines that resonate so profoundly that the words are never forgotten. As I ponder this thought, I begin to quietly cry. Within seconds, I am sobbing and dry heaving, experiencing a freight train of emotion that lasts for about two minutes and then ends as quickly as it began.
“I have spent my whole life trying to be who my parents, family, and church wanted me to be,” I ponder the pain, “and I still struggle with being different from their expectations. I love myself for who I am. No one else has the right to define me or to judge me. I get to define myself.”
Inner feelings whisper that something has suddenly shifted. Only time will tell.
Dissenting Voices
As I drift off to sleep, I ponder with fascination how the mix of people on Keith’s porch has shifted so dramatically in the last two ceremonies. For weeks, it seemed as if the ceremonies were dominated by intense masculine stuckness. Today, however, the ceremony was quite large, dominated by feminine energy, with many people doing deep work. I can clearly see a pattern – one showing how every ceremony serves me greatly, no matter how it appears on the surface.
Shortly after 3:00 a.m. on Monday morning, I wake up with a very nice energy in my head … but I cannot go back to sleep. Part of me says, “Get out of bed and meditate,” but I fight that feeling. Then a weird sensation floods my awareness.
“I am upset by the light,” the knowing unfolds. “I am actually annoyed that the light is helping me. I want to feel the repressed anger, and to process the sadness, etc – and I feel cheated when the light takes that away. I don’t believe it is real.”
“Another part of me is deeply grateful for the assistance of the light,” I ponder, “but this part is suspicious, waiting for the anvil to fall … not believing that the help is real or lasting.”
“I want my apology from God,” Inner voices demand, “I want my reward for all the profound inner work I have been doing.”
Paradoxical Ponderings
“The help I am receiving from Keith is deeply inspired,” the observer in me ponders. “He is steering me in the right direction, but not doing the work for me. He frequently reminds me to trust my inner connection, and to reread a couple of my recent blogs.”
“Brenda,” Keith told me yesterday after the ceremony. “If anyone is even semi-conscious when they read those blogs, they could see what a powerful connection you have had.”
After the ceremony last night, Keith had again firmly insisted that I print out and laminate portions of “Sordid Social Secrets” and “A Subconscious Book Of Beliefs,” placing them around my apartment for frequent reading.
For more than an hour, I ponder crazy paradoxical emotions. They are feelings of enjoying the light, but at the same time resenting and not trusting the light. I want to do something proactive to move the flow along, but also clearly recognize that the flow of my process is happening through me in beautiful ways – ways far more beautiful than I could ever think up with my mind.
Finally, I fall back to sleep.
Profoundly Pissed
Shortly after 7:00 a.m., I wake up and begin to ponder the profundities of an extremely vivid and symbolic dream.
In the dream, Keith, Angela, and I are scheduled to perform a chocolate ceremony across the lake at a yoga retreat center – a beautiful place where I have often assisted Keith in the past. We are supposed to begin at 1:30 p.m. and be done by 5:30 p.m. – and, as usual, I eagerly anticipate the experience.
But to my dismay, as Angela and I travel across the lake, Keith is nowhere to be found. It seems that the two of us are supposed to do the ceremony without him … and that Angela is bringing all of the necessary supplies. Rather than question what is happening, I simply accept the added responsibility.
When Angela and I arrive at our destination, I feel dismayed by what happens next. Rather than finding ourselves at the yoga retreat center, we walk into a very large cafeteria-like, chaos-filled room. As I look around the noisy room, intuitions tell me that there are 56 people here, with about two-thirds of them being younger children.
I still feel somewhat optimistic as I recognize the difficulty of facilitating such a large group with so many children. Acting quickly, I grab a big handful of supplies out of Angela’s large, cream-colored, purse-like bag … carrying them over to a kitchen-like counter along the far wall so that I can organize them. Suddenly, as I begin to sort through the random supplies, deep confusion consumes me.
I have before me a bag of cinnamon, which, while yummy, is something we never serve in public ceremonies. Next I find a chunk of un-chopped ginger root – something we could not possibly use without a great deal of work. Frustrations then begin to flare when I find a huge bag of cayenne pepper and only one tiny little bag of panela (raw cane sugar).
“There is no way we could ever use or need that much cayenne pepper,” I ponder in deep annoyance, “and how can we possibly do a ceremony for such a large group with so little sweetener.”
But it is when I find the small one-half pound block of chocolate, not even chopped up, still in block form, that I begin to feel profoundly pissed by the lack of advance preparation.
Lost And Found
As I leave the counter and return to the cream-colored bag to see what else Angela brought, I clearly recall having seeing at least one other pound of chocolate, perhaps more. But to my shock and dismay, both the bag and Angela are now missing, and no one around me seems to be the least bit concerned, giving me no assistance whatsoever.
Finally, I begin to search the halls by myself. I now clearly see that I am in what feels like the hallways of a large high school. I search and search and search, going into this room and that, running every which way in search of the missing supplies – but I find absolutely nothing but empty rooms.
