Animal dreams always wake me up – they are so like “Minding the Animals Within” that I go “heads up” in a heart beat. This one was all about dogs in a house, that was actually a shelter of sorts and I was visiting, then volunteering or on the board, and then husband Smitty was “selected” to be boss of the place. Our own young and healthy lab was in the house with us with two or three other dogs. The rest of the herd was outside. I was anxious about conflicts if the others came in. Fade out …

 

The dream before this was was about visas, people being detained or refused entrance and my great fears about Trump Nation now manifesting. Obviously this was in direct proportion to the fear and loathing I felt reading yesterday about Trump’s order not to process any more visas for the time being. I ask my soul in the dream how I should focus.

 

So my interpretation of the dog dream is that my soul is showing me how my reality (my own dog) is friendly and energetic and fine dealing with a couple other realities, but there is a fear focus about handling a mass reality that I can’t personally control. The fact that husband Smitty was put in charge feels like a quiet, even-toned attitude is what is necessary in this visa and Trump nation situation: i.e. don’t go off half-cocked in reactivity, disrupting everyone, most of all the WAV (World According to Virginia).

 

Well OK then. I do indeed feel way better since putting this all into perspective. I really do see how I was panicking and reacting, fearful of being powerless.
Jeez that was easy. Is life really this easy? Sometimes The WAV is better than anything I could have imagined when I signed up for it. Grateful.

 

Just discovered I’m a control freak – but a very quiet one (what kind of animal would that be?).

 

By quiet control freak, what I mean is I typically just handle details myself. I noticed this pattern  shoveling snow this morning. I noticed unplowed areas that would be treacherous underfoot as the snow melted and iced over – places we walked back and forth to the front door, between the wood pile and parked cars – ‘Ooh, scary!’ So I added that to the shoveling chores.

 

But my winter cold sapped my intent and sent me indoors, unfulfilled in my control-freakness – but aware for the first time how unreasonable I am by comparison to less controlling creatures.

 

I have neighbors who don’t deal with icy snow at all. They just walk through it year after year and put up with it. That always bothered me. A lot.

 

But the huge relief I felt leaving the icing snow in place and relaxing by the fire has just shown me how invested I was in a “snow” paradigm that has exact rules about snow and ice and winter in general – to be “safe”.

 

All I can say is wow.

 

I know now I got this virus being control-freak-personified when my husband’s family came for a ski week. Now seeing how quietly controlled I have been all my life, it’s a wonder I haven’t killed myself with my absolutes and have-tos relating to holidays and “family.”

 

I’m grateful to discover this, even so late in life. It will add immeasurably to the quality and maybe quantity of my life – and for sure add to the FUN!

 

Life really is a wonderful teacher, even if the student doesn’t know what’s going on.

 

Note: Jan. 29 – I couldn’t decide on a control-freak animal, so I finally opted for the result of the transformation: from being unconscious to conscious of the control-freaking tendencies, and the beauty of that new state of awareness. Thus, the larvae becomes the butterfly. It only took 22 days. Nice.

 

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It’s post turkey day and the attitude of gratitude actually is stronger today than during yesterday’s national day of at-onement.

 

Odd little “guilties” slither through the halls of post-celebratory beingness though. Guilties about the YUUGE (thank you Donald) quantities of foodstuffs prepared and half-consumed yesterday. But all the cleaning and scrubbing and dinner-party detail consciousness stands up and barks for attention, stopping the slithering in its tracks and actually sending them to their underground nests.

 

Guilt and punishment have been unconscious pillars of the WAV (World According to Virginia) and since Oct. 2015 I have been observing and exposing the twilight world of The Sinful Self – all well-described and massaged throughout much of Jung, Freud and Seth/Jane Roberts’ works.

 

My work to transform false beliefs in guilt, punishment and the Sinful Self’ etc. seem finally to have come home to roost –  racism and misogyny of any stripe is not punishable in the U.S. – and I never knew that until this 2016 presidential election.

 

I do feel, however, that such views were punishable in the U.S. prior to 2015’s affirmations to the contrary. Call me crazy, but I think I created this reality exactly because I was so intent upon setting free the bears of guilt and damnation within my belief system.

 

I kept saying “How could this happen?” and so did the majority of people I talk to – despite the fact that the electoral college gave the vote to Mr. Trump even though the majority of Americans did not choose Trump, by some 2.9 million people to date (Jan. 10, 2017 update).

 

So how did my neat little world of We The People turn into We The White Majority? Well I’ve been focusing on free speech and freedom in general and that includes a world where ALL people’s opinions are acceptable, deserve to be expressed and heard (gulp).

 

Maybe this is an upside-down compassion manifestation, a pattern of acceptance of all points of view. Hopefully that will relieve enough pressure on the politically incorrect “Unacceptable” expressions of racism/genderism/sexism and the like, so bringing this nation to some kind of common human tolerance.

