Keeping the Dream

This whole thing with Megan Meier has been such a triggering experience for me, deeper than what I would have expected. And I didn’t know why for a few days, except only on an emotional level…until I read an article.

I’m not quite ready to write about it yet, but tomorrow when I have time to myself, I think I will be ready to share what I’ve been going through.

In the meantime, take care and be strong and gentle.

Thinking of you fondly.

For those who will gather
in Megan’s honor tomorrow at a candlelight vigil,
May peace embrace and find expression
through every heart

To light your candle in a group just for Megan, click here.

(To light your candle in my Dream Group click on the icon)

Sometimes something happens that just shakes me to the core, and I am reminded of not only the frailty of my humanity but of my convictions…until I remember the strength and power of both.

Today I need to remember.

This is a repost from 2005, but it speaks my heart today. I bring it up out of the archives to share with you, and to gently remind me…

I’m thankful for the love I had inside of me that enabled me to survive an abusive childhood.

I’m thankful for the innocence within each and every person that can never be hurt or destroyed…hidden from view, tucked deep away inside, perhaps, and forgotten, but never defiled, never damaged…no matter what damage may be done. Thankful this place of purity and innocence remains alive, an inexorable part of our being, and for our healing journey to rediscover and reconnect to that source of innocence.

I’m thankful for the moments of peace and beauty I experienced as a kid when nobody was looking…that one very late sunny afternoon in the Fall at the playground, when all the kids had gone home for dinner and I lingered to savor in the moment…how the golden light on the grass made the green more vibrant than anything I’ve ever seen…and in that moment the essence of beauty came forth and claimed me for its own.

I’m thankful for people who ask questions, who seek meaning and when they find none create their own…so beautiful and empowering….flying even with broken wings, lifted up and sustained by the currents of love, of spirit and conviction.

I’m thankful for friends…and enemies, both who support and reveal, who provide me opportunities for insight and growth.

I’m thankful for forgiveness…not only for others but for ourselves…not necessarily having to be given through us if we are not ready, but always accepted by us as we are healing. How wonderful not to be condemned to carry the burden of our pain and anger forever!

I’m thankful for each loving, vulnerable and brave heart, for the people who‚ share their stories, who have inspired me with their strength and vulnerability, and for the people who read who touch the lives of others even by their silence, their caring not being without impact and power.

I’m thankful for family, for my sister who faced her challenge with cancer with dignity and grace, for each moment I got to be with her, for the touch of her soft hands and the healing love of her smile, for my children and the reminder that life is always beginning anew.

Happy Thanksgiving, and may you savor your own reasons to be thankful, opening yourself to receiving more and more as each day unfolds.

I light this candle for a thankful heart
an overflowing heart
and for all the blessings and inspiration to have one

(To light your candle click on the icon)

Not just for Megan who took her life, but for every child who was hurt in this incident and every child-within buried deep inside people hardened enough to do such hateful acts.

This hit me really hard tonight…I have not been able to think of much else.

Without a doubt, a lot of triggering, but I can’t talk much about it now. Perhaps tomorrow, after I close my eyes and sleep. Sometimes that’s the only place to go, and if the dreams be gentle, the safest.

I light this candle for Megan Meier
whose life ended way too soon…
May there be healing of broken hearts
lessons learned and new choices…
for those who can make them

(To light your candle click on the icon)

In my post, Why Am I Here?, this past Sunday, I talked about Sylvia Plath’s writing about indecision, and the fear that surrounded her.

Her words reveal not only the fear over making choices, but about the fear of loss. Every choice wasn’t seen as embracing something as much as relinquishing something else. It’s symptomatic, I think, of a society that gives you the impression that you can…and should have it all.

That’s the first lie I had to give up.

It’s easy to see why I should have believed it. What’s more seductive to believe you can have it all, when society says, as female, you can’t have any of it – other than what’s prescribed in a very narrow band of choices? I realize many of my choices were knee jerk reactions to what I felt was constricting me.

Deciding to be something means deciding not to be everything else not chosen. If that’s what you focus on, every choice is about losing.

But I wonder what our fear of loss is really a blanket for?

There’s more to our inability to make a decision other than being paralyzed by too many choices. Because I’m beginning to see that depth is, also, a matter of choice.

Indecision protects us from diving in deep. In our hesitation to even get our feet wet, we spare ourselves the unknown places of the deeper section of the water. We run back and forth from one body of water to the next contemplating which one we want to swim in, and all the time we are safe on the shore, fooling ourselves into thinking we’re trying to choose, when we’re actually trying to avoid.

Avoid what? Intimacy, for one, either with another person or with ourselves.

It’s the same thing isn’t it? The person who’s afraid to commit to a monogamous relationship or pick a field of interest to develop their skills and talents. It’s all about holding out, because there might be something/someone better.

But the fact is, we don’t want to give in to anything or anyone. It’s not a journey or a race, not even a rat one. It’s a game of dodge ball we play, and indecision is the excuse we use to keep us in that game and out of the very real world of depth with its demand and risk of courage and vulnerability.

The photo in the new banner for this blog is a graphic enhanced version of my grandson held in my arms, taken two years ago. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback concerning that photo, that it’s pretty much become my logo.

Somehow the nurturing image of a woman holding a baby seems fitting for the concept of “Keeping the Dream”.

How tender all our dreams are, how beautiful that they should receive our care, our nurturing and protection. And I don’t mean “our” in a rhetorical sense. I mean yours. You, who read these words now. You, who I may or may not correspond with in email, who may live in my town or across the ocean.

I think about all the sorrow in this world. I don’t need to be fixated on sorrow to be moved by it. And I don’t need to cover my eyes to it to stand in awe of the love that exists in this world either.

I wonder if you know how important you are. I wonder if you realize just how unimportant it is to know how much of a difference you can make…and just make it?

I wonder if you will give yourself the gift of risk and allow yourself the joy of serendipity.

I wonder who you are, if our paths will ever cross and in what indirect way we will affect each other’s lives in ways we cannot fathom.

Today I am wishing you well, my stranger who has graced this page, my brother or sister in this family of humanity.

Keep your dream. Live it. Embrace it. It has a life of its own that it wants to share with you. Like most partners, it may not look like what you’ve always imagined it to be. It might only be a very quiet dance, kept away from the sunlight, coming out only at night. Dance in the moonlight. Dance to your love’s pleasure.

Every dream is a seed to a better world. Keep that dream alive in you. You are more important than you know.