“I’m supposed to do a ceremony for 56 people with just a half pound of chocolate?” I ponder the absurdity with angry futility. “There is no way that will work. And how can I possibly facilitate such a large group by myself.”
Finally, feeling angry, abandoned, stood-up, and extremely stupid, I give up on my search and return to the big chaotic room to gather my wits.
“We found the guy that ran off with your bag,” a man apologizes as he hands me all that was left inside … a single one-pound block of now-crumbly, half-destroyed chocolate.
Refusing To Play
Consumed by frustration, I note the time on a nearby clock. It is now 4:20 p.m. as I stand here with no visible support in a crowded and chaotic room filled with active children … and I barely have enough unprepared chocolate to serve fifteen adults. I clearly recognize that it will take at least forty-five minutes to heat the water, chop up the chocolate, and to make other hurried preparations.
“This is not my fault and I will NOT to play this game,” I grumble as I angrily glance around the chaos-filled room. “I refuse to even try … I will not even facilitate a simple meditation … I give up.”
“I have been abandoned, sabotaged with inadequate supplies and no support,” the anger festers. “Even if I were to try to fulfill my mission, we could not possibly start before 5:15 p.m., and we need to be finished by 5:30 p.m..”
“I am all alone, Angela is nowhere to be seen, and I am not prepared for this mess.” I silently scream. “It is a hopeless environment where there is no chance of conducting a spiritual chocolate ceremony … nor chocolate to even do it … and no advance preparation of any type. I have been deeply let down.”
A Raw Deal
After suddenly waking up around 7:00 a.m. on Monday morning, the anger from the dream lingers for several hours, leaving me in an exhausted, frustrated, and rebellious state.
“It was a setup!” I ponder the annoying dream and how it applies to physical life. “My whole life was a setup, destined for failure. I came into a foreign environment filled with chaos. My Higher Energy companions abandoned me and left me with unprepared ingredients, having little hope of success. I am alone, rebellious, and feeling dumped-on by life.”
“On the other hand,” I ponder, “I know the dream is extremely positive, metaphorically showing me exactly how I created my life … on purpose. I intentionally chose to enter a 1955 reality – wanting to experience a cultural reality that would shut me down until it was time to begin waking up nearly five decades later.”
“There was not enough spiritual energy on the planet in 1955 – inadequate energetic supplies available to fulfill my mission – and the little magic that I brought with me to this planet was quickly stolen (shut down by culture) even before I had an opportunity to begin.”
The anger at my “Raw Deal” is enormous, yet I almost giggle as I ponder the profound way in which this dream has metaphorically modeled my actual life – a life that, in a sense, really has been a looped rope course, an unsolvable dilemma where all possible success routes were intentionally blocked. It was a crazy life designed to teach me self-love and trust.
God Drama Setup
Later, as I meditate, the metaphors from the vivid dream unfold with giggling and profound clarity.
First is the obvious idea that Keith represents God, and that he seemed to abandon me from the very beginning of my scheduled ceremony. He never even showed up, not even helping to prepare the necessary ingredients. Then he sent me into a bait-and-switch environment that was unsuitable for a chocolate ceremony (lifetime).
Second, I clearly see Angela as representing my Higher Self, Spiritual Guides, Angels, etc… They seemed to guide me into the ceremony (birth), but then quickly disappeared. I was never again able to find those higher, supportive connections – feeling all alone in the chaos.
In and of themselves, these first two insights are clearly related to the God drama that I have been exploring for a very long time.
Ingredients And Environments
Third, I giggle at the ingredients – unnecessary supplies such as cinnamon and whole ginger (tart, spicy, distracting times) – and then very inadequate supplies of needed ingredients. Conspicuously missing were enough chocolate (spiritual connection) to fulfill my mission, and raw cane sugar (sweetness, joy, hope, laughter, etc) to see me through to completion. Then there was a huge overabundance of cayenne pepper, which we only use in tiny amounts to spice the chocolate. In my life, cayenne pepper was literally sprinkled on my tongue to shut me down – to repress and punish my anger when I tried to defend myself and/or speak my truth. It seems that my life (chocolate ceremony) was supplied with plenty of opportunities for my voice (and energies) to be shut down.
Forth, the ceremony (life) environment is extremely symbolic. As it turns out, rather than being sent to a peaceful spiritual retreat center, I ended up in a noisy, crowded, chaotic school building. The school seems to be symbolic of the “school of life,” of going through the shut down process and being culturally conditioned in a cafeteria-like assembly-line way. In that cafeteria-like room where the ceremony was supposed to take place there were 56 people, two-thirds of them being children. In addition to “large numbers with chaotic energy unsuitable to a peaceful chocolate ceremony (life)” the number 56 equates to an “11” in numerology – the same number as derived from my birth name – the same number often attributed by some teachers as representing a spiritual guide. Finally, the number “two-thirds” fits my family dynamic perfectly. I was raised in a family of six, with two-thirds of us being children – and in my religious environment, that same ratio (adults to children) was quite applicable.