 

OK, I’ve got another interview so I’ll leave my little bombshell right here and come back when the “hows” and “wherefores” take more shape, leaving tracks I can follow, hopefully identify and finally set free.

 

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Just Do It! That Nike TM phrase is my Soul’s reminder to “get moving! already.” Sounds more like a Yiddishe mama, nu?

But jumping in to the keyboard without an “assignment” from an editor just seems so lame – so self-serving.

I have nine columns and stories to research, schedule and write before I’m deep into winter skiing, and this blog on creativity just seems so beside the point – especially when I have so many “real” writing gigs to do.

At the same time, I just love this consciousness loop focused on creativity itself. It’s like a beloved domesticated wild animal, a lion say, that pauses in its life tracks just to touch base with me – its adored compadre in Life’s endeavor – just to rub noses or foreheads or a scuffle-hug before going about the business of marking territory, reading the news of competitors and checking on the herds in the veldt.

I confess, however, this very focus on creativity is highly distorting – each look there can be explosive – creating and destroying in the same glance.

Artists of all stripes complain about creative ambiguity as a part of their process. Writers of course call it writer’s block, painters call it petrifying (see Julie Gilbert Pollard’s post, The Exhilarating and Petrifying Act of Making Art, reply-feb51c797261027a-112332_HTML-252877073-1302102-688@artists-hub.com).

Creative block is just part and parcel of human creativity – and the more you produce, the bigger the creative abyss. But what a wonderful conundrum to wake up to every day.

The hardest part, however, is remembering that everything we experience in daily life is a product of our choices, whether it be focusing on daily soap operas or World War theaters. I actually still balk and resist this metaphysical truism so oft repeated through various incarnate and discarnate entities.

When things are good, they are very good and I take credit for all of it. When it’s bad, it has nothing to do with me – I’m a poor empty bag blowing in the wind, “Oh woe, alack and alas.”

But the good, the bad and the sad is a tale for another blog post. I’m feeling particularly competent this morning and have people to see and places to go. So until next time, good creating!

 

 

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After finally dragging myself upstairs for a 5-minute workout, I took a deep breath of relief and the words, “Attitude is everything” popped into mind (soul talk comes at the strangest moments).

Magpie-mind had been berating me all morning to get upstairs and jump around – “you lazy, lazy girl!”

I even refused to do what I wanted to do because I couldn’t bear to toe the magpie line. It just pissed me off being run around by that noisy bird.

But the bullying stopped within one minute of running in place. There was absolute silence by the time I was mid down-dog yoga stretch and full complete out-of-body release during the post-activity sitting meditation.

Not 10 minutes later I’m rinsed clean within and without. Almost apologetically, I asked my soul to spur me to easy morning activity in the future, so to avoid harassment by the guilt factory built so large and imposing smack in the middle of my psyche.

Attitude is everything, yes, but Guilt is my go-to god’s dog, I even wrote a poem about it, mixing metaphors because man and animal are the same biotic essence, with man’s “thinking” function being a special attribute of consciousness that allows Nature to consider itself, thus “con-ceiving” anew, with unique generativity.

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I’ll share that poem next time, but the guilt dog within is a foundational aspect of my psyche I have yet to evict from my property. It’s even a beloved bossy-dog, eager-eyed and oh so willing to please. It’s quick and vibrant and totally expectant of the reward that comes from minding its constancy.

“See?” my guilt dog says, “I really do know what’s best for us. Just listen to me. I’m never wrong. You do what you want until it’s time to be somewhere and I’ll be right at your side, yapping and reminding you that you have to do or say something. Right? OK? Right?”

He is right – to a point. More on that later.

Until then, Guilty and I have an interview to do.

See you later.

dragons-1514416_640Nightmarish and dreadful, dragons of doubt and agida disturb my sleep. But 5 people in the last week have said the same thing. Either it’s the full moon’s seductive call to revelry in beam-bright woods outside my bedroom door, or more likely it’s pre-election jitters and post-debate telepathy.

Even though I’ve unfollowed as much of the “nasty” election stuff as possible from emails and FB (as good friend Gail Golden – jeweler extraordinaire de Taos – prescribed for my “electionitis”), I can still feel/see the air is fairly purple with mental and emotional dis-ing content (that’s actually quite a brilliant neologism if I do say so myself: dis-ing + content = dis-content, meaning “content intended to put someone down”).

Regardless the cause, the dragons are searing the ethers within, roaring and fire-breathing outraged sensibility at being roused from their ancient slumber. I haven’t done any research yet to see what historically gets under a dragon’s scaly skin, but I suspect it doesn’t really matter. Feels like you just rather would let that sleeping monster lie.

Hopefully just calling their name and saying firmly, “Basta!” will be enough to give me back my restful nights. Ya think?