spirituality – I AM Down to Earth

Rainy day

I woke up achy, tired, and lazy. I heard rain falling outside my window. I looked at my tablet and noticed I had slept in. It was 5:40am. I usually start my day at 5:00am with meditation and a little yoga. Today wasn’t going to be a swim day at the YMCA, either.

Today feels like a pause day. A day with few expectations. A day to watch the rain and listen to it hitting the leaves on the trees, the roof, and going down the gutter.

After I did a little chanting to calm my mind and be in a place of receptivity, I made myself ready to meditate and invite Sri in for a conversation. I sat cross legged on my yoga mat and pulled out a pen and paper.

A very dear friend and mentor taught me to clear my mind with saying “One” in my mind after I inhaled a long breath, and then saying “One” again in my mind after I exhaled all my breath. After about three long breaths, my mind felt pretty blank.

I then imagined forming a giant soap bubble suspended in the air in front of me. It glistened with all these swirling colors you find in bubble bath bubbles which are beautiful and mesmerizing. Then, I breathed in, imagining the breath coming in through the top of my head. When I breathed out, I imagined it coming out of my heart and expanding the bubble. I continued with this. After about ten breaths, the bubble before me in my imagination was large enough for me to sit in comfortably. I imagined myself moving into this bubble, and leaving my ego behind. There I sat in my God bubble.

I thought about calling in Sri to continue our discussion on competition, power, lack, scarcity, duality, fear, and many other things that churned up in me, but all I was pulled to at the moment was the rain. I wondered if I could talk to the rain instead today.

I said a little phrase I was taught to connect to anything. Here, I am connecting with the rain. “I am you, you are me, we are on eternally. Now I see what God sees.”

I imagined I was the rain, the cloud, falling, blessing, washing away a film of pollen that seemed to coat everything. I imagined as the rain I was blessing the gardens, trees, and lawns. I imagined birds singing and splashing in puddles created by the rain. I felt a calm, nurturing motherly love.

I imagined the rain falling, running in rivulets into a stream a short distance from my house. Then I imagined I was the rain and water that trickled into the stream, then was the water going down the stream over rocks and into the state park near my home. That park used to belong to a coal mining company, and soon after a tragic accident where several miners died, the land was donated to the city to become a park. It has seven trails and sits on over 270 acres. This park then is a ravine, or hollow, as folks back in my Midwest town would call it. The park is perfect for allowing the rain to cascade in dozens of tiny streams down to the main stream below.

I feel the rain is blessing the land, especially after the coal mining events and devastating major floods that happened the past 100+ years in the area. I imagine the rain today is full of love and wet kisses.

Now it’s time to snuggle up with a cat in a big chair and work on a knitting project as I continue to look at on the rain. Rainy days have their place.

I am the dreamer and the dream

It all started with a dream, a lucid dream that is, where you have control of what you do and say. And not the kind of dream where you feel powerless and are pushed or pulled into terrifying situations beyond your control such as being in free fall of a cliff, or facing a monster, or any other similar situation.

No, this was not that sort of dream. This was a fun kind where it was much different.

I set the intention as I fell asleep to remember my dream. Very soon in my dream state, I found myself standing in front of a super thick mist, the kind that appears out of nowhere when you’re driving in the mountains You drive down a stretch and then hit a blanket of mist so thick that visibility drops to zero and you come to a complete stop and proceed gently and cautiously.

Only in this dream, I wasn’t in a car or racing down a mountain. I was just standing. I felt a nudge, an inner curiosity to walk into the midst. I stepped forward gingerly, with my hands raised forward into the empty, misty space. This is similar to walking through a pitch black bedroom in the middle of the night to stumble off to the bathroom, hoping you won’t plow into a dresser, step on something sharp like a toy, or squish in something jarring like a fresh hairball. Did I tell you I am a cat owner?

In this dream, I was wearing exactly what I had worn to bed, which for me was a T-shirt, light running shorts, and of course barefoot. I also didn’t have my glasses on, but in the dream state I have 20/20 vision.

I gingerly stepped forward and in about three steps, felt this pressure on me like plunging into a deep pool of water. I instinctively help my breath as I walked another few steps. It was mildly uncomfortable, but not threatening. This was very unlike any mist I had ever remembered. But then I remembered that I was dreaming. I was both the dreamer and the dream.

Then, with about two more steps, I was through the mist and found myself staring in a blank area. I wouldn’t call it a room. It was just nothingness. I looked down and the ground (if you would call it that.) was as blank as the sky and sides around me. Everything around me glowed a very soft white light, like those lights a photography studio uses with the big sheets of plastic over the lights. In this case, the lights came from an unknown Source and everything around me was one huge blank canvas.

I don’t know what prompted me to do the next step. I just thought “tree” and imagined and a modest tree in front of me, about ten feet tall and leafed out. I love trees and watching the light moving through the trees. So I felt joy thinking of the tree as I imagined it. To my amazement and wonder, there was a “pop” and suddenly the tree appeared in front of me.

I then imagined a second and third tree, with the same intention and emotion. Again, there were the “pop” sounds and two more trees appeared. I realized it would take a very long time to manifest a whole forest of trees in this manner, so I then imagined a whole forest emerging near me. I love to walk through a state park just one house away from my home. Then, with another “pop” I found myself in a lovely wooded area, complete with chipmunks, birds, and a trail before me.

The woods were filtered with sun, and there were ferns, wild flowers, and a stream someplace to the left as I found myself on a narrow yet discernible foot path. I could see for a great distance in any direction. It was peaceful. Everything around me felt vibrant and alive. The trees, animals, water, air, and sunlight were more intense than any I remembered when awake. After breathing in deeply the fresh air, I walked on the path until I came to a clearing.

The clearing was an open field of sweet smelling grasses that were about knee high. The sky was a brilliant deep blue. The sun was warm but not crushingly hot. Again, everything was beautiful and beckoned to speak to me. I figured though this was a good introduction to this new world and that I could return another day.

I wondered about how to go back to the “real world” of my bedroom. I raised my hand, pointed my finger, and then I drew a Druidic Futhark rune in front of me called “Othala”, which looks like a diamond with two tails coming out of the bottom of the diamond. As I drew in the air, the outline glowed in a golden color. Then I watched it grow before my eyes, getting larger and larger until it was something I could step through.

Finally, I stepped through the rune. The next thing I knew, I was back in my bedroom. I woke up five minutes before my alarm was set to go off and was invigorated. I heard light rain falling outside and the birds singing in a huge maple tree outside my window. I stirred and noticed my big white cat Gandalf was pressed against me and purring loudly.

What a great day. So this begins my adventure. Some day I will learn how to bring that world back into this world. My adventure continues.

Beginning

Here I go. Zoom! I committed to creating a blog about my spiritual journey. I didn’t realize I would spend over 6 hours limping through the process of setting up a blog, learning how to go through the technical steps, and getting to this point.

Slowly I will learn to add color and images. Everyone needs to start somewhere, right? So this is my beginning of this new adventure.