DEEPLY AWAKE - FREE FALL

 

DEEPLY AWAKE – FREE FALL

 

“Let us not talk falsely now, the hour's getting late.”

 

I suppose I should be grateful I have suspended my belief in the Thought Police, because if I still thought They had any power at all, I would be hunkering under my blanket in a little while, once I push “send.”

 

But I do believe that something has shifted. Each time I think I can go no further, expose something no more, expand no farther, in comes a breath of some sparkly potion-laced oxygen, and I am flying then, seeing things clearly, fascinated by the twinkling of all the lights going off in my mind.

 

I have a great plan laid out for today, modest, serene, productive. And I was about to start out, but in the shower I was given some thoughts, unwieldy, magnetic, requiring room to breathe, room to lay out all the parts and watch it assemble itself within me.

 

I want to tell you that my plan starts out with walking over to my nearby 7-11 for some incense and some pumpkin latte coffee, then maybe an egg sandwich from Sonic.

 

I am walking because my car battery is dead, died on Friday night, and I have not had enough cash to fix it. Ha!

 

Do you want to know the tremendous gift this was? It was a master teacher, this car battery.

 

The car got me to the parking lot at work, then croaked in place. It took four jumps and an hour of labor from three men who were like guardian angels.

 

But through that long night, I tangled with something dark and mean inside me.

 

All through the night I was pestered by the thoughts of condemnation, damnation, inconsolable thoughts about how much of a failure I am, how alone and forlorn I am in this world, because here I am stranded in Wheatridge Colorado with $20 in my pocket, nothing on my debit card, no credit to my name, no friends to call, an exhausted and spent ex-husband, no help, no light, no hope. Nothing but lack and constriction and proof I am a fuck up, all around me.

 

I texted a friend at the hospital who was willing to give me a ride anywhere, but could not assist in lending me money. No one could. Everyone is “financially embarrassed” these days. It takes someone in extremity to have people admit their poverty. You, my skint one, are not alone.

 

Anyway, during the texting, I apologized for the drama I was exposing her to.

 

She texted back, nah, it's ok, everybody needs help sometimes, or something to that effect.

 

Oh my God, the bells went off.

 

I excused myself, went outside to the tree I smoke under, lit up, and thought a brand new thought.

 

Looking up into the night sky, I heard, knew, and finally deeply understood the following words:

 

This is not an indictment of your character. This is a dead car battery.”

 

That's it. End of transmission.

 

I was laid out energetically, knocked onto the soil and breathing with it, oh my God, I get it. I get it. I get it.

 

None of this, none of my debt, my “messes,” my unmet obligations and financial terrorism, none of it is an indictment of my character. None of it.

 

Then I heard, knew, understood,

 

These are activities. They are not indications of worth. They are simply activities. You keep moving. You keep going. You never stop. The activities cannot stop you. The activities are activities. That's it. Just activities.

 

My oh my.

 

What came to mind was my lifetime as a traveler, who died in the desert when my camel croaked. I wanted nothing more than to return to my mother, who'd allowed me to become a traveler in the first place. She had set me free, and I never forgave myself for not having made it back to her. For not anticipating the camel's injury. For not tending to details. For not entertaining the very real threat that I could die alone, of exposure, far from home, never to be buried, never to be touched again.

 

And then I remembered the dream I had had only hours before (we are allowed nap breaks at work). I had been high in the mountains, driving fast, and I rounded a curve. This is a recurring dream, my only recurring dream. Driving off of a mountain. And this dream was so delicious, because I just let go. I just cascaded off that mountain, free falling head first into the valley, unable to stop it, unable to control it, only able to let go and just go with it.

 

I sat there, and I smoked some more, and then I went in and set up morning meds for my patients.

 

Such is my unusual life.

 

Bashar said something that really resonated with me: Abundance is having what you need when you need it.

 

That's it.

 

I have that. I have abundance.

 

A few days before my battery bit it, I realized and then proclaimed willing that I am now able to receive the gifting the universe, my higher self, the plan, wants to activate. All the gifts.

 

I finally got the car jumped that night, and on the way home I remembered that meditation, and how I had been very clear that I wanted lots and lots of gifts, and that I wanted lots of surprises. Lots of surprises.

