Catching dandelion puffs

No dream recall this morning... what is the name of that gap between sleeping and waking, when the stuff in your mind is still light and fluffy, like dandelion puffs drifting across your interior landscape? Hypnogogic, apparently. And hypnopompic is the state between waking and sleep. (http://www.pureinsight.org/node/1172) I think I’ll just call it the twilight state, a time when magic slips in and happens.

So while lolligagging in this borderland this morning, I managed to catch a few dandelion puffs on their way by. One was about the 3 Muses from yesterday’s dream, that they are Voice, Healing, Writing. These 3 have become my nearly constant companions recently. The one I wasn’t aware of was Voice. She was the one that took the cake from the windowsill. Writing was the one who put flowers in the ceiling beam. There’s something I need to know about Voice. It is her voice I need to listen for in order to free my own. I intend now to always let her speak through me. One more thing: she is the spokesperson for all the other Muses, for she is the carrier of Truth, and there needs to be truth in any art form. She delivers the seal of authenticity.

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

The other ‘puff’ of insight was that I draw the lines of my boundary with the pen (sometimes sword) of my anger. It seems that I have to be pushed forward by anger before I can say, “Look, this is where the line is. Do not cross the line.” Of course, by the same I say that – verbally or otherwise – I am already angry at the other person, and at myself. I keep wanting to fall back onto my idealistic but childish belief that if I don’t cross anyone else’s boundary, no one will cross mine, or, if I don’t harm anyone else, no one will harm me. Even though I would be amongst the billions who will laugh at that, my real tendency is still not to act unless provoked.

Is that just a Pisces thing? My body says no. It’s because I want to cling to that state of infantile bliss where everyday is sunshine and lollipops, and puppydogs never die. I don’t want to grow up, I don’t want the responsibility, the fight to survive, the pain of individuation, the searing blast of reality. It isn’t ‘wrong’ to want this, but without temperance I would slither and slide down the slippery slope of escapism into oblivion.

What should I temper it with then? Purpose. I need to find, form, and hold fast to my Purpose, put it on my altar and line it up in my sight everyday. I think, I need to do this physically – put it on a piece of paper and place it on my altar. Make my offerings and keep it alive, meaningful.

So what, is my Purpose then? Help me, Body...

My Purpose in the greater scheme of things, within the limits of my knowing, is TO LIGHT THE WAY OF OTHERS.

Okay, I think I knew this one, my job as She Who Carries the White Light, the name given to me 2 years ago by a Mohawk Elder who I love and respect. Serendipitously, this name echoes the name my parents gave me, literally translated from Chinese as First Light, or One Light. So that means that no matter what I choose and end up doing in this life, write or heal or dance or catch dandelion puffs, I will always be doing it in service of LIGHTING THE WAY OF OTHERS.

Not to forget that I need to dig deeper into my boundary-less issue, I was reminded again this afternoon when Michael came home and crashed on the sofa beside me, taking up more space than was comfortable for me (and my laptop, my books, my required amount of personal space). But I said and did nothing even though I was annoyed (he was sawing logs), and did not even twig to the wiring of this pattern being tripped, until hours had gone by... I could easily have asked him to go to bed, or moved myself, at least mention it, but for SOME reason I chose to suffer in silence... I’m beginning to smell victimhood, something I’ve never applied to myself... this is such a subtle but insidious pattern that I don’t even notice it ‘acting up’ 99 out of 100 times... oh well, one day at a time I guess.
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Praise, Self-esteen, and Performance – these are the subjects raised in the first chapter ‘The Inverse Power of Praise’ from the book “Nurture Shock: New thinking about children” by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman. Just a few pages into it and I’m already hearing booming echoes of my childhood, for some strange reason accompanied by images from the Little Red Riding Hood...

Once upon a time there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood, who wore her red riding hood to school everyday. She loved her red riding hood because her mom made it for her as a reward for winning the Best Student of the Class Award last year. Her teachers nod and smile when they see the little flash of red in the first row (she’s usually the shortest student in class), pride and praise irrepressibly rise up to their lips and secretly they wished more of their students were like her. Outside of school is more of the same, more gifts and awards, pats on the head, pinching of the cheeks, barely disguised (parental) jealousy, in church, from neighbours, relatives and family friends. Through it all Little Red Riding Hood ducked her head with a shy little smile, the accolades heaped on her young head did not appear to have gotten to her head at all... or did they?? (quick fade, as her red riding hood begins to change into a troubled shade of blue...)

Just as a side note (then again, my days seem to be spent stringing garland after garland of these side notes, hopefully there’s a work of some mastery at the end), I am still amazed at how there just seems to be one thing after another being pulled out of my psychic and somatic closet, and no bottom in sight. I know I’m going through a Chiron Makeover, but I never knew he can be so thorough, meticulous and persistent – no transgression too small to escape his scrutiny. Maybe he’s related to Virgo...