“How can you ever worry when you have seen your soul – your strength, your beauty, your golden wings. Jump into the abyss and you will fly.” - Deepak Chopra.

I came across this tweet on Twitter today. It is a basic concept that I have embodied with heart and soul for many years now, however the way Mr. Copra phrased it on this day has struck me particularly hard because of how it is worded in a manner that paralleled a dream I had the night before last.

It was a very intense and clear dream. I was the passenger in a car driving on a beautiful, scenic and windy road. The driver was not recognizable to me in my consciousness, but I know she was a friend. In the back seat, my son was strapped into his carseat content and happy. We came around the corner to an amazing landscape of stark white snow and a wide open lake lay below the cliff in front of us, completely frozen over. Everything was icy-white with underlying tones of earth-brown. We were in awe and the driver said, “See, isn’t it beautiful?”. Just as I was about to agree, the road suddenly ended and we were catapulted off the cliff, headed straight into the icy abyss below us. I was struck with this immediate knowing that we were not going to survive. I right away had the thought that I needed to use my spiritual tools, most importantly energetically grounding myself and my son. It was instantaneous, this surrender and knowing that everything as I had known it was about to completely be gone. The sense of calm that came over me as I acknowledged this was surreal.

I began the imaging around the grounding of our physical bodies as we were simultaneously crashing into the rocks below and quickly plummeting into the icy water. When we entered the water it began to have a golden glow. Then, all of a sudden we were rapidly being sucked into this beautiful golden light and it was as if we were speeding through a luminescent, multi-tone, golden tunnel – just like a high-speed tram. It kept occurring to me how amazing this was, and it wasn’t scary at all. I was excited to see what would happen next.

Next, I am on the shore of that same lake, a shift of seasons later because all the snow is gone and everything is mud-brown, like it often is in the spring as the winter snow starts to melt. I am accompanied by one of my close friends from college, and he and I are going to start searching the shores of the lake for the car and our bodies. He pointed me in the direction towards the cliff I remembered cascading down, and he set off in the other direction in case the wreckage had been carried downstream. I remember thinking how odd it was that I was searching for my own body, and the scene of where I had died.

As I began my quest I came across these giant machines digging into the hillside, scraping the cliffs away and completely changing the structure of the valley the lake was held within. The machines were having a hard time doing their tasks, as the landscape was very set into place. They were gyrating and getting stuck as they worked, but also relentless in their tasks – creating a terrible mess as they went. I quickly got into this state of panic that I would never be able to find myself (my old body) because if these huge machines couldn’t navigate their way and were just making things less and less recognizable, how in the world would I be able to get around – let alone find any parts of myself that might completely be buried or hidden underneath the water.

Wow, can you start to see all the millions of hidden meanings within this dream?

I remember finally coming to a resolve that it was okay, and that I didn’t need to find the old parts of myself. I wasn’t losing anything by letting go, and I knew that everything was perfect right there in that moment. I realized that it was perhaps a waste of energy to continue looking for those old pieces of myself. Ones which I had, actually, quite peacefully let go of when the time had come. I went to find my friend to tell him we could stop searching. I had everything I needed right there – my spirit was in tact, I was refreshed, happy and healthy.

During the dream I was trying to consciously figure out what had happened between the two scenes.  What I came to, was that it was as if I had woken up in this place vibrationally below where I had been – above on the cliff being an enlightened state, among loved ones, where I could see the beauty in all, and below being back in the physical world, with an old friend, and a bit of chaos that was causing some resistance and fear within me.  It had the thought that it was like I was returning (as I dived off the cliff above) to help others find skills, and new ways of seeing the world, that I had already learned about. I enthusiastically, and without fear, had come to help people navigate the new landscape that was quickly being changed by things much larger than us (in this case, the metaphor is the machines). I told my friend that I had lots of tools to help people do this.  Now fully aware of my “wings” and with a new sense of duty, I had an understanding and a certainty that I could stay (energetically/vibrationally) above what was happening around us, be in charge and help everyone through the changes.

My interpretation, in a nutshell: Things are about the change for me, in a very big way. It’s time to let go of everything as I know it. I no longer need to search for, or fear, old parts of myself. I have tools to move forward, and it is my time to reach further out into the world and empower people with self-healing abilities that will help them as the energetic, moral, and structural landscape of the world shifts. As I jump into that abyss, with calm certainty, I will undoubtedly take flight. And I can easily find calm within that awareness, and allow myself to take the leap.

Stay tuned for changes to come!