Perfect Timing
Eventually, with continued meditation, I suddenly realize that even the clock times surrounding the ceremony have major significance. Intuitions guide me that noon represents my birth … 1:00 p.m. is age ten … 2:00 p.m. is age 20 … 5:00 p.m. is age 50 … and so on.
To give us adequate preparation time, Angela and I would have left for the ceremony at noon – my birth at age 0. We would have arrived at around 12:30 p.m. (age 5) – after which I was completely abandoned, lost, and shut down before the planned starting time of 1:30 p.m. (age 15). Finally, after floundering in futility while searching the school of life, I eventually gave up the search at 4:20 p.m. (early forties) which is exactly when I learned that another pound of damaged and crumbled chocolate (spirituality) had been returned (the time of my transition to Brenda). With the knowing that the ceremony was supposed to be complete by 5:30 p.m. (mid fifties), I was angry, feeling hopelessly abandoned, knowing that the odds of success were now nearly impossible.
I could not have designed a more perfect dream to clearly illustrate all major aspects of my own personal God drama, right down to the very timing.
Dreaming On Different Levels
Even at midmorning, I continue to wallow in the actual emotions of this very vivid nighttime dream. I feel victimized, sad, stupid, inadequate, hopeless, helpless, and like an utter failure. Even though it only originates from a dream, I cannot let the emotion go. In fact, I feel deep anger toward Keith and Angela, feeling like I really do need an apology for how they wronged me.
“Wow!” I ponder with shock. “Even after awakening from a mere dream, the emotion of “victimization and refusal to play the game” is very real.”
Soon, I contemplate how many spiritual traditions describe physical reality as also being a dream, or an illusion – something very real while in the middle of it, but clearly just an energetic holodeck of sorts once we wake up – one in which our consciousness is a profound co-creator in unimaginable ways.
“I am just now beginning to wake up from the dream of this physical reality,” I ponder. “In this physical dimension, I too have felt deep struggles, confusion, victimization, and emotions of betrayal. I know in my head that none of that past defines me in any way – that it was all just thoughts and emotional stories. But given the depth of how dreamtime emotions still linger this morning … it is easy to see how unprocessed and unreleased God drama emotions from childhood can yet remain so strong.”
Parallel Dreams
After recognizing that the strong level of emotions will not allow me to write today … my heart guides me to a different path. In recent days, I have loved my exploration of teenage emotions while watching further episodes of the television series, Glee … so I quickly decide to continue that venture. As it turns out, I lose myself in such videos for the entire day.
After dinner, as I prepare for a very early bedtime, I can only giggle when I receive unexpected visitors calling at my door. It is Keith and Angela. They have been visiting together, and decided to stop by to touch base regarding plans for tomorrow.
I already know about a real private chocolate ceremony at the yoga retreat center across the lake tomorrow. I already know that Keith has invited me to assist. And just like in my dream, the real ceremony will begin at 1:30 p.m. and needs to be completed by 5:30 p.m..
What I do not know until now however, is that Keith has also invited Angela to join us. As we discuss plans, we talk about calling for a private boat to pick us up at noon. The only problem is that none of us has the phone numbers for the boat drivers. Within minutes I get on Facebook and send a message to a friend who is facilitating that yoga retreat – and as synchronicities always seem to flow, the desired phone numbers are in my inbox just a few minutes later.
As I soon share details of my vivid dream with my two friends, I do so in a playful, and giggling way.
“You are really fun when you are this way,” Angela complements me.
As I later prepare for bed, I grin and make faces in the mirror. That heavy, angry dreamtime emotion from this morning is long gone, having been replaced by giggling optimism. I can only hope that the hidden God drama emotion – emotion that eerily parallels that of my dream – will also follow a similar course.
Profound Parallels
As I Ponder these last two days, I almost giggle at the profound parallels between so many different realities.
I find great comfort in the way my own journey with stuckness and humiliation, as further explored yesterday, seems to parallel many aspects of Keith’s former journey into learning compassion and self-love. I can only hope that the results of my parallel journey ultimately take me to similar levels of profound energetic and intuitive sensitivity – in my own unique way, of course.
Then I love how my “looped rope course” metaphor continues to serve me greatly. It is a metaphor that came into my life during my psychology training – a metaphor that, in synchronous ways, continues to illustrate how a simple little unsolvable riddle can so profoundly parallel the frustrating dilemmas of my God drama.
What really boggles my mind, however, is how an unexpected dream can so magically parallel the whole God drama and trauma of my life. It is a dream that symbolically-but-clearly illustrates the key figures who let me down, extra and missing ingredients, places, times, and even ages – making it hard for me to deny that the dream literally is a parallel summary of my entire physical life – right down to the lingering God-drama emotions. With each passing day, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny that this stage-play-called-life is no more real than the dreamtime.
As I giggle and ponder the events of tomorrow – thinking of an actual waking-life journey to a magical yoga retreat center across the lake – I can only hope that the real-life experience with Keith and Angela is a little dramatic and more fun than the profoundly symbolic and growth-filled one modeled for me last night in my dreams.
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved