Visions and Dreams, Courage and Opportunity

June gloom sky, cool sea breeze, and warm coffee in hand as I contemplate my day.  Weighing heavy in the background of my thoughts is change and a new direction that has presented itself.  I love how that happens in life.  You can go for long stretches of the same thing day in and day out and just when the sameness seems to be bringing you to the breaking point of either boredom or frustration, something on the horizon shifts and changes.  You can shy away from the opportunity that presents itself and just go on keeping everything the same.  Or, or, or…you can stand up tall knowing that the potential change on the horizon could be that very thing you have waited for, prayed and hoped for.

I like change and it is a very necessary part of life but boy are those steps to rise up to meet it seemingly steep.  I say seemingly for a reason for the challenge is almost always a mental exercise, at least in the beginning.  So, I smile here in the low light of early morning letting my imagination run with it, see it and feel it.  What does it feel like?  How will it work?  What exactly will it take to see this change through?  Well, courage for one.  Okay, fine.  I’ve got that.  I’ve been a single parent for the better part of my adult life.  Obviously, there is courage.  What else?  Fearlessness and tenacity to stand up to the occasion.  Well, my life experience has well prepared me to meet fear, see through it and walk the path any way.  What else?  Logistics?  Oh yes, that.  Well, that is the part where I know the Universe must step in and align the stars a bit.  For that part, I will have to have patience.  Again, single mom for many years - I do think I have a lot of patience.

I love a challenge, the right kind, the good kind and for the opportunity to do something new, change something in this path of a lot of silence and stillness.  I’ve grown so comfortable with the sameness, the quiet and stillness.  It intrigues me, this opportunity that has seemingly-randomly presented itself.  I think I will meet it.  I think I will heed the call and take each step and remind myself to stay in a perpetual state of curiosity, with courage, tenacity, fearlessness and patience.  This could be something really awesome or it could be the stepping stone towards a completely unknown journey.  Who knows?  But, I know the path of my life up until now.  I see destiny as that tiny little light at the far end of the tunnel I seem to have found myself in.  I am ready to embrace new thoughts, new ideas and to explore the base of my own creativity and strength.

I have started over and over and over again in my life, each time in a new way and for different reasons but never really a reason that I chose out of the purity of silence and peace.  Perhaps manifesting from this state will challenge me in a whole new way.  My faith in my own ability rarely waivers as I am time tested in walking my own path so far.  In a vision not long ago during a meditation, I was shown 3 images:  That of a knight from times of old.  The knight was standing tall, courageous and victorious.  Then there was a giant of a man, very strong and full of muscles and confidence.  Finally, there was before me an old white bearded, robed and hooded man.  His very existence exuded time tested wisdom with a little (or a lot) of mystery.  When I asked why I was being show these three archetypes, my guide said, these are really obvious symbols you already know the answer to.  I then thought, Courage, Strength and Wisdom were attributes I needed to learn to embody better than I have.  My guide nodded. 

This was just a month or so ago before I had any inkling of the potential change coming my way.  I don’t want to make too much of it at this point because, well, it is somewhat of a private journey for now but the guidance I was given prepared me for this.  Can I embody, Courage, Strength and Wisdom as I walk this part of the path?  I think that I can and along with that, I also have faith in myself to meet the journey well prepared, open and curious too.  Life changes can be scary sometimes but good things are often disguised within the heart of change.  This, I have learned.  I’m grateful to have learned.  That vision held some other gifts too, one’s I’ve not yet been able to fully consider.  There were 3 more symbols presented:  A crystal stone that had a rose quartz pink and orchid-like lavender colored light all around it.  The color was incredibly soothing and energizing.  The second was a bundle of Juniper branches.  The final item was a book with blank pages and a pen.  I’m thinking these are also related to the journey that has presented itself to me.   A healing journey and a return to my natural state of curiosity and exploring through the written word or, perhaps, a cross roads in my life in which the next steps are blank…new opportunity and a time to choose my direction with intention.

I love meditative visions.  Like dreams, they can give us symbolic and even actual guidance.  If it feels right and in good alignment with the core of my being, I pay attention and in that, have never been lead astray.  So, now, I take a step, a breath and smile at the unfolding of another beautiful day on Earth.