 

I said out loud, maybe you can go a little lighter on the surprise slant, you know? I had to work pretty hard for this one.

 

And then I laughed out loud, plugged in my headphones and listened to Collective Soul's Burn.

 

But that's not the weird part. That's just the synchronistic, highly imaginative part. Most people would just jump their car, bitch about how cold their asses were in the 26 degree weather, then go home and bitch about their bad luck, drink a beer and go to sleep.

 

Nope, here I am, driving home, weeping and talking with the angels.

 

But that's not the weird part.

 

What I have to tell you next is just short of delusional. It is a schism of mind I am letting you in on. It's weird and sort of embarrassing, only because I know of no one else with this disorder, this weirdness.

 

I write about out because I am urged to, and I am confident, now with all the confirmations I am getting, that You are going to read this and recognize yourself in my dream. And you won't be caught up in comparing my dream to your dream. And you won't make yourself little when you hear how big my dream is, you will not hate me the bigness of my dream. You'll just let me tell you about my dream, my understanding, my awareness, my knowing. You may smile. You may sigh. You may feel heat rise up out of your chest, and finally give yourself to opening up the stage within yourself , burst through walls you yourself constructed to keep your dream small, keep you from disturbing others as they tried their hardest to convince you that to dream big is madness, and to have no dream at all, that is The American Dream.

 

I want to tell you what I know to be true.

 

I have known this to be true since I woke up at age 12. I sort of burst onto the scene of a very weird, tilty drama one day. I slid into awareness in a girl's bathroom stall at Bear Creek Elementary. I was mean spirited and I was angry. I think that day I stole carmex out of a teacher's desk, and I had weird thoughts in that bathroom. But I was, after that, fully awake. I was no longer muffled, held down, protected.

 

Anyway.

 

This is it. I know I am to be a famous writer. I have seen this from the age of 12, 13. I have never been concerned about money, and have never sweat the small stuff, even when it means I have to walk to the 7-11 instead of drive.

 

I know that this lifetime has never been about survival, and it has always been about preparation and arrival.

 

How many people do you know who actually soothe themselves by, late at night before bed, and always always always in the car, answer interview questions from Terry Gross and Jon Stewart? Who have canned acceptance speeches? Who prefer to consider the tilt of the head, the color of the russet sweater in the film lights, as the interview proceeds and I get to have fun with some brilliant mind?

 

When I was deep in the ways of The Teachers, I worked with my friend Marge to right a very bent nursing home. We l loved it back into integrity and wholeness. We created a masterpiece of light and mercy. And then it was over.

 

Then it was simply done. She got promoted, and I knew it was not my destiny to stay on.

 

I told people who inquired the month leading up to my last day at work, when they would ask what I was going to do now, I told them, I don't know. I have decided to do a science experiment. I have said that I believe that the Universe is supporting me, and so now I am going to test that theory. I know I do not belong here. I have not yet been given a clue as to how to proceed. So I am just going to go as far as I can with this, and allow the Universe to support me.

 

People looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

 

And I did not give one good gad damn. So what. Don;t believe me. Think I am crazy. Go ahead. I know I'm not. You just watch me. This is gonna be fun!!!

 

The only part of losing that gig that pained me was my fear that Marge would not want to see me after our work together. In the time we worked together, we had lunch together, alone, exactly twice, on my anniversary. She did not socialize with colleagues. She kept her own counsel.

 

The last day of work, marge approached me, and told me to meet her at Bullwhackers in Central City that coming Sunday. She winked, and she said, we don't work together anymore. Meet me there at 11.

 

I was on cloud nine.

 

That Sunday, newly released from a difficult marriage, newly divorced from role of Director of Nursing, I wondered how I was going to survive. I had no income. I had no savings.

 

I decided to kite a $100 check, and decided that it might be smartest, most expedient, to just sell my car and live off that for a time. I could learn the bus system from my friend Jeff. I would be OK.

 

I got up to Bullwhackers early. Church had let out and I had been so eager to meet Marge, I'd gotten there super early.

