Feverish dreams....

I woke up early this morning and ended up back in bed. Sometimes this is the best time for working through "old stuff", old ghosts that rattle around in my closet, trying to get my attention for resolution.

Just a short hour ago, I was engaged in a rather feverish, violent dream in which a major "hook" (shenpa) for me was working itself out.

Oh, to have liberation from that hook! My life would exceed any possible wishes I could have for quality!

And, oh, what a hook it's been... one that has had its claws deeply embedded in me, digging deeper and deeper, for over forty years. It's ruled me more than I've realized in my day to day life, yet clearly and painfully in my more lucid times.

In these dreams, which seem almost like a contact with the group consciousness, that place where we see our life lessons and our karma so clearly, I am often the observer. This time, I was a participant. I acted it out from truly within me ~ not watching from a distance.

It was hard.. and my heart pounded like the proverbial drum, scaring me near to death in the ferocity. And it was verbally violent.

For some reason, I've always had the need to please those who have no interest in being pleased by me. I've had a need to fit in where I am not welcome. Yet I've lived for the table scraps of these people who may toss some my way on occasion. I've allowed them to create my self-image... always the image as "not good enough". If I was good enough, they would want me, they would have an interest in me, they wouldn't leave me, they would want to nurture and be a part of my life.

And, indeed, there are plenty who do! They are just not the ones to whom I've given my best energy. They are not the ones who have gotten the best parts of me while I cast my pearls before those who might turn around for a momentary glance before they turn their backs and move on.

What a waste!

It's as though I've continually tried to play that scenario out, over and over again, in the venues where I always lost the most.

I have never been one of those who is "socially desirable". I will never be one of those people who is included in all the latest scoop, or the "in group" of any arena. I'm not one of those who is invited to the gatherings or sent cards or any of that stuff. It's just not how my life has gone. Not this one, not those in my private life, not now, not ever. I am not on the phone trees of life.

For some unknown reason, I've been unwilling to accept that, that it is simply not my path. I am needed elsewhere.

The voice from deep within me where the wisdom lives screamed out to me in my dream, "Stop trying to water the orchids in the desert." Don't look for orchids in the desert is a common expression of mine, a bit of wisdom passed along by someone much wiser. It's a snippet I never forgot. It's not terribly profound but it impressed me in my youth as describing something otherwise indescribable... because this trying of mine, this need to find things where they do not exist, is an overriding pattern.

But "watering"? Wow. That was a new one. And it makes so much sense! We can continually water something ~ but if the soil is wrong and the plant is in the wrong place, it won't grow anyway, no matter how much we water it. We need to give our energy and time in the right place and to the right people!

Yes, I knew this before in a broad way.. in an intellectual way ... but the dream gave me enough access to my wiser self that I'm listening this time at a gut level.

So I'm letting my iron grip go. I'm pulling my claws out from those whom I may have done this with ~ here or elsewhere ~ trying to hang on to you, putting you in the uncomfortable position of not quite knowing what to do with me ~ I release you. I release me. I release me to give my energy to those who need it and want it. If we go in different directions, that is how it is meant to be. I'm through trying to control it. I'm done craving attention from those who don't offer it or give it willingly.

I'm ready to see how it shakes out. I'm ready to bring those into my life who want to be in it. The door is open. The coffee's on. The jasmine smells sweet. Come on in!

Things always happen.. as they should.
~*