Monthly Archives: July 2014

My Spiritual Journey: Following a prophet

It’s Tough to be Human

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Mothhands

This is not right.

I’ve spent six weeks this summer touring parts of this country on my own personal Vision Quest and, as Week 7 dawned, I knew I had to return to the real world. What’s not right is that I don’t want to go back.

It’s not that I hate my home life. I love my family and the comforts of home. My husband is my best friend and I am forever grateful to him for not fighting me on this spiritual quest of mine. I adore my sons. They are good kids and fun to hang out with. And, no matter how much I fight it, I love my day job. Teaching gives me the opportunity to really get to know a multitude of amazing people.

If I’ve learned anything on my journey this summer it’s that my life is pretty good. As the summer wraps up, I’ll be writing more about this trek, highlighting those moments that brought me clarity. But as I head back this week, I can’t think about anything but what’s not right.

There’s a niggling feeling tugging at the back of my heart that there’s something I need to do. It doesn’t make sense, really. Here on Earth, in this reality we’ve created for ourselves, there are things like jobs and loved ones and experiences and responsibilities. Most of us live life for these things – the day-to-day humdrum activities that give us purpose, the special activities like concerts and parties that brighten our dreary lives, the highlights like weddings and births that remind us how special our lives are. Those things are precious. No doubt about it.

Something just doesn’t feel right, though.

I know what it is. I know that if I try to explain it to my family and friends, some will understand, others will roll their eyes and wonder if I’ve gone off the deep end in this spiritual/religious/metaphysical reality in which I live.

You see, I feel there is something I need to do still and it can’t be done from my home base. It’s one of those things that tug at me as harshly as this Vision Quest did all of last year. I’ve only skimmed the surface this summer. There’s a reality that lives outside of the one in which most of us subsist.

Teacher never told me this, but being human is a heck of a lot more difficult existence than the one in which he lives. There are a lot more human factors that play a part in each of our individual lives.

One of the many visions I had these past several weeks stands out like an orange-garbed prisoner working on the side of the road – I was shown several possible lifelines I could take to accomplish the goal I signed up for when I entered this life. Don’t ask me what the options were, this was all glimpses that went on forever yet only lasted the time of a breath. I made my choice and was told it was not the preferred one because it included too many human connections, too many opportunities for failure because of the lives to which I would be connected.

I asked for a review of my choices again and was told that, although the life I chose was not the preferred one, the Powers that Be allowed this option when I assured them I could make this work.

Then that vision ended. (I believe the Powers that Be I’m talking about here is my Higher Self sitting in the gaming chair in this intense live-action game for which I signed up.)

I’m in that life I chose. It’s the life where my husband and sons are waiting for me right now. It’s the one where I’ve met some amazing spiritual teachers and friends who continue to enrich my life. It’s the one where my heart is full of love for every person who enters my life.

It’s the life I’m fighting to make it work together right now, because I made a promise. I said I wouldn’t let the connections mar the end result.

I had other visions this summer. I was given choices and shone paths. And now, I have to try to make those visions work within and without the confines of this life I chose to live. Unfortunately, what I was so adamant I could make work will require the love and patience and understanding of the people who love me most.

The first step I need to make, though, is my own. I need to make a plan that will guide me down a focused road, not this willy-nilly Vision Quest I took this summer, but something with a map and a goal.

I could get down on my knees and pray for guidance and help, but I’ve already gotten that. What I need to do now is strap on my waders and step into the muck. This life i’ve embarked on is as delicate as the four eggs the moth blessed me with months ago — I must step lightly and with much love.

Until next time, my friends.

The Dragonfly’s Student

My Spiritual Journey: Following a prophet

It’s All Relative!

As my Vision Quest meanders into Month 2, I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection.

In my reality, these bodies we inhabit were made in the likeness of the Creator in order to enhance the experiences of the One. Everything we experience as parts of the whole become lessons for all. But is this existence as haphazard as we all suspect? I think not. I think there is a great deal of this puzzle that fits together into a perfect solution.

It’s all about fractals, actually. Recently, I’ve been learning about fractals by looking at trees. Fractals are an infinite repeating system where the seemingly ‘smaller’ parts are the same as the seemingly ‘bigger,’ just as the trunk of a tree splits off into two branches and each branch splits off into smaller versions of the originating split. I enhance ‘smaller’ and ‘bigger’ because in a system of infinite scale there is no smaller or bigger. It’s all relative.

As each branch breaks off, it perfects itself, producing the best essence of itself to improve the overall appearance of the tree. Sometimes, there are bits and pieces that are marred but, overall, the goal is the overall success of the tree itself.

So, let’s say God, or Creator, is the tree, and each of us is a separate twig growing leaves and extensions in our own quest for becoming a full branch. It’s not always easy. There are things, like bugs and diseases and storms that threaten our success. Then there are other things that create opportunities for growth, like my favorite Banyan trees, epiphyte plants germinate in the cracks and crevices of host trees and both trees become interdependent. In the end, it’s what we do with these things that adds to or diminishes our ability to succeed.

It’s not easy to differentiate between the things that change us – is this an opportunity for growth or is this going to lead to my demise? If only it were easier to identify ourselves on that tree that is God. If only I could follow the branches and twigs and leaves to discover the essence of my being.

I think I figured out how.

What if, instead of the tree metaphor, let’s make the Creator the ocean, and I am just a molecule of salt, the water is what binds us together. If you boil me down to my essence, who am I at my core? What is it about me that doesn’t change, that remains constant, and how can that part of me grow? What if this life is simply an attempt to fine-tune one characteristic of my being? What if we are meant to identify our own essence in order to perfect that part of ourselves? Never to improve others, just ourselves.

That’s it. That’s my thinking. My goal now is to determine what is left of me when I boil everything else away. When I separate myself from everything that connects me to the others and to God, what am I left with to improve upon?

I think I know what I need to do now.

Until next class, my friends.

The Dragonfly’s Student

These trees have learned to grow together.wpid-20130918_150340

My Spiritual Journey: Following a prophet

Waking from the haze

Some people are asleep. They live their lives as if something really important is driving them to move-move-move. They never reach their goal, though, because they are essentially sleep walking.

Movement is an illusion. I know this now. I used to be a sleepwalker. My drive buried me in my laptop-world of publication dreams. That dream stopped fulfilling me. Like Dorothy when she pulled back the curtain, I’m starting to see through the illusion. Little by little, I’m changing.  I’ve stopped running as blindly as I used to, and I’ve refocused myself.

What I’ve found is that there are many sleepwalkers out there, people who, like Dorothy’s friends, are searching for something outside themselves to bring them true happiness. Sometimes what drives them is obvious – that dream of success, the one promising riches or fame if you just work hard enough, or the dream promising happiness if you have that one secret ingredient like courage or heart. Then there’s the promised comfort  of a drink or a smoke as the sleepwalker continues to hide.

The sleepwalking may be obvious to awakened others, but most don’t see. And the sleepwalker is seldom awake enough to see himself in the illusion.

Many times the things we chase are only meant to shield us from our own truth. And as I continue my journey of truth, I find that what used to drive me does nothing for me anymore. What drives me now is an inner knowledge and acceptance.

As the morning star rises in the sky, hinting at the full awakening that comes with the Sun, I await the day and hope my sleepwalking will soon be over as my Ruby slippers glitter in the morning light.

May the Sun shine brightly on you, my friends. All my love to you,

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The Dragonfly’s Student