 

I kited my check, and walked over to a dollar slot progressive, red white and blue 777's. I picked a machine, put in three coins, and got enough to keep playing. The coins were warm. It looked like a good machine. I sat down, and kept feeding it coins.

 

And lo, and behold, up came a 7, another 7, and then another 7.

 

$240.00. Praise God, thank you Jesus, I can cover my check and play one. Far out.

 

And then a group began to gather.

 

People were coming up behind me, and gawking at something. I looked at the machine again. I listened and heard a special clanging bell.

 

And then I saw the colors.

 

Red seven. White seven. Blue seven.

 

I had just won $13,658.

 

Fast forward twenty years.

 

And even with that miraculous experience under my belt, here I am at 3 in the morning, freezing my ass off, upset and standing under a tree, smoking, thoroughly convinced that I am forever doomed to being a failure, a loser, a waste of space, and every accusation and warning and admonition and judgment my family eve placed on me rains down hard. I am horrible with money. I will never amount to anything. I will always be a disappointment. I am irresponsible. I am a bad mother. I am a failed provider. I am nothing. I am nothing. I am nothing.

 

And here comes a new thought.

 

This is a car battery. It is not an indictment of character. They are simply activities. I go on. I have always gone on. I will always go on.

 

And maybe you will never see me on Oprah or buy a book of mine, maybe you will never hear me on NPR or watch one of my movies, because maybe that is not where I am to go now. With every awareness come further probabilities, other worlds to explore. Maybe those dreams were the little ones, and my job is to remain practicing nursing, writing a blog people no longer write posts/replies to, just out here orbiting until the next thing, and then the next thing, and then the next thing.

 

But I prefer gifts, and surprises, and big aha and gotcha moments. I like the release that constricture brings. I like bursting out into something psychedelic, after being held down in an isolation chamber.

 

I know that about myself, so I am ok with winning the lottery now. I am ok with wealth now. I am ok with abundance now. I am ok with travel and novelty and freedom and exploration and being a student and maybe even being a teacher now.

 

I am ready for all good things, and I like my surprises, so I will let the car battery thing unfold as it will. I will let my family comment to themselves how absolutely insane I have become, how absolutely lost to them. I miss them, but not their judgments, not their fear, not their envy, not their timidity. I love them and want them to love me as I am, to see me as whole and happy and free and ecstatically home, so wound up in the moment, so alive and connected and unafraid. I wish them peace and want them to know me as I am, to not be afraid for me. I know that we are tangled up together, and we are teaching each other deep and powerful things. I have had to push hard against them, and they have pushed hard back, and I am so grateful to have contracted with such strong, forceful, kinetic and sainted beings. They have given me the wings I now fly with, and I do not subscribe to littlemind's judgments or fears. I know they love me, and they know that I love them, and that's enough. We will come together at some point. I am no threat to them.

 

And my dream, my dreaming, is hopefully no threat to you either.

 

Maybe you understand that your love of metal is bound to reap you great reward, the way you love to see it melt, and how you fashion it into figures, or clumps of bejeweled art. Maybe you understand that the music you hear in your head will one day be heard by more than your kids when they are taking their nightly bath. Maybe you understand that it is you who will come to speak out for human rights for all, release of political prisoners, the equalization of financial abundance, maybe you are to be a liaison between local government officials and our space brothers and sisters.

 

Who knows where this is leading?

 

Who knows how big we can become?

 

Bashar teaches to go where our enthusiasm takes us, allowing littlemind to perceive that which has come to be, and allowing biggermind to envision all we are to become. Perceive, receive, conceive. I am willing to dream big. I am willing to dream fast and loose and free. I am willing to win the lottery, and I am willing to be gifted, and, my family knows, I am always up for a surprise.

 

I will leave you with some things The Teachers told me about life.

 

They said that reality is like a trapeze act.

 

You cannot get the next bar if you are hanging on. You must free fall, you must fall into the void, and you must then trust and look for and grab onto the next bar.

 

Those who are the bravest free fall the longest.

 

Their rewards are bigger because they stayed within the void the longest. Their chalice expands, their reward is mighty.

 

They also said this.

 

When you find yourself in the desert, do not pitch a tent.

 

Keep walking.

 

Honest to God. They really said that.