© 2018 Jaie Hart (photos and words)

Grace and Grattitude and Life

I wonder about the world today.  Two famous suicides this week and CDC statistics not looking good for us humans trying to make a life here on planet Earth, it seems.  And that is just it, “It seems.”   I haven’t been engaging my brain much of late, except for the necessities of work and family.  I can’t help but think about the future sometimes and how on Earth I can even remotely consider achieving my goals.  Some days it seems I’m running out of time, or there are too many steps here in order for me to get there.  So, I let all of those thoughts go and take a breath in the present moment where there is nothing but life and breath.  In those moments, there is nothing but what is.  There is this quiet and peaceful place or beingness, just observing all around me...birds still singing, sirens still blazing and my thoughts just flow.

I don’t have any answers for the world at large about anything.  I don’t have any bright advice that might save this world.  For starters, it isn’t my job and no, I am not apathetic.  I care a great deal but I tend to focus on that which I can influence, affect or change.  But lately, it doesn’t seem like I can change anything.  There is always one thing I can change and that is me, my thoughts, what I choose to perceive or entertain.  This world can be so dark and heavy sometimes but I just can’t align with only that or carry the emotion of that.  Even in this world when life seems so very pointless, there is a little spark inside of me that says, “just keep going, you can’t see the future, you don’t know what is around the next bend or at the top of the next hill you are about to climb.”  Thank God for that little voice. Were it not there, leading me and guiding me, I might have joined the 30% who gave up or gave in many times along this road of life.  My heart goes out to them (those who decided to leave) and to their family and friends.  I feel such a sense of sadness when I think of those who have packed it all in and just bailed out.  I get it.  I understand and I hold no judgment for them.  Only compassion.

So many struggle daily just to open their eyes in the morning, to breathe, to move and to exist.  I have no answers for them but I have love and I have compassion and if nothing else, I can try with all of my might to send that energy up and out for them, not to change them but just to surround them and let them know that at least energetically, they are not alone.  I think I’m becoming more of a realist these days; dealing only with what is directly before me.  Lofty dreams and ambitions are no longer my thing.  Making a difference in life for me is about those with whom I come into contact.  Can I be a good human in a moment, lend a hand, a meaningful thought or a smile?  That seems the most important thing for me today.  I smile at strangers and make eye contact whether or not I can do a single thing for them (including the scores of homeless I see routinely, daily now).  I can save none of them.  I can change not one thing about their experience other than to acknowledge them from one human being to another as if at least to say, “I see you and you matter, you are here, I feel you.”

I’m in a good place, really, having achieved a goal over the last decade and that was really to achieve peace.  Despite the thoughts I just laid out there, I am peaceful and calm.  I take in everything around me with a deep abiding appreciation for life on its terms, not mine. I watch the leaves sway in the trees, notice the colors, notice the art in motion, people moving, living and how amazing it is that things come and go in this world, or plane of existence.  Appreciation and gratitude can be such a balm to a weary soul.  There is grace to be found at the heart of every single experience we embrace if we but believe it will be there, it is always there and it will come to each and every one in a pure moment of readiness.  This, this is what keeps me moving in life.  The amazing awe and wonder not only for the existence in this moment but the moments to come.  Life is magical, terrifying, ugly and beautiful all at once.  It is incredibly chaotic sprinkled with moments of peace.  It is what it is.  I wish you great blessings of comfort, warmth and ultimate peace.  Be so very good to yourselves out there and try if you can not to get so caught up in the drama of life or the heavier emotions of your experience...like the seasons, these things always have a beginning and an end.  This thought or perspective, I realize,  is a tough one but certainly it is not an impossible one.  If you can, maybe try to believe or better, trust that deep within your souls somewhere is a spark, a beautiful spark of grace that will speak to you, guide and carry you each day of your life. 

Rest in peace Kate and Anthony and all of the rest of you beautiful human beings who tried with all of your might to make it here.  You will all be greatly missed.

© 2018 Jaie Hart (photos and words)