This is an interesting summary of a transition I seem to be going through lately – I love the analogy:

Down below the surface of a quiet pond lived a little colony of water bugs. They were a happy colony, living far away from the sun. For many months they were very busy, scurrying over the soft mud on the bottom of the pond. They did notice that every once in a while one of their colony seemed to lose interest in going about with its friends. Clinging to the stem of a pond lily, it gradually moved out of sight and was seen no more.

“Look!” said one of the water bugs to another. “One of our colony is climbing up the lily stalk. Where do you suppose she is going?” Up, up, up it went slowly. Even as they watched, the water bug disappeared from sight. Its friends waited and waited but it didn’t return. “That’s funny!” said one water bug to another. “Wasn’t she happy here?” asked a second water bug. “Where do you suppose she went?” wondered a third. No one had an answer. They were greatly puzzled. Finally one of the water bugs, a leader in the colony, gathered its friends together. “I have an idea. The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk must promise to come back and tell us where he or she went and why.” “We promise,” they said solemnly.

One spring day, not long after, the very water bug who had suggested the plan found himself climbing up the lily stalk. Up, up, up he went. Before he knew what was happening, he had broken through the surface of the water, and fallen onto the broad, green lily pad above. When he awoke, he looked about with surprise. He couldn’t believe what he saw. A startling change had come to his old body. His movement revealed four silver wings and a long tail. Even as he struggled, he felt an impulse to move his wings. The warmth of the sun soon dried the moisture from the new body. He moved his wings again and suddenly found himself up above the water. He had become a dragonfly.

Swooping and dipping in great curves, he flew through the air. He felt exhilarated in the new atmosphere. By and by, the new dragonfly lighted happily on a lily pad to rest. Then it was that he chanced to look below to the bottom of the pond. Why, he was right above his old friends, the water bugs! There they were, scurrying about, just as he had been doing some time before. Then the dragonfly remembered the promise: “The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk will come back and tell where he or she went and why.”

Without thinking, the dragonfly darted down. Suddenly he hit the surface of the water and bounced away. Now that he was a dragonfly, he could no longer go into the water. “I can’t return!” he said in dismay. “At least I tried, but I can’t keep my promise. Even if I could go back, not one of the water bugs would know me in my new body. I guess I’ll just have to wait until they become dragonflies too. Then they’ll understand what happened to me, and where I went.”

And the dragonfly winged off happily into its wonderful new world of sun and air.

Doris Stickney (1982)

I recently had a dream where I was invited to attend a private meeting with many of today’s great spiritual leaders. The gathering was held in someone’s home and before things got started we were all sitting in the living room sharing what we were each going to speak about during the meeting. When it got to be my turn I was a little caught off guard, presuming I got to partake by simply listening to all the goings-on, and I said “Uh, I wasn’t aware that I was going to have to present anything”. Shock and disbelief from the entire room. I quickly chimed in, “But, that’s okay, I’ll just make it up in the moment.” A flood of relief came over everyone as there seemed to be acceptance with that answer, and it was quickly on to the next person. Throughout the dream I had that feeling – you probably know it – where, as you are taking a nap and just start to wake up your body feels all tingly, relaxed and all around euphoric; but your head feels all numb, you can’t quite wake up and are tempted to roll back over and continue sleeping.

What does this dream mean to me? Well, I took it as reinforcement that I am starting to awaken to my role as a spiritual leader, and the essence of what that will look like, in this lifetime, is just starting to manifest into my physical reality. When I catch glimpses of it through my teaching, doing psychic readings, energy work and meditations I feel amazing, my heart sings and it’s a general state of serenity. However, I’m still in that awakening phase where I’m often tempted to return to my old ways of being, and it’s oh-so-enticing to roll over and go back to sleep.

This shows up in many different ways within my life, especially in the form of self-created blocks or “excuses” to avoid exactly those things that DO feel so good as I start to come out of my cocoon. Sometimes my heart aches to know what is beyond right here in this moment; and the evil co-conspirators, the ego and my survival instincts, start to get in the way by telling me that I’ll never make it going down this path and I must switch courses by going back to what I already know. As I continue to let go of my personal demons, such as lack and persecution, while increasing my ability to connect more deeply with my spiritual knowingness, I must remind my self that there is only the now. As long as I continue to do the things that inspire me, from moment-to-moment, I am one step closer to finding my eyes more open. All will be revealed in it’s own time, and not a second sooner.

I sense that all of humankind is being given opportunities to free themselves of past-time ways of being in order to become more authentic and true to the Self. Whether it be the loss of a job that had no meaning, the letting go of relationships that don’t allow personal growth, or being confronted with other challenges rooted in the ego we are all being asked to find trust within the change. As we go through these challenging and dark times, together, we are awakening for a brighter day. All we have to remember is: make it up in the moment, that’s where the knowing can be found.